"Unearthing a Second Wind": Wendy Bounds' Journey of Transformation Through Resilience, Obstacle Racing, and Middle-Age Mastery

Award-winning journalist and author Gwendolyn "Wendy" Bounds joins us for an inspiring conversation about her latest book, "Not Too Late: The Power of Pushing Limits at Any Age." Wendy shares her incredible journey from being an unathletic media executive to a competitive obstacle course racer, highlighting the transformative power of embracing change at any stage of life. We discuss the profound impact Wendy's previous work, "Little Chapel on the River," had on our lives and catch up on her new role at SmartNews.

Discover the physical and mental benefits pursuing a challenging pastime like obstacle course racing can bring, especially as we age. Learn about how the movements involved in this sport make us fit for “life” – being able to lift a suitcase into an airplane’s overhead bin, pick up a bag of mulch, or play with our kids and grandkids. We delve into the importance of resilience and the value of evolving oneself by building on existing attributes like grit and determination. From stories around high-elevation races in Big Bear to desert challenges in Abu Dhabi, this conversation is packed with compelling insights and tactics on overcoming personal and professional hurdles.

Reflecting on broader themes of personal growth and finding purpose in midlife, Wendy and I explore the journey of making small, consistent efforts to shift one's outlook on life. We discuss the significance of "crystallized intelligence" and patience in mastering new skills, and how life experiences give us a unique edge. With personal anecdotes about 9/11, future aspirations, and overcoming fears, this episode is a rich tapestry of wisdom and inspiration for anyone eager to push their limits and embrace new challenges.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Bamboo Lab Podcast with your host, peak Performance Coach, brian Bosley. Are you stuck on the hamster wheel of life, spinning and spinning but not really moving forward? Are you ready to jump off and soar? Are you finally ready to sculpt your life? If so, you've landed in the right place. This podcast is created and broadcast just for you, all of you strivers, thrivers and survivors out there. If you'd like to learn more about Brian and the Bamboo Lab, feel free to reach out to explore your true peak level at wwwbamboolab3.com.

Speaker 2: 0:41

Welcome everyone to this week's episode of the Bamboo Lab Podcast. I'm your host, brian Bosley, and today we have a return guest September 13th, 2022,. We had Wendy Bounds on and she did a fantastic episode. We titled it. We All have to Find what Is Untapped in Us. So I follow Wendy and her journey through Facebook and social media, and when I heard she had a new book coming out, I had to get her back on the podcast. So we're going to talk about her book today. But just to give a little bit about Wendy Wendy is an award-winning journalist and author of multiple books, including her newest, which I'm holding in my hand right now, titled Not Too Late the Power of Pushing Limits at Any Age, which will be published June 18th of this year, folks, 2024. But the other book that I read of Wendy's was, I think, published in 2005. Was it Wendy?

Speaker 3: 1:35

Good memory.

Speaker 2: 1:35

Yeah, little Chapel on the River and guys, folks, I found this book I don't even know where it was an airport and I thought, oh, this looks interesting. And I read it and it changed my life. And it's not a book about personal growth or development, but what it is is a book about this small community at upstate New York, this little Irish pub, and Wendy spent time there in that small community after 9-11, and she wrote about the story of these people and you felt like you knew everybody there by the time you're done reading the book and I remember driving to the airport after finishing reading it and I remember looking at a weird, weird memory but at a like a wetlands area, swampy area near the airport in Grand Rapids, michigan, and I it made me think what is all the, what are all the little communities and things that are happening in that pond right now? Just like Wendy's book, you can bypass houses or stores or restaurants or bars and you just drive by them, not knowing there's a whole community and a culture inside each of those buildings or each area, because she just taught me that all these places I bypass, there's a whole richness in those that I'll never, maybe ever experience. Anyway, that book is fantastic folks.

Speaker 2: 2:49

The Little Chapel on the River. I'll include the links to that in the show notes today. Anyway, my friend Wendy, welcome back to the Bamboo Lab Podcast.

Speaker 3: 2:58

Hey, brian, it's so good to be here. I had such a fun time with you back in September of 2022. Just a gift to be here with you again.

Speaker 2: 3:07

Well, I remember when I read the Little Chapel on the River. I'm like I have to get ahold of this person. And I think I reached out to you, I think I emailed you, you did, you did and then we became social media friends, which is what people do today, right it?

Speaker 2: 3:19

is it is. I love it. So I started reading Wendy's book everyone. Well, she sent me I call it an early release copy I don't know the actual name for it, but a copy before it got published so that I could dive into it. I haven't finished yet because I've been traveling and spent a little bit of time on a boat the last week but I can tell you right now this book, for me personally, will change my life, and so I want to talk about that a little bit. But first of all, can we start off? Give us a little update on how things have gone since September of 22. Professionally, personally, let's start there.

Speaker 3: 3:56

Yeah, thanks, brian, and hi to all your great listeners out there listeners out there.

Speaker 3: 4:07

So you know, honestly, you and I talked right as I was just digging into the throes of the reporting and the writing of Not Too Late, and as anybody out there who's ever written a book knows, and who people who haven't might guess, writing 90,000 words takes a lot longer than writing 144 posts, you know, character posts or board posts on social media.

Speaker 3: 4:25

So I have literally been in lockdown, both writing the book and also working at a new job that I took, I think right around the time you and I spoke, I left Consumer Reports, where I was the head of all of their content and media, and took a big risk, a big leap, and I went to a Tokyo-based internet media startup called Smart News, which also operates in the United States, and it's a news aggregation app, and I've been working there ever since, drinking through a fire hose, learning everything about artificial intelligence and generative AI. So I have been basically in lockdown, doing the book and also working at Smart News, and the book is about we'll get into it but my sort of metamorphosis from a unathletic media executive into a competitive athlete in the sport of obstacle course, racing, so I have been training along with that. Those have been my, those have been the three things that have kept me busy.

Speaker 2: 5:29

Well, I love how you go into detail about your childhood and in the book I can't give any. I'm not going to spoil it for anybody, but how, the awkwardness in the locker room and you were never picked, you were picked last. And I mean I, I, I the book for for me. I thought it was going to be a book that was going to help me with just doing more physical things, you know, uh, striving, driving my body, you know, to a better, a better level or peak, but I'm getting a lot more out of it, just of, hey, it's not too late for anything. I can change and do anything right now that I haven't done in my first 57 years. And but I love the awkwardness because I felt the same way. You know I had to. I was kind of skinnier as a kid, I was shy, I had a nose, it was too big for my face, my, you know when you're a teenager and preteen years, and so I could relate to a lot of that.

Speaker 3: 6:15

So yeah, I love that you're saying that. I mean you're hitting on one of the core themes and one of the biggest things I think I even learned for myself in writing the book, which is you know, when we grow up, we get these notions of who we are and what we are and what we can do right, and you know I was early on. People gave me praise for putting words together, so I followed that and I became a writer.

Speaker 3: 6:41

Well, doing things on the basketball court or the soccer field did not come particularly naturally to me, right. I think my nickname was actually Bones in by my seventh grade basketball coach, and so that athlete was never among the descriptors that I grew up thinking was something that was part of my identity. Descriptors that I grew up thinking was something that was part of my identity, and I it wasn't really Brian until I turned 45, which is where this story really begins, and not too late that I set about actually expanding that file of labeled me right to include, you know, a chapter, a note about being a competitive athlete, and it was absolutely life-changing, not just on the physical front but truly opening up my mind and sort of to how I'm going to think about and process the rest of my life, um and and thinking that I'm going to get out of this cycle of sameness, sameness and, like that, the file of me is not a locked one, so I love that you brought that up.

Speaker 2: 7:48

Well, that's what really connected with me. A lot is. I have been facing, I would say, probably the last I don't know, maybe year of my life. I keep looking back on the things I wish I would have done better or differently and I can tell my head's been in the past and what this did for me is like wait a minute, I have maybe a good 40 more years left on this planet. I don't know. I mean maybe more, maybe less, but I've got a lot of time left. If I was a betting man, I can do things I've never done. Now I can do things that I have been doing. I can do them better and I can stop doing things that have been toxic for me. And you know what's the saying? When is the best time to plant a tree? Yesterday, what's the second? What's the second Today? I mean, that's what? This? That's exactly what I keep rattling in my head. And is that you on the cover, wendy? It is, it is.

Speaker 3: 8:42

That is me on the cover. So can you want to describe it? You describe it in your words to people, because you know what I actually well, what I look like when I'm not that dirty.

Speaker 2: 8:51

Yeah, okay, I'm going to start off with dirty. You look very, very focused, like your eyes. They're focused. I'm going, you're going to the next ring, I think on the, and you're got your hands on two rings. You're holding your body up, you're full of dirt and mud and your eyes, your mouth, is open, which tells me you're, you're exhausted, you're you're getting oxygen, but your eyes are focused on nothing but that next rung, that next ring that you're going, your hand is going to and I'm looking. I'm going, cause when you were talking, I'm looking. I thought competitive athlete, right there, there's nothing in one of the craziest sports of all time.

Speaker 3: 9:29

It's funny to hear you say that competitive athlete Right, I still which just shows you, right for me, how it still such, feels like a piece of clothing that's very new, fitting to me. But we should probably tell people what obstacle course racing is. For those people who don't know, it's one of the fastest growing sports in the world. There will be a form of it in 2028 in Los Angeles as part of the modern decathlon Capelon. And you know it is essentially endurance running, but in mountainous terrain or farm, farmland, um, through mud and rocks, hence why I'm so dirty. But combined with obstacles, right, combined with um, climbing a 17 foot rope, scaling a six foot wall, a seven foot wall, carrying very heavy sandbags up and down mountains, throwing a spear, crawling under barbed wire, things that are like hunter, gatherer or military style obstacles, and so it is something that requires, like, a lot of muscle strength, a lot of grip strength and a lot of respiratory endurance. So it checks a lot of boxes for the types of things we need to be paying attention to as we age, and that's one of the things that attracts me to the sport. Um, in many ways, right as I look at it, I'm now 52 and I know that the the motions I'm doing in this sport are the ones that are going to keep me being able to lift a stand, lift a suitcase into the overhead, bend right or get down on all fours and find my dog's ball under the bed without putting out my back right. Grip strength is super important as we age for so many reasons. Right, am I going to go to Home Depot and be able to load a bag of mulch into my cart without asking to help? So All of these things you know, I think are super important about obstacle racing.

Speaker 3: 11:26

But you know, and as much as that, it was just again as you were talking about, like I'm on that cover, filthy and dirty, and you said, looking like a competitive athlete. And prior to that, really, you know, I was mostly sitting at a computer, tapping on my computer. My hands were particularly not calloused. You know, I was sitting and looking at screens and that was really where things were headed. And it took a dramatic wake-up call for me to really shift out of that physical sense of who I was and into this new. I don't know if it's a lifestyle. It's not a lifestyle, it's a new piece of me and I think that's something it sounds like you're looking for too.

Speaker 2: 12:10

Well, I got to this location before we started recording or talking today, about 35 minutes before, so I set up my podcast equipment. There's no air conditioning on right now, um, windows are open but it's rainy. It's kind of it's a post rain humidity out there. So I just took my shirt off, because the first time I ever did a podcast without a shirt on, I promise you, even in, even in Hawaii, I had a shirt on Um and I looked down and I thought, man, maybe I should do something like this. My 57 year old body is showing.

Speaker 3: 12:39

That's all right. That's all right. You can always do something about that. One correction obstacle course racing will be part of the modern pentathlon. I thought I misspoke. I think I said decathlon, but it's pentathlon. All right, Fact checking done Back to you, Brian.

Speaker 2: 12:53

Well, what you said is interesting. I want to catch it, because you said it's not a new lifestyle. Did you say it's a new piece of me?

Speaker 3: 13:00

I think, yeah, I'm pretty sure that's close to what I meant. That's what I meant to say, you know it's. You know, people talk about reinvention a lot, right, um, reinventing ourselves. I actually think of this more as an evolution, because I didn't get rid of the pieces of me that were already there. I wasn't trying to be something different, I just wanted to be something more and, in fact, the traits and the attributes that I have and this is true, I think, for anyone out there who wants to add something more to their own life those are the things that I had to tap to make myself successful in obstacle course racing. And attributes, as you know, brian, are very different than skills, right, you know, very an attribute of being grit, having grit, or determination, right, or humility or humor, like these are attributes that we have, skills or, obviously, skills and things that we develop. You know, am I skilled at running? Am I skilled at throwing a spear? But attributes are quite different, and so I think of this as an evolution versus just a complete reinvention of myself.

Speaker 2: 14:12

Well, so physically, obviously, you feel much different than you did prior to you started doing the obstacle course racing, right?

Speaker 3: 14:22

I don't only feel different, I look different and my body has been measured in the labs and I am different.

Speaker 3: 14:28

Right, like everything has changed.

Speaker 3: 14:31

Like, as we age, we lose, you know, respiratory fitness and aerobic capacity and we lose muscle mass and I have actually you know, I think between age 51 and 52, I put on about 3.1 pounds of lean mass, like that's pretty hard to do and that was all thanks to you know, the training I do for obstacle course racing and my VO two max.

Speaker 3: 14:56

Um, I don't know what it was prior to this. So VO two max is a gold standard measure of how like fit you are from a respiratory standpoint. You go in this lab and they strap this fancy top gun mask on you, like from the movie top gun, and they measure your. They measure your oxygen intake and co2 output and they just determine how fit you are and, like mine is, is is hot on the high end for my age and I I can tell you, even though I didn't measure it, that wasn't the case before. So, yes, my body is not the same and I think my health is not the same. Right, I think it's better than it would have been had I not done this.

Speaker 2: 15:35

Well, can you explain a little bit, wendy, how long are most of the races? What's the time frame, average time frame, I know, distance or whatever they are. How would you measure, so people can get a their head wrapped around, how long you're out there doing this?

Speaker 3: 15:50

sure. So the good news is is they range from fairly short, like a 5k um, and you can race both in a non-competitive heat, right, ie, you can help each other if you go out with your friends on the obstacles, you don't have to do the penalties. If you don't have to do the penalties if you don't want to, you're not racing for a first, second or third place finish, right, those are. So you start there. That's where I started. So it goes from 5k to 10k to 21k, so that's roughly 3.1 miles, three, uh, 6.2 miles, and then um, uh, 13 or so miles, right, and, and it goes.

Speaker 3: 16:28

You can get into um 30 miles, but, like the basic ones, are those 5, 10 and 21k, uh, and, and that is it specifically in something called spartan racing, which is one of the one of the, if not the largest, global brand of obstacle course racing. So you can start in a what what they call open heats and again, those are where you can help each other very low key. It's where I began. And then you can segue up into competitive racing, um, and there are people who are elite professional racers, who race in elite categories, um, and then there are people who race in their age group, which is what I do for first, second or third place. So the good news is can start slow and under less arduous circumstances and work your way up.

Speaker 2: 17:13

I'm just wondering how many people out there who are 45 or older who are thinking I can't even imagine walking a 5K, and I want that person to think wait a minute. I mean, wendy started doing this process around 45, and now she's doing this level of intensity. I have a question for you, though what's the most challenging one? You did?

Speaker 3: 17:40

There's probably three and I'll give them to you in order of the hardest. So I think the hardest race I ever did was in Killington, Vermont. That is very mountainous terrain. It's the home where it's basically the home of Spartan racing, it's where it all began and that is known to be the toughest course in the United States. You have just these epically long climbs straight up a mountain for over a mile where you feel like you're just if you lean back you're going to topple back down the mountain. Um, it's quite brutal. They have a swim out to a bridge where you climb up a ladder and then have to swing across ropes and I mean it's very, very. It was just the the, the terrain, um of that obstacle was incredibly punishing.

Speaker 3: 18:25

I did Big Bear California a couple of weeks ago, also in a lot of elevation, and that was a very, very difficult race. But then there was I went to Abu Dhabi in the Middle East, and I raced in the desert there and that was a whole different experience, Brian. That was a 21K, 13-mile race and just in deep orange sand, like the kind you see in some of the Star Wars movies or the movie Dune. I mean that's part of where Dune was filmed and that was truly racing in deep sand like that for that long was incredibly. So those are the three that I would mention.

Speaker 2: 19:04

Okay. So the next question is you're halfway through the race or somewhere. What's going on? What are you feeling physically and what are you feeling and thinking mentally and emotionally?

Speaker 3: 19:15

Why? Why, like it's. Honestly, I don't know if there's a scene there might have been one or two races where I wasn't thinking this. But you know, you're kind of flat and I'm saying this because, look, you have to remember, at this point I'm now pushing myself to try and get on the podium right, so I am going all out and you know, if you are really giving something, your all there's a point at which you hurt and so you're thinking to yourself why am I doing this? Like I I could be back at like it's early in the morning and you've just put food in your stomach when you didn't want to eat, and you're like I could still be in my bed or I could be drinking a hot cup of like, and you know you got to dig deep for that motivation.

Speaker 3: 20:00

But honestly, brian, there is never a moment where I have and I've now crossed the finish line 50 times there is never a moment where I've crossed the finish line and I haven't 100% understood throughout, like every part of my DNA, why I do this. Because every like, and then I'm ready to go again. So I think it's like it's one of those lessons we have to learn in life in general about things that are hard and difficult in the moment, but we know the payoff is at the other end, and yet we want to quit and we want to stop. And this could be a million things in our life, both both personally or professionally, and I I have learned quite a bit about how to approach long things that are hard in life, that aren't even necessarily physical, just by virtue of what I've experienced on the race course.

Speaker 1: 20:54

You know, I think.

Speaker 2: 20:57

I was. I was rocking a couple of weeks ago in Marquette, michigan, wendy and I I again, it's only a 20 pound pack. I have probably another three or four pounds of stuff in my pocket. Um did the uh, the short course twice around this river and at the far side of it there's this big, tall sand dune and I didn't think it was very steep. So I said, okay, my second time coming through, I'm gonna. And I was running, I was run rucking, so I'd run a while hike a while run. And I got to that. So I started going up this and, just like you what you were saying, to a much lesser extent of course and I got up this dune and I got about. I thought it was.

Speaker 2: 21:33

I don't think I didn't think I was going to make it, because at this point I was crawling up it. I couldn't, I would have fallen backwards, it was so steep. And I thought, oh, I got to go back. I can't go back down. How down? How am I going to get down this thing? And I thought, well, I'm almost there. And I looked up. I was probably a quarter up this dune and I got done. And I got to the top of it, thankfully, and I took a video of the view and I listened to it later. I think I sent it to my son and all you hear is it's the sound of a man just about on the verge of a heart attack. That's what it sounded like to me and I thought maybe next time I'll give that a second thought. But you know, this is the kind of stuff that I think people have to realize. You might not never do a 21K Spartan race in Abu Dhabi or 21 mile 21K in Abu Dhabi, but you can do something that you didn't think you could do, regardless of your age, maybe it's.

Speaker 2: 22:25

I was talking to a good friend this week and he said to me I'm going to start walking. He's not super active outside of work, and I said, good. He said please don't tell anybody, because I don't want anybody to know, because then people will start asking me how you're doing, how's your walking? I just want to walk around my block one time. I want to start there. And I said, good, do that for a couple of days. If you like it, walk twice. You know, you can always do a little more, to the point where now your body, your mind, is more clear, you're more sharp, you feel more confident. You just then can, you can segue into this kind of some of these things as well. And I want to ask you, wendy, now that you're have been doing this now for several years, how does it affect you personally, like at work and at home?

Speaker 3: 23:15

uh, more energy, more clarity. Can you talk about that? I can, and I first want to double down on what you're saying because I think this is really important for anyone listening to this. And you know my book the narrative arc centers around my journey of obstacle course racing and what it took to get there, but the messages and the expertise in the book is really applicable to anyone looking to just do a little or a lot more than they already are. And I interviewed a lot of really smart people scientists, longevity doctors, performance experts, a philosopher right To help offer a roadmap for action and realistic change that can be used by anyone to tap into those inner reserves and, you know, face whatever fear they've got about trying something new, to push their boundaries, and so, again, these are very wise people and their advice is scattered throughout.

Speaker 3: 24:08

Not too late, because I think you're right, and it is not just about running a hard 21K obstacle course race. It's about what am I going to wake up and do for me? That interests me, right? What's the thing that gets me excited, makes me want to get up 30 to 45 minutes earlier? You know what's the thing that's going to be on my mind at night, to be excited about, instead of like chewing on that annoying thing that somebody said to me at work. Right, that's what I want people to find is like what's the thing that excites you and that you can then dig into.

Speaker 3: 24:44

Because, as I now segue into your very good question about how this changed me, I want to say to people, when this first started for me, I mean I couldn't. I could barely do like a couple of pushups, like I couldn't do a single pull up. I didn't know half of these movements I sounded and just like you did sounded where you were panting just a minute ago into the microphone. I still sound like that when I finish a hard race. Right, I was just somebody who had, was really not particularly gifted in any way, but this excited me and I didn't mind looking foolish, learning how to do it, and that was enough for me to get started.

Speaker 3: 25:24

So when you ask me how I've changed, I think I have truly learned a couple of things, and one is that I don't think you can hack your way to happiness or well-being or good health, right, like we're so awash, brian, as you know, and these like quick fixes and things to just, again, as I said, hack our way to some sense of betterment, and I firmly believe that we're misplacing our energy in seeking those and that truly the path to you know just personal being being happy when you go to bed right is to be engaged in something meaningful that pushes you and to be willing to look a little silly and this gets hard when you get older in doing it, and obstacle course racing has opened my appetite for that.

Speaker 3: 26:11

It has made me more open to risk in my profession. I don't think I ever would have left to go work at an internet startup if I hadn't been obstacle course racing, and then I would have missed out learning all of these interesting things about this new technology. I think just about everything has changed in my willingness and my will to live based on obstacle course racing, but the things that haven't changed are the people in my life. Thankfully, I still have the people I love in my life. I still have a profession I'm engaging with that I love, like I live in the same house, like those things didn't change but these other things did, and that was profound.

Speaker 2: 26:52

You mind if I quote something from your book. I don't know if that's, if I can do that while before it's published.

Speaker 3: 26:56

Yep, feel free, and if the publisher wants to get mad at me, they can.

Speaker 2: 27:00

Well, it's just one. You said something on early in the book and said waking up one morning and realizing I was moving toward death with something still untapped in my tank, that hit me. I got goosebumps just saying that right there, because I live that experience every day, I feel that every day, I feel that throughout the day, every day, and I think it was unearthing. A second wind was something that you had said in there somewhere that really stuck with me as well, and that's those two statements. So those two parts of the book have been kind of running around in my noodle for the last week or so.

Speaker 3: 27:37

It's interesting so that that I remember, even like as I typed that phrase, brian, when I wrote the book, because it was the essence of what sparked me to go on this journey. It was also the essence of what kept me on the journey. Right, we can wake up and make a lot of promises to ourselves and say we're going to do a lot of things, but everything comes down to the small decisions we make every day thereafter about you know what we're, how we're spending our time, and so you know, I, I hear and I felt what you are communicating here, right, like I, that you, I was you, um, and I I had this. It wasn't that I was deeply unhappy, I just was unsettled, right, and I just didn't feel like I woke up every day kind of thinking, well, what, what more is it? Right, I just knew there was something else and I'll be honest, I don't it could change. But as of right now, I don't feel that anymore.

Speaker 3: 28:36

Um and boy, what a gift that is. But, but it didn't just come like with oh, I'm going to become an obstacle course racer, like it came through the like, just, it's the daily in and out work. That is what matters and that's what gives me something to look forward to. It's not even just the races, it's the training, you know. It's the thinking about learning something new and having. I mean, we stopped learning in some ways as we grow older. We stopped pushing ourselves to learn and I feel like I'm a student again and just you know, that's that's, that's. That's an incredible gift.

Speaker 2: 29:11

I couldn't agree more. Um I one of the things I think. I told a friend a couple of weeks ago. I said I think I like the word unsettled because I'm the same way. I don't feel unhappy right now at all. I feel happy, um, positive. Most of the time I'm having an optimistic outlook on life, but I do.

Speaker 2: 29:28

I think the best word way to describe it is unsettled, and I think mine started for me, wendy, when you know I've been a father since I was 19 years old. I was a father to my beautiful daughter, Ashley, at 19. Then, at 35, 36, 35, my son, dawson, was born, and so I've always, my focus in life has always been raising my children, and then my business was always, you know, came after that, but you know they're both were important to me. But and then when Ashley got married and has my beautiful grandson Jack and my stepson Chris, who I love to death, and then Dawson goes to college, you know two and a half well, almost three years now, in the summer, and I think I started to think, okay, what's next? That's been my focus Now.

Speaker 2: 30:10

They still need me, I'm still their dad and their parent and I'm there for love and guidance and respect but to give them, but I they don't need me on a day-to-day basis like that, and I think that's where the unsettling started. It was almost like shaking up a jar, a mason jar, with a little dirt in the bottom and water and it was clear, but the dirt was on the bottom and then my life was shaken up like that. Now it's hard to see, like what's my purpose now? And I've been having a difficult time directing that over the past few years and I think that's, I think, for a lot of people we call that. Do you want to use the phrase you use in your book for midlife crisis?

Speaker 3: 30:49

You can use it.

Speaker 2: 30:51

Midlife assassin.

Speaker 3: 30:53

Yes.

Speaker 2: 30:53

I love that.

Speaker 3: 30:55

Yeah, I think you know so I'm hearing you and I think a lot of people listening will be identifying with what you're saying that one major piece of your identity changed Right. That one major piece of your identity changed right, and that's like it's not that you aren't a parent, but the circumstances under which you are a parent have changed. This can happen in your job, right, you could have a job, a career or something you were really wedded to and it was very core to your sense of self, and you lose that job or that industry gets upended, and then that piece of your identity shifts right. These are all, again, core themes and not too late. And you know, I, I, I think the key. First of all, it's interesting to hear you say that, because you also have this podcast right, which so many people don't have, this avenue, so you have this very interesting thing that you do that is an additive part of yourself. So I'm just as your, I guess, as your friend, saying to you like, don't forget how important that piece of it is, but clearly you have something more, and I think age, actually Brian, can be a secret weapon in helping us both pursue these sort of new pastimes, and we can talk about why but also to defeat this midlife assassin and I use that term because you know I started to envision this kind of amorphous assassin sitting up in the concert hall rafters of our life and you know it waits for us.

Speaker 3: 32:22

Through our youth and through young adulthood, as we're, you know us through our youth and through young adulthood, as we're, you know, learning new things and our um built, our composition is building towards some crescendo and then suddenly, at some point we have all these routines and things we have added to our life, but they begin to feel like a bit monotonous and repetitious and I feel like that's the moment when the midlife assassin strikes and says, oh, you know, what you know makes you feel like.

Speaker 3: 32:47

There's the moment when the midlife assassin strikes and says, oh, you know, what you know makes you feel like there's not enough time for me to do something new and hard. I'm too old for that. Right, like pushing limits is for people who are younger and you know, I I think we can turn a corner with that, and we can. The best defense against the midlife assassin is to really have this reckoning that you are having right now and to think what is the thing I can do that pushes me out of that cycle of sameness and gets me out of this trap of my own competencies to do something else.

Speaker 2: 33:20

I'm writing some things down, so bear with me, I'll come back and listen to it and take more notes. But yeah, I think that's incredibly true. And I think what do you say, wendy, to somebody who because here's my head, I'm just going to I'm thinking, you know, my shoulders have been bothering me for the last couple years. You know, I do physical therapy on them and I do certain work with them and I haven't been able to lift as much. And I'm thinking, what about that when you have either some people do have a real physical ailment, that or injury, that they can't do something as challenging as something like a obstacle course race? But I think for me, I think it's just an excuse. I think I could get these shoulders healed. So what do you say to people like that, who are like, okay, we have, but I got?

Speaker 3: 34:12

my knees hurt a lot, or my, you know what's that. What do you say to them? Yeah Well, first of all, like, let's be clear, Not everybody is again going to want to take up obstacle course racing in some way. Obstacle course racing is a metaphor for everything we're talking about, right? Um, you know, and it's. I mean, the obstacles themselves are a metaphor for everything we're discussing, so let's just use that sport in that context.

Speaker 3: 34:27

But I think what you're saying is, if you're talking about movement, physical movement in general, yeah, which I do think is really important, no matter what your passion might be right, even if you wake up and decide, oh, I want to go into fly fishing or art, or I want to be try painting, or I've always wanted to sing, I I mean having yourself be as physically sound as you can and building up a reservoir of, you know, strength and good health as you age, like that's what's going to allow you to physically and cognitively be able to engage in that past time for as long as possible. Right, you've just got to build up that reservoir, and some of the scientists and longevity experts I spoke to for the book pointed out that the research now surprisingly shows that it is not too late to start and in fact, in midlife we can get these very powerful benefits from starting to move things that they previously thought you could only get if you started young. So there's just a lot of good news. I mean up even until where people are elderly and frail. They took people in labs and they measured them on a strength training regimen, taking a protein supplement, and they've been able to put on like true lean muscle mass. And if elderly, frail people can do it, many other people can do it too. That said, like, we all have limitations of some sort, right, if it's physical, um, cognitive, right, like every.

Speaker 3: 35:55

So you have to find focus on what you can do, and I think that involves both. Um, you know, talking to your, your physicians, um, if you have a like, I think it sounds like you have some pains that really bother you, that are nagging at you. You know, have you how much physical therapy have you done? Have you really worked with somebody to try and change your movement patterns, to get you out of that sort of locked movement pattern you currently have? I'm I've had pain, like it's not as if I've done this and I've been pain free. I mean, every single time something starts to bother me, I am right in with a physical therapist and I'm, you know, lucky. I have healthcare. I can do that I recognize being fortunate enough to do that.

Speaker 3: 36:37

But I don't let it just linger. And I think a lot of times in life, with many things right, anything that's bothering us emotionally or something that's annoying us at work or with a friend, or even our bodies, we kind of just let inertia set in and then it gets worse. And so I would say to people right, like, address what you can address to your physician, get your blood work done. You know, let them sort of counsel you and what you can can't do, and then begin the slow road of trying something.

Speaker 3: 37:07

Don't get so weighed down and like do I have the right watch? Or you know how far can I go? Right, just even if you like the person you mentioned before the setting the thing to go out and walk, like that's an amazing start, because walking, then you know walking a half a mile turns into a mile, right. And then you talked about rucking, which is this pastime where you essentially carry heavy weight in a, either in a vest or on your back on your back, and you know you're rucking, maybe with 10 pounds, and then that becomes 20 pounds and your legs become stronger and like everything just starts. Simply don't set goals that are way too ambitious, that you feel defeated right out of the bat. Doing something is a win.

Speaker 2: 37:52

I couldn't agree more. And that's really where the theory of the bamboo lab came from. Because of the Chinese bamboo seed. You plant it, you water it, you nurture it for three years, nothing happens. And between the fourth and fifth year it explodes through the earth and grows 90 feet in the first six weeks. Fourth and fifth year, it explodes through the earth and grows 90 feet in the first six weeks. And during that time frame of those first three years it was establishing an incredibly strong root system underground so that it would never crack, it would always bend during typhoons and hurricanes. So it was always. It's one of the strongest. Typically it's not even a tree, it's considered a grass. It's technically a grass the Chinese bamboo tree is.

Speaker 2: 38:25

And that's really where the idea of changing my name to the from Torch Consulting to the Bamboo Lab became, because I thought that's how I have always approached life, and not always in the good things I've done. And that's why I've always taught my clients we're going to start small and we're going to. We're going to grow incrementally and then all of a sudden, at one point, the aggregation of marginal gains will take over and you'll take off. You'll get to that level you want to get to physically, emotionally, financially, whatever it is, can we stick with that metaphor for one second.

Speaker 1: 38:56

Yes.

Speaker 3: 38:56

Because I love what you're saying and you talked about roots, right, something's taking root and you can't really see it, and I want to talk a little bit about the roots that we may not know we have as we are approaching midlife and beyond, which is and I do believe that these are some of the things that make age a secret weapon for us, right which is we have this root of wisdom, which I think of as crystallized intelligence. Right, which is different than fluid intelligence, but crystallized intelligence is really all of the learnings, right that we've picked up, all the wisdom we have from the times we've tried and failed and learned, like you just know more than you did when you were in your early 20s, and that can be quite advantageous to you in ways you'll never know until you're engaging in something new and profound, and it has certainly been. One of the great edges and equalizers for me in this sport are the things that I know and the fact that I've been learning for a long time and I still know how to learn. I also think, patience. There's a wonderful journalist named Alex Hutchinson who wrote a very great, a great book called Endure, which is a bestseller, and Alex talked to me and in my book about patience and how, as we grow older, we just have a lot more patience to stick with things. That's another route and I also think, brian, we have perspective right.

Speaker 3: 40:20

When you have gone through the experiences you have in your life, you've tried, you failed, you've been knocked down, you've gotten back up, like you just have patience to weather the dips and the plateaus that come with taking on something bold and new and just life in general. In a way, you didn't when you were younger, when you think like, oh, you know I, I just, I didn't do well at this. Like nobody came to my concert, no one bought my painting, you know, I'm like I didn't, couldn't keep up with the pack while hiking, you know, you just. And then you think like I should just quit this. We don't think that as much when you're older because you just it's happened too many times and you've known like, oh yeah, you know what, like that's going to turn around, and so I think those three roots of crystallized intelligence, patience and perspective are super important. So I just want to lean on your Bamboo Lab name and metaphor for that.

Speaker 2: 41:13

I really like that Crystallized intelligence. I know exactly where that is in the book because I have it dog-eared, underlined and with a star next to it.

Speaker 3: 41:21

Nice.

Speaker 2: 41:22

So crystallized intelligence, patience and perspective. Yeah, patience and perspective, yeah, and see, I never that's, I've, I've never thought of that. Um, in that sense I am, I consistently I think, uh, over the again over the last two or three years have mostly I haven't realized all the things that I've gained in 57 years and really actually all the crystallized intelligence I've gained in just the past three years of going for through a more challenging time. I've've learned that, yeah, I can endure, I can be an empty nester, you know, I can go through these things. So I think even the past three years, I've got a lot more crystallized in there than I really have realized until I started reading your book 100 percent and I bet most people listening out there.

Speaker 3: 42:05

If they really start to think about it, they'll realize these areas where they have that and you know you can put that to use in almost any discipline. I mean, I'm one of the youngest people working at this large late stage Internet startup and certainly the people in their 20s, 30s and early 40s like they know more about technology and they're teaching that to me and I learned that. But I have a larger perspective over marketplace challenges and early 40s like they know more about technology and they're teaching that to me and I learned that. But I have a larger perspective over marketplace challenges and you know I worked 20 years at the Wall Street Journal. I know the evolution of business cycles and where the tipping point is for businesses to succeed or fail Right. Like I have a wisdom and that's what they come to me for and I come to them and I learn from them. And so I think it's like figuring out again what your edges and equalizers are, whatever your age is, that you can bring to the table.

Speaker 2: 42:59

Now a question for you on another subject. Do you miss being on air? I know you were on air several times. Do you miss any of that with your new job? I know you were on air several times.

Speaker 3: 43:09

Do you miss any of that with your new job? You know I was on air a lot when I was at the Wall Street Journal. I hosted my own video show there. I did a lot of work for ABC News and Good Morning America, as well as CNBC and other places, and you know I really enjoyed it. You know it wasn't something that I think. You know I felt like, oh, this is exactly who I am and I think to be really successful on air, you have to almost. You know, you have to be all in on it right to be the best. It's a highly competitive and sometimes, like any industry, cutthroat industry.

Speaker 3: 43:43

I enjoy it. I enjoy storytelling in that format, but I also enjoy storytelling in this format. But I also enjoy storytelling in this format, you and I having this long form conversation. I love putting words together. I mean, in a world where we celebrate quick text to each other, I valued the process of spending time putting 90,000 words together into a narrative arc of something that is now going to live on people's shelves. Like I, I like many other things. So, to the extent that I miss it you know I don't miss it because sometimes I still do it. I will be doing video um uh segments for this book, right? Uh, it's a great question and I understand it, but I like storytelling in multiple formats.

Speaker 2: 44:32

Yeah, and it's interesting because it seems like long story or long form conversations are becoming a lot more necessary in today's society because we do so many short quips, we text, we watch, you know, 30 second video clips on TikTok or YouTube or Twitter or things like that. These conversations and I think that's why Joe Rogan's show was so popular and I love it because I just I'm informed some, you know some, are five hours long. That's too long form for me. Some of his shows, but some of the things that when he brings experts on, I really find value in that he talks a lot about sports and health and science and I love those type of long form conversations.

Speaker 3: 45:17

And that's another form of not hacking, right. Yes, like, in some ways, the podcast to me are one of the most important tools for mastery of anything. That's when I was training, all I listened to was I listened to some music. But when I'm on long runs, I'm listening to podcasts and I again, like I recognize the power of short form content. I get that, but I do think like that's a little bit hacking our brains in some way with that short form content and your brain gets a bit of a rest and time to develop its thoughts when it has longer form content. Podcasts are one way books or another, so there's certainly room for both and I think the podcast proves that we're not going to lose that in our culture because there is such appetite for it. You hear podcasts that go on two to three hours. So that's there.

Speaker 2: 46:12

It is, and that's why I said Rogan's. I've listened to some of his that were over five hours long. Of course they're drinking, they're smoking pot and they're drinking, so I'm sure the time goes by a little faster for them.

Speaker 3: 46:24

Yeah, maybe so.

Speaker 2: 46:26

So we can get into your mind a little more. Wendy and, by the way, everyone her name. She's Wendy, but when you look for her books it's Gwendolyn Bounds. Okay, so don't look, for you could probably Google Wendy Bounds and it's going to come up. But Gwendolyn Bounds Not Too Late is the title of her book and that's the author. That's her long form name on the book. So is it the same for Little Chapel on the River?

Speaker 3: 46:52

It is. I'm named after my godmother, who was a book editor, gwendolyn, and after September 11th my byline used to be Wendy Bounds. But after September 11th, just because it was such a moment where my own life was, you know, the reality of like my own mortality was put before me, I changed my byline to Gwendolyn Bounds, my full name, to honor her.

Speaker 2: 47:14

Oh wonderful. Do you mind sharing that story quickly, or is that something you don't want to talk about? It's like you want to put that past behind you.

Speaker 3: 47:21

Are you talking about September 11th?

Speaker 2: 47:23

Yes.

Speaker 3: 47:24

No, I'm that's. Look. It's a pivotal moment that is probably changed everything for me and many other people who are alive. During that point in time, and particularly if you lived, you know, in New York and some of the places where the attacks took place. But I lived next to the World Trade Center towers in a high rise building down there and I was in the shower on the morning of the attacks. I lived across the street from the Wall Street Journal, which was, you know, right between the towers and my apartment building, and heard you know something so loud that I thought someone had, like, dropped a cauldron, something super heavy. You know, um, up on the floors above me, got out of the shower, um and uh, and turned on the, the and looked out the window, I think, and I saw this smoke coming out of the world trade center tower from where the first plane had hit, and turned on the tv, thinking maybe it was a commuter plane. And then, in the same time, I heard this roar of the second plane coming, as I saw it on tv, and then saw the second one hit and then, knowing two planes couldn't be an accident, said about, you know, gathering my, I think.

Speaker 3: 48:34

I took my passport and my reporter's pad and my notebook and fled and that a piece of the trade. You know, we all know what happened next and I was at the end of, you know, the tip of Manhattan and was very fortunate to be able to escape and live that day. And you know that's how I ended up living in New York's Hudson Valley. A piece of the Trade Center had gone through my apartment building so it was shut down for a while, but that was a that was a reckoning in its own right about mortality and life and what I wanted, the same way as the morning which I describe it in the book that I woke up and first stumbled upon obstacle course racing, and I think of those two those are two pretty big, you know, aside from when I got married and being born. Those are two pretty profound moments and so they anchor each of my books.

Speaker 2: 49:31

Doesn't the story finish that you went back a couple of days later and you got your cat?

Speaker 3: 49:36

Yes, we went back down, a couple of us, and our cat was still in the apartment building. We had left that day thinking we'd be coming back. Right, it's not like we knew that there had been a terrorist attack. We had no idea what was going on. We were sure we'd be home. And another friend of mine he had two cats and we went back down the next day to rescue them and had to kind of dress like medics to get through all of the security. You know climbed up in the apartment building. There was no elevators. There's a gas leak, leak. We didn't know that. We had candles on at the time and we're just so lucky we didn't. You know that didn't end badly and fortunately, even though the doors had been broken up, broken in by um fire fighters looking for survivors, the cat was still there and we were able to get all the cats out and we had to nothing but a grocery cart that we found from a grocery store till they basically wheel them up to a vet. So yeah, that was.

Speaker 2: 50:33

That was september 12th wow, what a story and what an experience, wow yeah, uh, you know anybody, I think any.

Speaker 3: 50:44

There's still so many people there, people who are. If you ask them where they were and what they were doing, they know precisely to that day. You know, particularly again if they were nearby. And it's interesting also, now you know there's a generation that right didn't, doesn't, right wasn't there, so that you know, you find like now it's a historical. You know. Quote unquote I put history book in quotes right, because you know, I'm not sure if people are reading them in the books or online. But yeah, a whole different perspective 20 plus years later. Wow.

Speaker 2: 51:14

I remember exactly where I was. I was in South Bend, indiana. I was at in an office with my best friend and I think I was coaching him and his company at the time as well, and his secretary or assistant or somebody came in and said a train, just a plane, just hit the World Trade Center. We were thinking, you know, a single prop plane, you know a private plane, just you know. And we thought, oh my goodness, that poor pilot or whoever was in there. And then a little while later, I think, he turned the TV on in his office and we saw the second one hit and I said I got to go and I jumped in my car and I was driving and I got on my phone and I called. My daughter was 14 and they were watching it in their school and she was at that time I was traveling a lot, so, you know, she didn't know if I was on an airplane or where I was, and so I called the school and I said hey, this is Brian Bosley, I'd like to. Can you get my daughter to the phone? Well, they didn't say to her um, hey, ashley, come to the office. Your father's on the phone. They said Ashley Bosley, please report to the principal's office. You have a phone call.

Speaker 2: 52:13

So she, you know, her head went right to my dad's dead and uh, she, we still talk about this. So I she got on the plane and I could hear her on the phone. I said I could hear her. Hello, you know. I said hey, honey, it's daddy. And she just stopped. She didn't say a word. I think she was crying and I said just want to let you know I'm safe, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm going back to Grand Rapids and I just knew you'd be worried. But I remember that moment. Somebody said yes, I heard on a podcast yesterday or maybe it was today.

Speaker 2: 52:49

It said you know what the greatest day in our country was? It was september 12th for unity. Yeah, um, and I remember on september 18th, wendy, I flew out. That was, I know it was exactly a week later. I don't remember where I was flying I was flying out of chicago, I believe, but I'm not sure where I was going and I remember everybody in line everywhere, talking, turning around, talking to each other where are you going? Where are you, you from? And I thought this is really weird and I thought I wonder if they're just making sure that everybody around them is okay, like, hey, you're not going to be a threat, are you? Or was it just the unity that we all experienced? I mean flags everywhere, people honoring police officers and firefighters and rescuers. It was a really surreal time in our country, all across the country.

Speaker 3: 53:31

I don't think we've seen it since, to be honest with you.

Speaker 2: 53:34

I don't either.

Speaker 3: 53:34

I couldn't pinpoint a time, and it's just as stark as you describe it, brian.

Speaker 2: 53:40

Oh gosh, Well, thanks for sharing that. A couple more questions here Now. You, with what you're now doing with this, adding a new part to you, a new piece to you, and who your existence, would you say? You have a particular why or purpose in life?

Speaker 3: 54:10

so many different directions and I think, look, I think we all have to answer it in a couple of ways. Right, our why? I mean you could think about it as what you are doing in the world, like for your work, and I think my why is hopefully to tell stories that help people wake up and be excited to find something that helps them push their limits right. I feel like that's, at least professionally, what my why is right now. But my personal why and you allude to this is honestly leaving nothing in the tank before I drop off this earth. You know, am I doing and touching as many things that interest me as I can before the sand in my hourglass runs out, and I can't, you know, necessarily check every box every day.

Speaker 3: 54:54

But do I wake up and have as my why? You know why I'm getting up, like pursuing those things and, brian, you know people like well, what does success look like? Somebody asked me recently what does success look like to you? And it's such a crazy question in this world where we're chained to key performance indicators, kpis and things like that, and I gave it some thought later that night and, honestly, success for me is literally going to bed, wanting nothing more than another day like today, because that means right, I've lived a good day, and so the days where I feel that, um, that to me at this point in my life at least, as success.

Speaker 2: 55:38

I love that because for many days I'm I. It's so weird. I'm a. I love mornings. I love mornings. I get up at five. Five, aren't they?

Speaker 3: 55:46

great? Yeah, me too. I love mornings. I get up at 5, 5.30. Aren't they great? Yeah, me too.

Speaker 2: 55:49

I don't like nights Come on 4 or 5 o'clock. I'm not afraid of the dark or anything like that, but I almost get this anxiousness in me. I wouldn't say anxiety, but there's an anxiousness in me almost a little. I'm unsettled at nights and I don't like that, and so I have to work on having a really different evening routine. I've been talking about this for six months. I've tried different things. I don't want to hike and rock and work out at night because I think about it anywhere. Here I go down a rabbit hole for two hours. I'm like this was just one big, it was all a bunch of dopamine releases. Then it just makes my anxiety or my anxiousness almost. Vulnerability is probably a better word. I feel at night that I don't feel the rest of the day. It's really weird.

Speaker 3: 56:44

I understand, I understand that I, you know, I make a very conscious, conscious effort now, even if I watch, you know, tv or Netflix or something like that, um, to read to, even when I turn off to read, you know, for at least five to 10 minutes before I go to bed and it really settles my mind. It settles like everything in me. Um, it helps me learn and helps me escape into a new world. I feel like it's a great way to go to sleep. Totally agree with you about putting down the phones. I know sometimes we can't help it.

Speaker 3: 57:16

So you know I'm not just like I'm not, you know, completely rigid about it, but I do try not to. But you know, nights like I like to set up for a really good night's sleep as much as possible. I think it's critical to everything, not only health but being, you know, the best when you wake up and just feeling like you actually are happy to be in the day the next day. So I've devoted a lot of time to like sort of figuring out how to get the best night's sleep and fortunately I sleep pretty well, um, you know, and uh, and I'm happy about that. But I understand what you're saying about the evening and it can be a time where it's like your thoughts and everything is kind of pressing in on you, right, and you know that can be disruptive to sleep. So I totally admire that you're trying to take control of that.

Speaker 2: 58:03

I haven't tried hard enough.

Speaker 3: 58:06

That's honest. I admire you being honest as well. Yeah, I haven't I got. That's honest.

Speaker 2: 58:08

I admire you being honest as well? Yeah, I haven't. I got to get back to that, so I got two more questions. One question is something that I call the no fear zone question, and I've only asked this once on the show. So if you could eliminate, wendy, all of your irrational fears, all the irrational fears in your mind for the next seven days, what would you do differently that week?

Speaker 3: 58:40

in some ways, it depends on the week, right, if I so one of the things that scares me most are, like, like a bad medical diagnosis. I mean, I had a. I got a melanoma diagnosis. Melanoma is a very aggressive form of skin cancer. It's pretty deadly, um, back in 2018, and I was very lucky we called it early, but it really pushed me into a sense of like, being anxious about my mortality and, you know, not having control over when and how I leave this earth that I had never felt before. So if I had seven days and I had a doctor's appointment that was coming up and I all my irrational fears were wiped away, I would not have fear and dread about that doctor's appointment. So that's a very specific thing geared to something specific that happened and I have a chapter about this in my book and the ripple effect of that, both in racing and on my life overall. And I think anyone who has been faced with a diagnosis that was frightening to them will probably identify with some of that.

Speaker 3: 59:46

But I honestly think that if I didn't, if it was just a week where that wasn't the case, um, I think that is a week where I would spend a lot less time online right. I think that it's a week where I wouldn't be checking, I wouldn't be as worried about are these things going awry in the workplace? Have I missed something on the marketing front of my book? Have I not responded to a social invitation that I should have been? I forgot, right, like all of those things where we're kicking ourselves about not getting everything done that we need to do. If I could get rid of all of that, I think it would be a week right where I'm in front of the computer less and where my mind is less in this trap of trying to just cross things off of a list, and I think how freeing that would be.

Speaker 2: 1:00:41

I appreciate that answer. That's a good one, because I think I wonder too, if I spend so much time on social media. I think there's a fear in there. There's a fear that I'm yeah, I'm going to miss an opportunity, or I'm going to miss a really cool quote that I can use down the road, or I'm going to miss a picture that somebody I care about puts up on Facebook. I don't know what it is, maybe, maybe it's. I'm going to. I fear being disconnected from people a little bit. I don't know, but I like that one. Okay. Next question what's next for you? Anything new on the horizon? The book's coming out on the 18th of June, so that's a big thing.

Speaker 3: 1:01:18

Yeah, there's a lot to be done with that. I mean, it's a big whirlwind right now and push of talking to interesting people like you about the book and writing essays about it. I have one coming out in a week or so, a week or two about in the Wall Street Journal about the book. Uh, I think you know I'm the more people I talk to about it, the more I see some of these ideas are resonating and I want to want to talk to people about that and try and build community around that. Um, um, thinking about what my next book might be after I get a little break, um from this process in that.

Speaker 3: 1:02:01

And then, short term, I'm training to go to Greece to run a three race event in Sparta Greece Spartan race, it's where it was. You know the name came from, where it was all born. I've never done this. This is something they call the trifecta, because it's three races championship. I've never done it. Um, it's very, very hard and I want to do that in november and at the same time I want to learn a little bit, learn to speak a little bit of greek. So those are things I've got on the horizon right, like out on my calendar and in my life that I'm working toward and that excite me and that you know I give me that will to live, which we've been talking about, doesn't mean it's all going to happen, right. You know life throws us curveballs. We can, walls can get thrown and thrown in front of us. I know this, but it's where my head's at now as I answer this question for you.

Speaker 2: 1:02:54

Oh, I love it. Well, I have a feeling this book's going to keep you busy sometimes and I get a lot of books from authors Sometimes I get them before the published date, like you did. Sometimes I get them after and I read them. And I've read some fantastic books from guests I've had on here. Some that I didn't expect to be good at all were fantastic.

Speaker 2: 1:03:13

This one here. As I was reading it just in the introduction I knew I just said this book's going to skyrocket. This book's going to go. It's going to be a. It's going to be a best seller, new York Times bestseller.

Speaker 2: 1:03:23

This is a fantastic book and everybody out there and I'm not just saying that because Wendy's on the podcast, wendy's on the podcast because of the way she writes we're friends, but we're friends because I love the way she writes this book is transformational. It has been for me and, I think, anybody who's dealing with any thoughts of self-limitations or feels they have something left in their tank or wants to make sure, when they go at the end of this journey, that they have nothing left in the tank. This is the best book I've ever read remotely on this subject. So not too late I'll include a link to it pre-ordered on Amazon or Barnes Noble, or go to Wendy's website. You can just Google Gwendolyn Bowens and you'll find her, or go to Wendy's website. You can just Google Gwendolyn Bowens and you'll find her. So last question, wendy is there any question that I didn't ask, that you wish I would have, or is there any final word of wisdom you'd like to share with?

Speaker 3: 1:04:12

all of us. You've done a great job, as always, and I appreciate that, and I appreciate your directing folks where they can buy the book. I think you can buy it at almost any online retailer now at this point, the last thought and we touched upon this, but I want to like underline it a couple of times which is that it's okay to look foolish for a while, and I really think as we age, we just start thinking we need to kind of be the math, we need to be the master in the room and we need to be the best at what we're doing. We can't look silly anymore, and the only way to escape what I think of as the competency trap right where we get trapped by our own things that we're good at the only way to learn something new and better is be willing to look a little foolish doing it, and then you know that's how it takes off. So I just want to leave people with that thought Be okay looking foolish.

Speaker 2: 1:05:05

I love that. I look foolish quite often.

Speaker 3: 1:05:07

I like that. See, this is why we're. This is why we like each other. We're okay looking foolish together, yeah. One day we'll look foolish together doing something.

Speaker 2: 1:05:14

So everybody out there, Wendy told me before we started recording today, if I ever decide to do a Spartan race or that she would come here, come to Michigan and do one with me, and it wouldn't have to be a competitive one, it could even be maybe the 5k one. So you got me really thinking now. So it's like I told you, since I've been telling people that you're coming back on. You know, I have Spartan races. Keep coming up on my Facebook feed like Spartan races.

Speaker 3: 1:05:39

So I'll make you a deal, Brian, and I'll make your audience a deal like spartan races. And I'll make you a deal, brian, and I'll make your audience a deal. You, anybody in your audience who wants to come and join us right in michigan to do a non-competitive right where you don't. You can skip any obstacle you want, you can walk whatever like. We'll get a group of people who are bamboo lab podcast listeners. We'll get everybody through their first race. We will cross the starting line together and we will finish the starting line together and I will make a deal that if you ever want to do that and any of your listeners want to come join us, I will come do that.

Speaker 2: 1:06:10

Okay. So everyone out there, I'm going to need you to you know how to get a hold of me. Get to my website and email me. Many of you have my number because I used to give it out on the podcast. You can text me, email me or, however, snail mail me and push me, because if you do that, I will do it. So I'll make that commitment and I can't take that commitment away now. It's not in writing, it's not a handshake, it's on air.

Speaker 3: 1:06:32

We're going to have a Bamboo Lab team. There we go.

Speaker 2: 1:06:34

We're going to make one. We'll get t-shirts and everything. Absolutely, I love it. I love it. Oh, Wendy, again, I was so excited to have you on here and I was so worried. I was driving from one part of the state to the other today to set up here and I was drove way. I was only at 45 minutes that I had to travel, but I didn't have a lot of time and I was driving on the road and all of a sudden a big sign roads bridge down, road closed, and I'm like I don't know another route. I'm back in the. I was in the country and so I'm getting on my Waze app and I didn't have a signal it wouldn't pull up another way to go. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm not going to make this. Anyway, it finally the connection hit, my cell got serviced and it got me here. I was a little bit late, but I was so worried, so I was able to set up and get you as a fantastic friend and guest on the Bamboo Lab podcast. So thank you so much, my friend.

Speaker 3: 1:07:29

Yeah, thank you, karma. It was meant to be that you got here. So, thanks so much, brian, and I appreciate your talking through all these ideas and bringing me back to your great group of listeners.

Speaker 2: 1:07:40

You're welcome. Can you stay on for a couple of minutes after we're done? Sure, great Again. Everyone, thank you again for joining. I know this is an episode that's going to have so much meaning and impact on many of you out there, and what I'm going to ask you to do is please hit that like button, subscribe and rate and review us, and on Spotify, apple, whatever your platform is that you listen to it on and get out there in the meantime, please this week, and look up Not Too Late, look up Little Chapel on the River and buy Little Chapel on the River. I think you're going to love it because it's in my all-time top 20 books.

Speaker 2: 1:08:15

I was just telling a client this a couple of weeks ago about the book, because I was telling her that you were coming on and she's an avid reader. Um, about the books. I was telling her that you were coming on and she's an avid reader. So get that in pre-order, the not too late on any online um, uh, public, uh book bookstores. Get these books, let them change your life Like they are, like they did mine. In the meantime, I'll talk to you all in a week. We've got a couple of amazing guests we're recording next week. Uh, back to back next week. Um, in the meantime'd like to get out there and please strive to give and be your best. Please show love and respect to others and yourself, and please live with purpose and intentionality. I care about you all and I appreciate each and every single one of you.