S5E1: The Art of Mental Toughness - Tools to Break Through When Times Get Tough, with Ron Duren Jr.

“Enjoy the journey. We're always thinking about that finish line, and that finish line is great, but what about the other six years and eleven months and 29 days? Is that a throwaway? Is that a time to be miserable? Is that a time that we can't savor and cherish?” - Ron Duren Jr

If you're feeling stuck in a cycle of indecision, constantly questioning your ability to finish what you've started, and wondering if your efforts will ever pay off, then you are not alone!

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Overcome Imposter Syndrome in Writing: Learn how to conquer self-doubt and unleash your true writing potential.
• Embrace Reflective Walks for Creativity: Discover the secret to boosting your creative energy and finding inspiration in everyday moments.
• Finish Over Starting: Uncover the power of completion and how it can transform your writing journey.
• Find Fulfillment Beyond Material Wealth: Explore the path to true fulfillment and happiness beyond the confines of material possessions.
• Master Strategies for Dealing with Life's Obstacles: Equip yourself with effective tools to conquer life's challenges and keep moving forward.

My special guest is Ron Duren Jr

Ron Duren Jr, a professor at the University of Colorado, is an author, podcaster, and former high-level baseball player. His book, "The Art of Forging Mettle", delves into the evolution of mental toughness and leadership in a shifting world. Ron's story is a testament to breaking rules, embracing trauma as a catalyst for growth, and seeking fulfillment beyond the path of least resistance. As a real person with a "PhD in life," his insights go beyond academic knowledge, offering a blend of real-world experiences and deep understanding. With a focus on the importance of finishing over starting, Ron's journey of self-discovery and transformation provides valuable lessons for overcoming imposter syndrome in writing and dealing with life's obstacles, making him a relatable and credible guide for those seeking to find confidence and purpose in their creative endeavors.

Transcript:

00:00:03
Welcome to your next stop, podcast.

00:00:08
Welcome back to your next stop. One of the things I'm really excited about is this was one of the new shows for season five for your next stop. And I have one of my actually favorite guests from I don't even know what season, but it was 2023, so welcome. Ron Duren Jr. How are you?

00:00:26
I'm doing well, and I just kind of think that you probably tell everybody that they're your favorite guests. I don't. I actually don't. I do. I do connect with people a lot.

00:00:36
You and I. I think we talked. I mean, before you were on the podcast in 2023, we were just going back. You and I had like, that what I always tell people. I do like that 15 minutes where it's like, okay, let's see where we connect.

00:00:49
Cause I don't even remember where we met, whether it was LinkedIn or Clubhouse. Or what it was, you know, where we met. I interviewed you on my podcast. That's. That's how it started.

00:01:00
That is right. So I was first, right? You interviewed me, and then I was like, I would love to have you because, I mean, you're a professor. I mean, there's so much about you, but I loved your story, and when I tell you, I did not listen back to it. And I can still talk about a couple things.

00:01:15
I know you played baseball at a really high level, and we got into, like, a really interesting conversation about the pivots that happened in that time and what you learned about being an athlete. And I remember just being so fascinated because. And then getting into you being a professor, also having a podcast, and now you are an author, which totally makes sense. I mean, it's the art of forging metal, and it is a blueprint for the evolution of mental toughness and leadership for the shifting world, which I can't think of many people that would be better at explaining it because you are such a real person. And again, I don't say this to everyone, but you really are a real person.

00:01:54
And your story, um, you know, we talk about the traumas and all these different things. You. Yes, you had stuff that happened in your life, but you also went through it with such an open mind that not a lot of people do. And the fact that you were like, you know what? I really want to put this down on paper, I think, is.

00:02:14
Is so. I mean, it's really you. I appreciate you saying that. Although I'm just not. I'm trying to wrap my head around.

00:02:20
What does that mean? I'm a real person. Are there people out there that are unreal? I get what you're saying, though. And I, you know, one of the things I like to say is because I work in academia, you know, I work at the University of Colorado, and almost all my colleagues have those fancy, you know, those, those three letters after their name that everybody's enamored with.

00:02:42
You can hear a little bit of maybe it's jealousy that I have. I don't. I don't have those, those three letters. PhD. Right.

00:02:50
And again, that always seems to make people think that, I don't know, you've got this aura around you. But here's what I would say to the listener and to you, Juliet. I have a PhD in life. There is not one of my colleagues that can line up their life resume with mine. And that's not so much to boast, but it's kind of going back to your point of not only do I look at the research, I read the research, I'm an academic, so I do that, but also I engage in the real world.

00:03:19
And so I appreciate you saying that because the early reviews that are coming in on the book, and that's exactly what people say, make, you know, they say your stories are amazing, that you bring in, you know, the real life stuff instead of what we just learned in a book. Right. And so I think both are important. What we learn in a book is important, but also, how does it apply? You know, a lot of things that are in books don't work in the real world.

00:03:42
We know this. And so I think that's where the, I don't know, the real side comes in. So I appreciate you saying that, although I did make a little bit of fun of it. No, and again, but that's why, I mean, I as. And again, I'm not going to boast either, but being, you know, having a podcast for as long as I have and I am successful in this world, I have a couple podcasts, and it is what I was meant to do in this world.

00:04:04
I get approached all the time about doing things, and I actually saw you putting out your book, and I said, Ron, I would love to have you back on because I know just talking to you and being on your podcast and the stuff that you put out there in the world, your message, this book is going to be incredible, and I want to be able to let my listeners know about it because it is one of those things. And you sent me, you know, the PDF, you know, you know, that I'm dyslexic, so I read through some of it, and then I was like, okay, I'm gonna. I don't want to read too much because I also want. And I wasn't gonna be able to read it in the time. Let's call.

00:04:39
Call spade a spade. But I was. I got chills. And I did find myself, like, being able to escape in this and getting really, like, the chills and then pumped up and being like, okay, this is exciting. And this is.

00:04:52
I figured it was gonna be that. And that's why I did approach you. So I do want people to know LinkedIn is really where you live the most. I mean, again, you're in academia, but that is the place that you live the most. They can find the book.

00:05:08
I mean, Amazon everywhere. Everywhere. Barnes and noble, Amazon. I mean, all the. All the places you'd normally look for books.

00:05:16
Yes. And so. And one of the things that we were talking about right before, again, if you guys want to know all of Ron's story, you can go back and listen to episode 167. But the new format that I'm kind of doing, I said it was kind of loosely because, you know, of course, I'm not like, I'm not someone that's like, okay, let's follow the rules here. I mean, I don't really follow any rules, to be frank.

00:05:37
But I wanted to give people this little insight. And that's why I was also excited that you were going to be one of the first guests for season five, because you and I just have great conversation. I mean, I could sit, really, and talk to you for weeks and months, and I don't think we would, like, not have anything to say, which, again, is a beautiful thing. So I would love for you to kind of talk about, and then we're going to get why you wrote the book and kind of the deep parts of that. But, like, the stages in your life, what do you.

00:06:10
If you think about the stages in your life, where would you say the stage that you had really the, like, a turning point, whether there was trauma from that, that stage in your life that then created a turning point? What could. Can you take us through a little bit of that? And it could be like, you know, early childhood, but you take us through a bit of that so people can get a little insight of, you know, who you are. Yeah.

00:06:34
So, so much of what you're saying, I touch on. I touch on the idea that good leaders break rules. And so I love that you're saying that the trauma, again, go back and listen to the first episode for more detail on the trauma, but roughly, gosh, I feel like it's about seven or eight years ago now, what I called my nuclear year, where I very intentionally blew up my life. I didn't. I was waking up every morning, and I don't like to say midlife crisis.

00:07:01
I don't really like that word. Midlife awakening, midlife readjustment, midlife reimagining. Maybe that was what it is for everybody that's listening. I'm an old guy. I'm 55 years old.

00:07:12
And so I was going through this, you know, I was about 47. And again, you call it that, whatever midlife you want, but that was the trauma. I woke up and just said, this is not. If I die tomorrow, I won't be happy about this. And I said, okay, Ron, let's do better.

00:07:31
And then I started down the path of saying, how do I do better? How many of us know, let's say you find yourself in the same situation that I'm in, that you wake up one day and say, this is not the impact I want to have on the world. This is not fulfilling me. What do I do now? Right?

00:07:48
A lot of us have that, and then we can read a lot of books that can help. And then that helped me. But I said, all right, now, you know, seven, eight years down the road, I said, this is the book that I wish I would have had back then. This is that blueprint. To focus on the right things is the way I would say, right.

00:08:08
I became a world champion in seeking the path of least resistance. I was really good at just enough. I was usually above average as an engineer, and. But I would do just enough work to get that above average. I never had a desire to excel.

00:08:26
And I don't know, one day you just wake up and go, really, I'm better than that. I only get one shot at this, and I just want to. I want to live a better life than that. I deserve better. And so that's, you know, that's kind of at the heart of why I wrote this book.

00:08:42
It's that blueprint that the tools that you're going to, you're going to probably need. And really kind of at the heart of it is this idea that what I just mentioned as human beings, there's a thing in psychology called I'm trying to blank. It's the law of least work. And so the law of least work means that not only human beings, but a lot of living creatures, when all things are equal, they're usually going to choose the path of least resistance. That makes sense, right?

00:09:11
Because we want to be efficient with our energy. That makes. On the surface, it makes perfect sense, right? But is that the best way to go through life? And so what had happened in my life is I slid into this habit without even thinking about it.

00:09:26
I didn't know what was going on, by the way. I had no clue of the inner mechanism of this. I didn't know about the law of least work at that time. And so when we're always going down that path, what does that life become? It becomes the life that I was leading to.

00:09:40
Again, I was blindly leading that. So once I started to learn that we have another thing called the effort paradox. And the reason, let's focus on the word paradox, because we have the law of least work. We want to do. We want to be lazy.

00:09:55
We want to do the least amount of work. But the effort paradox is, and this shouldn't surprise anybody, the things that we look back on our life and we go, that's what I'm most proud of. That's what was so fulfilling. Those are the things that were hard. Not the easy things, but the hard things.

00:10:10
And so that's the effort paradox. So we are innate. You know, our DNA wants to drive us toward doing the least amount of work in life. But really, what we should be doing is finding those opportunities to do hard things, take on those big challenges. And that, again, that was nothing I knew about.

00:10:30
And I learned that through doing endurance sports like iRonman, triathlons, and ultra, you know, ultra marathons where I ran up to 50 miles and things like that. It taught me those kind of lessons. And so a lot of those stories are in the book. What I wanted to do with this book is create a nonfiction book that wasn't boring as hell. Yeah, can I say that?

00:10:53
You can beep that out if you need to. But hell, I mean, you remember from Jersey, I say a lot worse than hell. And now I live in New York.

00:11:03
Educate and entertain, and I have well over a dozen of my personal stories, not only from IRon Man's ultra running, rodeo bull riding, semi professional baseball, flying my airplane upside down. So you'll find one of those kind of stories all the way through. So, in that sense, you know, again, I don't want it to sound like I'm boasting, but you will never read a book like this. Tell me anybody out there that has those stories to draw upon. But I'm a little bit unique in that sense, so I'm going to stop talking.

00:11:36
No, please. I could listen to you all day. The thing that is, and the reason, again, why I was like, you know what? I want to have Ron back on is because I talk about this in my word blindness podcast with Brent Sopel. We talk about this all the time.

00:11:51
Like, you could go to a therapist that doesn't have your traumas, doesn't have your life, you know, life kind of what you went through in life, and you leave and you're like, what? That was so annoying. They didn't understand me. They didn't get me. And it's really frustrating.

00:12:06
We talk about this with dyslexia all the time. Talking to someone sometimes, like when you're in school and someone doesn't get you, and when you have someone that gets you because they've been through something similar or they can relate to something you're talking about. And that's why I know. And even as I said, you know, reading the number of chapters that I read, and that is you're sharing you, and you do it so beautifully and there's no ego behind it. And that's the other thing.

00:12:33
There's no ego behind it. And that's what it. It's going to take people through that have gone through, because we've all had the stages in our life. We all have had turning points. We've all had trauma.

00:12:43
Some people's trauma can be bigger, you know, to the next person. But your trauma is your trauma, and your trauma is going to be big for you. I mean, waking up and being like, I'm not happy is a really scary thing. It's like, okay, I'm in midlife and I'm not happy. What do I do?

00:13:00
And to be able to take that and run with it, because that's what you were meant to do. And we talk about this time and time again, whether you believe in the universe or God, the people that really tap into that and say, okay, why am I not feeling this? What is wRong? What do I need to change? And then explore and stay curious.

00:13:21
And that's what you did so beautifully. And then the fact that you're sharing, sharing in the book so someone can pick it up and be like, okay, I hate my life, but what do I do? It's scary because whether you have a job that's paying, you know that you're getting money from and that you can't move, but I say it all the time. You're not a tree. If you're not happy, make the change.

00:13:44
And some people it comes easier to, others it doesn't. So to have something in their hands that they can read and say, okay, I'm going to take a lesson from each chapter of this and relate to you. They're going to do it because it's like, okay, he gets it. He's been there. So much wisdom and everything you said there.

00:14:05
I love the, you know, the idea of, you're not a tree. Right? You know, I don't like. I don't like my job. I don't like the state I live in.

00:14:11
I'm like, we live in a free country. Go move somewhere else. Get a different job. Do it. Start a different career.

00:14:18
I totally changed my career. So I absolutely believe that. But here's the thing, Juliet, and you know this, and everybody that's gone through this knows this. It's not easy. It takes courage.

00:14:28
I will tell you, it scared the living shit out of me to do what I did. And I'll tell you, the nuclear year was rough. I will not. I tell people, I'm not going to sugarcoat the fact that that transition from old Ron to new Ron was rough, because basically, what do you do? And you're dismantling your ego.

00:14:45
All the things that you believed in, you are now kind of tearing those down or at least examining them. And your ego doesn't like that. Your ego is going to fight you and resist that because that's all it knows. And so that's hard. And so let's just acknowledge if you're scared, that's number one.

00:15:03
That's good. Part of. I have a chapter in the book where I talk about fear. The idea of being fearless is ridiculous, all right? That means your brain's operating exactly how it's supposed to, that you have fear.

00:15:14
Even I don't care who you hold up as. As that person that you go, oh, my gosh, they never feel fear. I promise you, they feel fear. They just deal with it in a. In a superior way than most people.

00:15:26
And that's a little bit of just training, training your mind. So what I want everybody to know is, you're going to have fear. You've got to step into that courage. And it's not always easy writing this book. I ask people, I go, do you think it's hard?

00:15:37
Do you think it takes courage to write a book? What do you think? Does it take courage to write a book? I'm not going to war. No, my life's not on the line.

00:15:46
But why does it take courage to write a book? What do you think, Juliet? Why would that be something we'd be afraid of. Well, there's so many things. I mean, you're writing.

00:15:56
You know, that you're putting yourself out there in print. You're sharing things about you. You're sharing vulnerable things. Yes, you can be on a podcast, and it can get out there, but you're taking. And you're also.

00:16:06
As you're doing it. I mean, I find all my podcasts healing. I mean, it has actually been healing for me since 2019 when I started, and I didn't realize that that's what it is. But when you share your experiences and then acknowledge. Wait, okay, you know what?

00:16:23
Something's. I don't. I don't like how this feels, but I know that it could help someone else. It's. It's basically opening yourself up to criticism, to, you know, also facing your own fears of, okay, this did happen, and maybe it wasn't my best day, and I'm not that proud that I actually was that person at that time.

00:16:44
How did I let myself get there? So many different things. Absolutely. Again, so, well said. That's why we.

00:16:51
We. We connect so well, Julietn. Yeah. I mean, it takes courage, right? And especially nowadays with the trolls on the Internet.

00:16:57
Do you think I'm gonna get. I'm gonna get reviews on Amazon that say, this is the worst book I've ever read in my life, and Ron's an eight. You got to face that. That's the noise, right? You got to filter that out.

00:17:07
Those are what I call the trolls under the bridge. Let that go. But again, it takes courage to put it out there and make yourself vulnerable. And one of the things, you know, I come up with, I actually developed two models that I don't think of, from what I can tell from Internet search that ever. I think I'm the originator of this.

00:17:23
And one of the harmonic leadership, the other one is what I call humanistic mental toughness. Those are the two main things at the heart of this. And harmonic leadership is really this idea of putting the human at the. At the center of our leadership, not the bottom line, not, you know, the profit margins and not outcomes. But you, the person I care about you, I want to develop you.

00:17:46
But one of the things that's in there is vulnerability. You know, a lot of people think that we connect through strength. Let's say, Juliet, you're my leader. And I think that a lot of people have this misconception that I need Juliet to be always stRong. She needs to project power and never have a bad day.

00:18:03
And that's how I'm going to connect with her, I. I would ask you, do you think you connect with somebody like that? If Juliet was like that, and by the way, if Juliet was like that, I'd say, that's a lie. She does have bad days. We all have bad days.

00:18:15
And I would say, if Juliet was like that, I go, that's a machine that I can't even relate to. I'm a human being. I have flaws. I fail. I have bad days.

00:18:23
And if Juliet never has those, how can I relate to that? And so I think that people don't realize that we connect through vulnerability and actually through that weakness. When Juliet says, oh, my God, I'm getting. I'm getting crushed today. I'm struggling.

00:18:36
And then I go, oh, I'm glad I'm not the only one. Now I can connect with you. And that kind of opens us up. And you can hear echoes of Duren Brown in this, right? Yeah.

00:18:47
I love her. Letting your guard down so that you can connect, as Duren says, let's get belly to belly. Right? And that's how we're. So that's kind of the heart of the model of harmonic leadership, is.

00:18:59
Is doing exactly that. So. And then I also want to say early on, you said, you know, we all go through trauma. I mentioned that in the book as well. And, you know, if you read the trauma research, they'll call it big t trauma or little t trauma.

00:19:13
And then, you know, I've actually been criticized on my podcast that, you know, how can you talk about trauma? You don't really know what trauma is. I grew up, you know, with, you know, all these bad things happening. Right? You can imagine.

00:19:25
I. And, yes, great, I guess this is not a competition of whose trauma is worse than the others. My trauma, to me is still my trauma. I can own that. And I don't need to apologize for talking about my trauma just because I didn't go through incredibly bad trauma.

00:19:44
And so I want everybody to know that we all have trauma, whether it's big teeth trauma, little teeth trauma, whatever. And again, it's not a comparison, it's not a contest. But back, way back to what Juliet said, you're going to read about some of my trauma. I talk about the idea of the all is lost moments is what I talk about in the book, where everything has fallen apart in life. We all go through these.

00:20:10
My stories, maybe they're going to resonate with you, but more than likely, you're just going to go, yeah, I can kind of relate to that, but it's not my story that's fine. We are all forged in the fire. Your fire is different than my fire. But I think we can connect as human beings and say, hey, we've all been through this. Trauma is universal to human beings, and we don't get through this life without facing it.

00:20:32
And what do we do with it, right? What do we do with that trauma? How do we interpret it? And we can, you know, we can go a couple different ways with that, right? We can go with post traumatic growth, where we actually grow from that trauma, or a lot of times PTSD, where we suffer.

00:20:48
Now, one of the things that I learned on my podcast was we can have PTSD and PTG. They're not polar opposites in the sense of a lot of times people go through PTSD before they go through PTG. But really, I think at the end of the day, and that's kind of at the heart of my book, too. I don't mention those words in the book, but that's kind of in there of let's grow from that adversity, that trauma that we faced. And it's not easy, and some of those scars will always carry with us, but at the end of the day, can we grow from that?

00:21:20
And I absolutely believe we can. I love that. And again, when talking about the trolls, those people are the people that are insecure and probably need your book. And actually, it touched a cord, so they're going to be negative because it is like, oh, I don't feel like dealing with that. And then when people talk about their traumas and someone's like, well, your trauma doesn't matter because it's not, you know, I have horrific things happen.

00:21:49
I always say to that those people also haven't gone through the healing process because, as I said, your trauma is your trauma, and your trauma is as big as someone else's trauma. Even if it's not as big in the vocabulary or the image of it, it's still your own trauma. And how you deal with it and face it and get to the other side of it, as you said, is going to help with the growth. Can you share a little bit of some of the obstacles that came about first in, you know, when you really were realizing, okay, in your midlife, I need to make changes. Like, can you think of one huge obstacle that you kind of kept butting your head against?

00:22:35
And it was like, how do I get past that? Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest one was I was working for a company that was a top five company in the nation for best places to work. I was paid a nice six figure salary. I had the nice house, the nice car.

00:22:53
I had all these material things. And when I decided I wanted to make that change in my life, I go, this isn't fulfilling to me. Being an engineer was not fulfilling to me. And I decided I love teaching. And so I started to explore that option.

00:23:09
But here's the thing. When I started saying, okay, maybe I was doing some part time teaching at the university, and I said, why don't I do this full time? And then I looked at the salary, and it was 50% less than what I was making. And I remember when I first thought about it, I just laughed. I go, there's no way I can live on 50% less money than I am now.

00:23:27
I'm spending all the money I have now, and there's a lesson in that, too. But the more money we make, the more we want to spend. But again, so I think that was the biggest obstacle. How do I walk away from my three bedroom house? All of the material things?

00:23:40
I had a to say. Can I embrace a life where I make half as much money? Will I be happier that way? I think that was the hardest thing to do, was to walk away from the money and the material things. And, oh, by the way, I figured out how to do it.

00:23:54
I learned how to live simpler. I learned that wants and needs are very different. What I thought I needed was truly not the case. Now, I wouldn't say that that first year was easy again, you know, transitioning to half your salary was not easy. And there were some things that I missed, but I'm about ten times happier now.

00:24:14
Now my salary is coming back up to where it was. But that was a rebuild process. But I like to say there's more than one way to measure wealth. It's not just money. All right?

00:24:27
I have time, freedom now that I never had before. That, to me, is worth about a half a million dollars a year. Really, truly, to do the things I want to do. Follow my passions. Talk to you on a podcast at 09:00 in the morning on a Friday.

00:24:40
If I was an engineer, I couldn't even do this. And so I have this. And so for all of us, you know, people listening, I think a lot of people think that wealth is always about the material things and the money that you make, and it's so not that that case. So I think that was the hardest obstacle I got over, was, how do I walk away from that and maybe redefine what I thought about material things, of money. What I thought I needed was, again, was not the same.

00:25:07
No. And I think that's so beautifully said and so many people can relate. So many people are sitting there going, I make a lot of money, but I'm miserable human. And that, I would say I don't even, I'm terrible with math, so I'm not going to throw percentages out there, but I would say that is a really, really high percentage. So I love that you kind of embraced it and we're like, that's another thing people can learn from you.

00:25:27
Okay, here's things that you can do. So what was the biggest obstacle that you had writing your book? Imposter syndrome. I just had this discussion with my students. You know, it took me about seven years from start to finish, but I'll bet five of the years it was just this indecision and really the inner critics saying, who are you to write a book?

00:25:48
Number one, you don't have a PhD. You're not smart enough. I never considered myself an intellectual. I was always the dumb jock in some sense. And so I always thought the really smart people wrote books.

00:25:59
And maybe I'm an example of, you know, you don't have to be really smart to write a book. But so you can imagine these, this inner critic telling you, number one, I don't have the credentials. I'm not smart enough. Number, you know, maybe number three is you'd see another book out there and you go, oh, my God, somebody's already wrote about this. Why in the world am I going to add my voice to something that's already been said?

00:26:21
All of these things are pulling against you to say, go back to sitting on the couch. Be safe. Don't you know people are gonna laugh at you? I mean, you can imagine these, this inner critic with all of this trying to hold you back. Why is the inner critic doing that, by the way?

00:26:38
It wants you to stay safe. Your inner critic, it's like a small child that, that's just trying to protect you from bad things. And it thinks if you put yourself out there in that scary world, something bad is gonna happen. So I always like to say, your inner critic, you don't want to get angry with your inner critic. Just treat it with kindness and respect and say, I hear you.

00:26:57
I know you're looking out for me, but I got this, all right? And by the way, I learned much of how to talk to my inner critic. When you run 50 miles at the pace that I run, you run for about 14 hours. And I remember somebody asking me, do you get bored. 14 hours of running and I go, are you crazy?

00:27:16
Of course I do. 14 hours just locked in your head, and your inner critic is going at you for 14 hours. And so you get really good at managing that inner critic. And one of the things that I learned, the more energy you give, the more you argue with your inner critic, the more it's just going to energize it, and it'll just become a battle. And what you do is you'd be accepting of it.

00:27:38
You say, I got this. Be calm, be kind. And it, like a small child, it will quiet down. It won't go away completely, but it'll quiet down. So as I wrote the book, much of that stuff that I learned in ultra running came to the fore, where I said, okay, I know how this works.

00:27:56
But so seven years of writing the book, about the last year and a half, I finally just shed this idea that I'm an impostor. But much of that was just indecision, indecisiveness. And so even though I know about these things, it still paralyzed me. I couldn't put words on the page because of all the things I just mentioned. And once I kind of let that go, and hopefully it doesn't take you as long to do that, listener, but maybe you can learn from me and do it quicker than it.

00:28:27
I promise you, the second book, and there will be a second book, will go much faster because I've stepped through that. Right. And that's kind of, you know, I always like to think of, like, fear for people that are old, like me. You remember the movie ghost with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore? Yeah.

00:28:44
And so Patrick Swayze is the ghost. Right. And he's. He's finally learning that he can walk through doors. And if you remember, there's a scene where he's doing it the first time, he doesn't.

00:28:53
He doesn't know what to do, right. He's like, I'm gonna run into the door, fall down. But finally he has the faith to try to walk through the door, and he goes right through it. Right. Like a ghost would.

00:29:03
And I say, that's kind of like fear, right? It's. You're gonna go, I can't get through this door, but just have faith, and you'll walk right through that door, just like Patrick Swayze did in the movie ghost. So. But it takes so much courage to do that.

00:29:17
And then you got to have belief in yourself that, hey, it helps if you've done it before. The first time is going to be the hardest. When you do it 510, 15 times, it gets easier because, you know, you know, this is the drill. This is how it's going to work. And you know what it looks like on the other side of the door.

00:29:35
And so that faith will, will carry you through. So that, yeah, a lot of imposter syndrome with the book to wrap that, that long winded answer up. No, that's perfect because, and so was there like a, when you were doing it and as you said, it took you seven years. I mean, that's, again, one of those things now that you finished it, that's like you have to say, yeah, it took me seven years. Right.

00:29:58
It doesn't always feel good, but it's like, I got it done. But then you could go back and beat yourself up and be like, yeah, but it took me seven years. And you have to not do that. Right. You have to teach yourself to be like, no, I did it.

00:30:08
And that's what I'm proud of. And hang your hat on the accomplishment, not the process that maybe was messy because everyone has a messy process to get to things that we're supposed to do, especially when we have this resistance. So was there a, like a pivot, pivotal moment that in that last year and a half that you were like, I just have to do it, or was it kind of everything that you said, it was kind of a, you know, a whole kind of mosh pit of things that happened or can you think of, yeah, this actually happened and it was like, you're done and you never had, never went back in that year and a half. Oh, I'm smiling. You know, one of the, as I was writing the book, I was absolutely infatuated with the tv show Ted Lasso.

00:30:57
I almost want to apologize. I'm almost ashamed to say I've watched all three episodes three times all the way through and being. Don't be ashamed. I love being a leadership professor. I look at every episode and go, oh, my gosh.

00:31:10
Look at all the lessons of leadership in this. So as I was watching the show and I'm cranking along on the book, and one day it just kind of pops in my head. I'm like, oh, my gosh. Ron, what you're describing with harmonic leadership sounds a lot like what in the show. They call it the Lasso way.

00:31:28
This is Ted Lasso's leadership style. And I go, wow, it's like a light bulb moment where I'm like, I'm writing about Ted Lasso's leadership style. And I went back and I did some, some kind of analysis where I said, let me look at, you know, how he leads and does it line up with what I'm proposing? And it, and it did, and it's just kind of amazing. So that's a good, if you're a Ted Lasso fan and you go, what's harmonic leadership?

00:31:52
That's a, that's a good role model right there. And so where am I going with this? Going back to your question, I think, you know, the big theme, if you haven't seen Ted Lasso, the big theme of Ted Lasso is believe. You know, in the locker room, they have the sign that says believe it. It's not only believing in yourself, but believing in those that you're leading, you know, your team.

00:32:10
And so that's really the overall theme of the show. And I think that you said, well, what was it? That was kind of that breakthrough. I finally started to believe in myself, and maybe that was Ted Lasso influence, I don't know, but it finally broke through. So that was one thing, and I'll.

00:32:26
The other thing, I'm being a little bit vulnerable here. I went through a breakup. I was dating somebody, and it was kind of a painful breakup. And I, you know, you see songwriters and authors that when they're going through a painful breakup, it just pours out of them. Right.

00:32:40
And I think that was another catalyst. I went through that breakup, and I was writing like crazy because it was almost like that was my therapy to write. And so that, again, that accelerated. I would say that believing in myself was probably the start of that process, and then that breakup was like throwing gasoline on the fire, and I was writing like crazy, and that I sprinted to the finish line with those two things. And so, again, you know, go back to what you said.

00:33:08
It took me seven years. I absolutely. There's part of me that wishes it would have went sooner, but there's so much of me that is so grateful that it took me seven years. And all the things I learned along the way that fundamentally changed who I am. I look at life differently because of that seven years.

00:33:26
And one of the things I talk about in the book, it's cliche, but how many people really do this is enjoy the journey. Right? We're always. We're always thinking about that. That finish line, and that finish line is great, but what I talk about in the book is, let's say it's a seven year journey.

00:33:43
The finish line is. Let's say that's one day of the seven. Seven years. What about the. You know, the other six years and eleven months and 29 days.

00:33:52
Right. Is that throwaway? Is that a time to be miserable? Is that a time that we can't, you know, savor and cherish? I mean, of course, if you end up at the end of your life looking at it that way, there's not much fulfillment there.

00:34:06
Right? So the fulfillment comes in that hard work. And that's, again, at the heart of the book is that hard work. That hardship that you go through to finally get to the finish line is the beauty of life. And I think that in today's modern society, we're missing that lesson.

00:34:22
We forgot that lesson. I think a lot of people know that lesson intuitively, but we're forgetting that that's where the beauty of life is. You know, one of the things I mentioned, I did a talk once where I talked about this idea. You know, everybody says starting is the hardest part. Right.

00:34:39
Starting is the hardest part. Cliche. It's all over the Internet, Internet, memes and whatever. Starting is the hard part. What do you think?

00:34:45
Is starting the hardest part? I absolutely disagree. Starting is not the hardest part. And the reason I say that is finishing is the hardest part. And if you still don't believe me because you've, you've read that meme so many times that you believe it, you go, starting is the hardest part, Ron.

00:35:00
I go b's because, you know why? I have statistics to back that up. Let me ask you this. In any endeavor in life, are there more starters or more finishers? Yeah, there's, I mean, so many people start and don't finish.

00:35:14
Exactly. You're always, never going to be, well, very rarely will ever be 100% of the starters finish in anything that's going to be hard. So again, be a finisher. And so back to what you were saying, a seven year journey. I'll tell you what, when I finally held that book in my hand, this book right here, when I held that book, that was the finish line, that nobody will ever take that away from me.

00:35:39
That seven year journey, getting to the finish line was the most important thing to me by far. Now, again, I enjoyed the journey, not saying it was always fun, it was not always enjoyable, but that's the part of doing hard things. We've got to embrace the idea that sometimes it's going to suck. Yeah. And one of the things that I love, and I think so many people, why life gets stale and people get stuck is because they want to know what the finish is.

00:36:11
Right? You write a book, you finish. I mean, you start it, you have to finish it, right? I mean, unless you're writing novels and novels and novels. I mean, if it's like, whatever, but life, there's really not a finish, right?

00:36:27
There's a finish in certain projects. There's finishing in certain aspects. Like, okay, I've had kids. I'm done with having kids, but you're always going to be a mom because you're always raising these kids. There is so much that people don't really think about.

00:36:41
And I think when we started talking, you said to me, and I just said to you, where I am in life right now is really exciting and it's fun as I'm watching it unfold, because it's everything that I started when I started in 2019, when I was kind of stuck and I needed a creative outlet. I didn't realize I needed a creative outlet. I didn't know what was happening. My kids were getting older. I wasn't as needed.

00:37:03
I didn't want to just play tennis and had wine. I wanted to, like, do something. I wanted to do something meaningful in my mind. And it was the start of the podcast and it really was just a passion project. But to see where that start, because I was like, I don't have a hard time.

00:37:21
If something inspires me, I start it. But that's just me. I get really, I mean, it's my ADHD. I get, like, so impulsive. Then I get like, you know, really over focused and I do it and I don't look back at.

00:37:31
I'm sure there's things that I've started that I haven't finished. I'm not the type of person that's like, oh, I didn't finish that, and I didn't finish that. That wasn't meant for my path. I know when doors keep opening, that's just meant for my path. So I stay moving forward because I'm like, this is so exciting.

00:37:44
This is so fun. I'm so curious, what's the next thing? I'm just going to keep going with this because I love the good feels I'm feeling in this project. Let's see what happens now with the podcast. I did give myself a year.

00:37:55
I said, when it gets hard, when you're like, I don't know if I love this. I don't know if I want to do this anymore. You have to give yourself a year and you cannot stop. And at that year, you can then look back and say, what did I learn from this? Was this, you know, what did I get out of this?

00:38:12
And of course, obviously, you know, going into season five and I have multiple podcasts now, so it was something that really fulfilled me. And then the people that I've met and the network and then the opportunities, you know, working for Phet Tech now and the Dyslexia podcast and the stuff I'm doing for the foundation, it's all kind of moving forward. But as I said to you, I'm enjoying this journey and I feel like there's a couple things in my life. There's a couple dots that are going to get connected and I almost feel like these things are just going to blow up in the best way. And it's really fun to kind of be in it, but then also sitting back and enjoying all of the stuff.

00:38:50
And that, I feel like, is wisdom. You know, I turned 50 this year. I do feel like I've learned a lot in this year. I started taking yoga. I stopped doing, like, the really intense workouts because my body was like, hey, I think you need to stop a little bit.

00:39:05
High hormone changes, I mean, there's a lot, a lot of going on, but instead of trying to fight it, I was like, okay, I'm going to go with it. I'm going to go with it. And that's not always the easiest for people just to go with those uncomfortable, like, okay, what is my body telling me? What is my mind? What do I need now?

00:39:23
I am a very introspective person, probably more than most, because I just know how I work really well. I know, like, when something's not working, I like to, I like to think. I like to be curious and be like, let's dissect that for a second. But that's my personality. But I don't think enough people in their lives really think, okay, I'm stuck.

00:39:46
What do I want? Like, what do I want? They don't let themselves daydream. They don't let themselves think about, okay, this is what excites me. Can I do it because of the fear, because they don't allow themselves to be like, well, I could do this.

00:40:00
So that's what I did. I just went out and daydreamed. And I mean, we talk about this all the time. I walk the dogs. That's when I do my best daydreaming and that's what I do.

00:40:06
I'd be like, what do I want in my life? What are things that excite me? And so many people just don't do that because of fear. Yeah, you know, again, we align on so many things, but you know, I agree with you. A lot of it is fear, but I also will push back and say, I think a lot of it is our society.

00:40:27
And so all the best leaders that I've met, the ones that really are, I don't know, the ones that are coming, that are what I would call thought leaders that are visionary, are very reflective. And so when I hear that in Youtland, I. And I'm exactly the same way. In fact, the last girl I dated, she goes, does everything have to be so deep with you? And I kind of laughed.

00:40:46
I think that was a passive aggressive way of saying, hey, dude, not everything's complicated, but that's kind of my personality, and I figured out a lot of things. So going back to. I think what's going on with a lot of people is we've trained our brains to be overstimulated. We don't allow ourselves. I talk about being bored in the book.

00:41:07
We don't allow ourselves to be bored. We just grab our phone. We never spend time being quiet, going on a walk. I love that the kids nowadays, and I say, kids, I teach young people, so I love the kids. But the TikTok trends just kind of crack me up.

00:41:26
And so one of them was quiet walking that this went viral. Quiet walking. We've discovered this holy grail. And I go, what's quiet walking? Well, it means go for a walk without having earbuds in.

00:41:37
And I go, holy moly. You know, if you're old like me, there was a time when that's all we had. That's hilarious. I didn't know that, Trent. And so, to your point, when you say, one of the best times.

00:41:49
I do, when I do my best thinking. So I go for a walk or a run, and I will not listen to any podcasts, audiobooks, music, nothing. I listen to the sounds of nature, and I just let my mind think I work. Sometimes I'll give myself homework on a walk. I'll say, okay, I'm wrestling with this idea.

00:42:08
I want to. I want to think about this some more. And on my walk or my run, I will make that my task. You don't know how many ideas I've come up with. What are you out there doing?

00:42:18
Things like that. So, you know, I think that comes, number one, you got to unplug from the technology. Number two, if you're an extrovert, you may have a hard time with that quiet time. I think it comes easier for introverts. I'm an extrovert.

00:42:33
Yeah, but it's not easy it's not easy. No, but it's not easy. Yeah. Yeah. So just, you know, I actually intentionally build in times to be bored.

00:42:43
Where you talk about daydreaming. That's. That's what I'm doing when I force myself to be bored. By the way, boredom is a stressor. That's why we don't like it.

00:42:51
Makes us uncomfortable. We get agitated from boredom, and then we try to, you know, solve that problem. Usually that means picking up your phone and surfing the Internet. But what about you just embrace that boredom and see where your mind goes? That's where creativity comes from, and I think we're becoming a society where we never allow ourselves to be bored, and so that's detrimental.

00:43:13
And then back to kind of what you're saying. One of the chapters of my book is talking about Joseph Campbell's the Hero's journey, and I really focusing on the idea of going through the dark forest. I can remember the first time I interviewed you and Juliet, and I'm almost positive you are not in the place that you're at now. In fact, I heard a lot of kind of indecision in you back then, and I don't remember what year that was. 20, 2021.

00:43:43
You were like, you know, we were going down this path, but you didn't know where this was gonna lead or if it's gonna lead anywhere. And so you were kind of going, I don't, you know, I can't wait to listen back. Yeah, I can't wait to listen back to that. So. So my point being is you were going through the dark forest, and that's a.

00:43:59
It's kind of a little bit of a scary place, and we don't know if the work that we're doing is ever going to matter in the way that we want it to matter. Maybe that's money. Maybe it's other ways of maybe impacting, you know, humankind. But whatever it is for you, as you're. If you're an entrepreneur, you're writing a book, whatever it is that you're doing, that you're putting yourself out there, there's no guarantee that it's going to pay off in any way.

00:44:21
Okay? Right. That is part of getting through the dark forest. And so when you said, I'm gonna give myself a year, that was your dark forest, you're gonna say, I'm gonna go through the dark forest. I know it's not always gonna be fun.

00:44:33
I'm gonna have times when I want to quit. On and on it goes. But you made the commitment to say, I'm gonna get to that finish line. And that finish line for you was a year. And so I encourage everybody to not only know that you're going into the dark forest, know that the inner critic is gonna try to get you to quit because it's going to be uncomfortable, but commit to saying, I'm going to take this to the end, and then maybe it'll pay off, maybe it won't.

00:44:59
But that's life. We don't know. There's no guarantees in life. And so I don't know. You know, 20 people might buy my book, but that wasn't really the, you know, I went down that journey knowing that that wasn't a success metric for me.

00:45:13
I hope that it changes people's lives, but how many books it sells out of my control. And so I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna worry about that. But again, you need to kind of define what those metrics are for you. Why are you doing this?

00:45:25
And then stick it out to the end again, be a finisher. And so then you can reevaluate. Like, you know, I think that's a great tactic. Spend a certain amount of time and say, I'm gonna stick it out till now. And then here's the thing.

00:45:41
You can quit. I. Winners never retire or retire it. I always say, like, if it's not meant to you, for you, but you gave it a good. Like, you gave it everything.

00:45:51
And you're like, okay, this is not my path. I'm gonna. I'm gonna put that on the shelf. Yes. And that's.

00:45:55
I'm gonna look at that and be like, I learned something here, because the quit, I think, is. And again, I know. I know what you're saying, but quit to me is like a negative, like, oh, I quit. And it's like a negative feeling. It's more of, like, I gave that, like, yes, you start something like podcasters, right, that do five episodes, and they've wanted to do it forever, and then they never.

00:46:13
They don't do because they realize they don't like it. You. You're going to go anything in life. You're going to find the things that you don't like. And when things get hard is when you do not quit.

00:46:21
Right. There could be something on the other side of that, and you have to. Work through it so perfectly set. Don't you know? Here's where I was going with that is winners never quit is a bunch of B's.

00:46:30
If you don't like the word quit, call it pivot whatever you want to, you know, quit. Does that mean I'm going to curl up in a ball and lay in the corner and just quit on life? No, that's not really what it means. But this idea that winners never quit, I think is ridiculous. Winners quit and they're smart about it.

00:46:45
And so, again, at the end of that, and again, use the word that feels good to you. If it's pivot, you don't like the word quit, fine. But the idea that we continue down a path that we know is not leading anywhere good is not smart. It's just not. A lot of people look at that as that's mental toughness.

00:47:02
And again, that's part of what I talk about in the book, is no part of mental toughness, is knowing when it's time to retire. It's time to say, this is not going where I thought it was. Now, what I say is, we're gonna. You. We're gonna quit very rarely.

00:47:18
Right. There's gonna be very, you know, small percentage of the time where we quit. There's a good reason to quit. My coach would call it a legit quit, as opposed to a shit quit, legit quit or a shit quit. The shit quit is we quit because it gets hard, because it's no longer fun.

00:47:33
And so, as Juliet said earlier, is you don't quit because it gets hard. If you are still. You're still committed to the mission, don't quit because it gets hard. If the mission changes, maybe then we quit. But that's a different.

00:47:45
That's a different discussion. So, definitely, maybe another thing that's a little bit counter. I do believe that there's a time and a place to retire. Pivot, quit, whatever word you want to use. Yes.

00:47:58
I want you to hold the book up again. Everyone can find it. They can follow you on LinkedIn. To really find up here is the art of forging metal by Ron Duren Jr. You guys do not want to miss this.

00:48:11
Get it and review it. I mean, that's one of the things that people sometimes forget. Even with podcasts you review, because that's what gets us out there more. It's what those fun little algorithms do. But if you enjoy what you're doing, reach out to Ron, let him know.

00:48:27
And Ron, it's always a pleasure to have you on your next stop. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate you saying that. Reviews are wonderful. And let me throw this out here.

00:48:35
I'm going to do this right here on the air, if you buy this book, and again, you're going, hey, this is the first time author. I don't know who this guy is. Why should I take a chance on him? He doesn't have those three magic letters, right? Read this book.

00:48:49
Buy this book. Read this book. If you don't find that you got the value out of it that you paid for it, email me and I'll send you your money back. How's that? I love that you hear it.

00:48:58
Fear first. I believe this is a good book. And the early reviews that I've had, one of my friends said it made her cry. And again, that's, it's one of my close friends, but still, she didn't have to say, hey, I don't think she was making that up. So again, as Juliet said earlier, there's, it's very, it's designed to be inspirational, and I do hope it inspires you to go out and do those hard things and find that fulfillment in your life that I've found, and I'm sure Juliet has found, and really the people that are of, that are happy in life and fulfilled in life are doing those challenging things.

00:49:36
And this will help you get to that point. Yes. Again, thank you so much. You guys know what to do, like rate, review and share. You don't know who in your life needs to hear this episode.

00:49:46
You don't know who is going through some tough times. Maybe they're stuck and they need that little kick in the ass. They need to read Ron's book. So don't forget to go, like, rate, review and share. And we'll see you for another episode of your next, next stop.