#54 Why Deliberate Suffering is Essential to Be The Man, with Charlie Engle

Alright gentlemen, welcome to the Beating Man podcast.

So, so excited today to have Charlie Angle with us.

He and I met a few months back and I've been looking forward to this.

We we were on a bus, we're sitting next to each other on a bus on a dark night out doing some training.

And caught a little bit of a story and asked, I asked you a question.

I don't even know if you remember this.

I asked you a question.

You said something that was so intriguing to me about suffering.

And I'm sure we'll circle back to this.

Something about you had learned how to suffer.

I was like, like we've got to talk.

So before we get into it, why don't you tell us a little bit of your story, give us some background and and let's dive in, brother.

Yeah.

Thank you, Greg.

I remember that conversation too and and.

As as you'll hear more of my story, you know, suffering both selfimposed and universal out of nowhere plays equal roles in my life, you know, so just like everybody's life.

So for me, you know I grew up in North Carolina.

I'm I'm here in Durham, NC Today I'm actually home which I I travel a lot but.

Grew up around this area, moved away to California.

You know, divorced parents, pretty, pretty crazy childhood only child, super young parents, 18 years old and you know, in it and with everything that goes along with that and they divorced very early.

So it kind of grew up without you know, a dad in my life and you know my mom was a perpetual college student.

She was in college the first you know, 10 years of my life and.

And so, yeah.

And it was, look, I'm 60 years old.

So it was, it was the 60s and early 70s.

And it was, it was pretty interesting.

And my mom was she never met A cause that she wouldn't protest for or against one or the other.

So you know, I I grew up carrying signs and walking down streets and it was a great, but that part of it was great, you know, and I I I would like to say my mom.

She passed a few years ago, but the the greatest lesson I guess she ever taught me was just this idea of, you know, she taught me how to think.

She didn't teach me what to think.

And, you know, I I don't get involved in parenting other people's kids, but I try to use it with my own and be very, very thoughtful about, you know, teaching them critical thinking but not trying to force.

My right and wrong and my opinions on them.

Because if I if the lesson isn't inherently showing the path on its own, then our words as parents aren't going to magically make our kids feel a certain way.

And if they're going to have a belief, I want them, you know, I want them to feel the belief, not to believe it just because I believe it.

Yes.

So it's theirs and not yours.

Yeah, and we all know if kids, if our kids, if they don't get the idea themselves, even if we've ushered them to a particular place and look, there's certain things that are obvious and self-evident.

You know, if you know if there's a certain lifestyle choice that you've made that you do every day in your life, of course your kids are going to be more likely to to do that lifestyle choice.

So if you're a fitness guy, if you're an artist, if you're a musician, if you're well, if you're an alcoholic, if you're a, you know, gun toting, whatever.

And I'm not being judgmental when I say that, but I I just mean whatever, you know, it's it's attraction rather than promotion.

You know, generally speaking, our kids and other people in our lives are going to be attracted to the parts of what we do.

That we like.

But if we're constantly spouting off with our words about our beliefs, which I'm going way down a rabbit hole already but like politics for example in this country is, it's a lot of where this why we've ended up, where we've ended up in my opinion is because it's the the world is filled with words and yet not many people actually live the words that they espouse.

And.

You know, and so it doesn't matter what the topic is and whether it's liberal or conservative or whatever, it's just the way the world is.

So for me, I grew up in a a very a household where my mom, when my mom said she was going to do something, she did it.

And you know, and and a lot of it was, it was pretty wild as a kid.

So I moved in with my dad when I was a teenager because I I wanted to play sports and my mom was not.

She was a theater person and you know, I was a. 13 year old kid and and I knew I wanted to play sports so I moved in with him and I played every sport and sucked at all of them except for running because I was 6 feet tall.

I was this tall as tall as I am now but I weighed about £115 and you know football.

It took a little while for me to figure out that I was really good runner though and I you know I won the state of California and.

The mile and half mile and a few things.

And so, hey, Greg, let me just ask, are we a little glitchy on the Wi-Fi?

Are we good?

Just it cut out just a little bit, but we're so.

Good okay making sure.

So for you when you just started, when you started winning and and you were like hey, wow this is, this is I'm good at this.

Well, and it begs the question, I'm going to get stuck on kids, right?

And I asked this question to people all the time.

When you're with your kids, do you push them towards what they're good at or what they're passionate about?

Because what if those two things aren't the same, right?

Are they?

Are they an amazing, like musician, but they're terrible at basketball, But all they want to do is play basketball.

But they love it.

They act like you can tell.

Their heart is in it.

So do you shut down the basketball and force them to play piano because you know they've got this gift, or do you let them be who they're going to be?

I don't actually have an answer for that, but it's always one of those.

Questions.

You know, and we all know that there's, you know, some of the greatest, you know, piano players in history never saw a piano in their life.

And in other words.

They're that gift lived within them, but they weren't born into a situation where they got the opportunity to play it.

And so I don't know, I love these mental games, especially my kids are grown now.

So I already screwed them up.

So there's no, you know, which by the way, we all do that and I don't care how smart you are.

I don't no matter what.

You know, we, you know we make mistakes with our kids.

So.

So for me, look.

My mistake as a kid, you know, I went to college at the University of North Carolina and Chapel Hill as a 17 year old freshman and I thought I was a badass.

You know, I was, you know, I was Mr. Everything in high school, big high school, 2000 kids and I was the first white student body president in my high school which was predominantly black.

And you know, and so it was a big deal in North Carolina like.

And I go to Carolina and and like there's 4000 other freshmen with the exact same resume I had.

You know, because it's a it's a big school and it's hard to get into.

And I got lost and and I started drinking.

You know the drinking age was still 18 when I went to college and you know it it was also 1980 or as I like to refer to it the cocaine decade and you know, and so for.

Honestly, the details don't even matter.

It's all in my book.

Running Man.

Simon and Schuster published a few years ago.

So if anybody's interested in more details, knock yourself out or write to me and I'll send you a book.

But you know, I spent 10 years really struggling as an addict and an alcoholic, and I was always the top salesperson at every job I ever had, because addicts are amazing salespeople and.

So you know.

Even while you're you're deep into alcoholism and you're still selling, still maintaining some success in other areas.

Hell yeah.

Not just some.

I mean, buying houses and cars.

And I mean people.

People have a misperception of what addiction or alcoholism looks like and look inevitably as it did with me, as you'll hear in a second.

That runs its course.

You can't do that forever.

But when you're in your 20s, I mean, think about I'm a lot older than you, but just where we are now, how, how much harder it is to recover from anything now than it was, man, when you're 24 years old.

You can abuse yourself and get away with it the next.

Morning.

Yeah, totally.

You know, have a little sweat.

You know, take a couple aspirin and get on, you know, to the next thing.

And, you know, and for me, it was just this long pattern of, you know, balancing overachieving on one side with my addictions on the other side.

And I did everything.

I went to rehab.

I went to meetings.

I got married.

I, you know, I did everything I could.

I thought to quit.

And finally my first son was born when I was 29.

And, you know, and I thought he was going to solve my problems.

Because surely any decent dad, you know, would quit these behaviors.

Like, that's how I felt.

But that, again, that's not how addiction works.

You know, addiction isn't for 99.9% of people.

It's that you're not making an active choice to screw up your life or to not screw up your life.

You're there's a trigger, and wherever that trigger comes from.

We can talk about this later if you want.

I mean, I'm a big, you know, I focus a lot on trauma.

I coach tons of people.

I mentor people, I sponsor people.

It just depends on the situation.

And I always dig in very quickly to trauma and people get, you know, they get carried away with trying to understand what trauma is and where it came from.

And the fact is, it can be anything, you know, it can be anything when I was growing up, just because we're talking about me right now.

Those first couple of years when I was still a baby, you know, my father was abusive to my mother and I thought, I don't remember it, I was a toddler, I was a baby, right?

So I don't remember it.

But I know it happened and I always felt badly for my mother because I thought it happened to her.

And it took a long time for me to understand that it happened to me too, even if it was directed at her.

Him yelling or even being physical with her or that stress while she was pregnant with me.

And like all those things actually caused stress responses in me that become, yeah, they become deeply embedded in who you are and everything about you.

And they're sitting there no matter how you ignore them or how good your life may be.

And all these other places you always wonder, why don't I feel.

More joy.

Why don't I feel more of this or more of that.

And very often it's that it's that anchor that's still sitting in there.

So for me it finally manifested and feel free to jump in anytime if you want to ask a question.

But I I want to get through this as part of the story.

But for me it finally came around to a couple months into my son's life and you know, things were going well, you know, I I had in fact like you know.

Quit.

And then for for no reason, I found myself in the worst neighborhood, you know, in town smoking crack and drinking for six days and just really destroying everything I had built.

And you know, that binge ended with me, you know, handcuffed and sitting on the ground, you know, with the police looking through my car and like it was, it was a bad situation.

And I I had this.

Epiphany.

And it wasn't a, you know, it's not like rocket science here.

But, I mean, the words came to me, you know, very simply, You know, nobody's coming to save you.

You know, my my infant son, this tiny little baby, he couldn't save me and my my boss and my wife and my job and my parents.

And like none of those people, they could all and would all support me and love me once I made the decision that I had enough of this.

And I wanted to make a change.

And that day I made a change.

You know, I I went to a meeting that night and I went for a run the next day.

And I made a commitment to do those two things every single day until my life got better and it actually got better quickly.

But I continued to do those two things.

And I I went to a meeting and I went for a run for three straight years without missing a day.

And you know, in my life, my life got significantly better just by focusing on the whatever else was going on, it was going to be what it was going to be.

But if I did, I I treated those two things like my life depended on them because, you know, I felt like it did.

Wow.

And and that's that's so profound because it's a simple commitment.

Shifting your focus that much totally transform your life.

How people look, let me just say this, because what you just said is important.

People get caught up in thinking that they need to make huge changes.

What they need to make, well, I don't want to say I know what's best for everybody.

But generally what I find with people I work with, if I can get them to make small incremental changes but really commit to them every day.

Like if it's freaking, if it's cold plunge, if it's a nutritional thing, if it's going to bed at a certain time, if it's I don't, whatever it is or whatever those couple things are.

If if they can just commit to that and like, no matter what, it's like a run streak.

I don't know if you've ever.

I don't.

I don't think you're a big runner, but like, you're an athlete.

But it's like being on a streak of something if you've committed to do it and you've said out loud or inside your own head, like I'm going to do this every day for 30 days or 60 days or a year, whatever it is.

Then no matter what, it's it's not like, oh, it's raining outside.

I can't do it today or I'm going to go travel on an airplane to Portugal.

Like, how am I going to do this?

Well, you know how you're going to do it.

You're going to figure it out.

You're going to say no matter what, I don't care if it's in the airport, I'm going to run or walk 2 miles if that's my commitment.

Like I'm going to do it no matter what, or it's the first thing I do when I get to a new city, no matter what.

And it's that mentality that I think really creates a long term shift in people. 100%, But, and I think in my observations, that's actually pretty rare, even even for pretty, you know, pretty committed people.

It's rare to have a no matter what mentality or you know, treat it like you said, like my life, like my life depends on it.

And this is one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.

We haven't even gotten into some of the things you've done since, like, but there's something here.

I think this is where it started.

You flipped the switch and said I'm going to do this every day and you did it for three years.

Like what?

And this is where I want to get into and you'll have you.

I'm obviously you have grown and expanded and and conditioned to train yourself more.

What do you think?

What do you say to yourself on the days you don't feel like doing it, or when the circumstances really look like that?

They're tempting you to say it's impossible today, like I've done well, but it's impossible today.

What do you do differently that that I, my observation is, is different than the vast majority of people.

Yeah, you know, it's funny.

I just, I just thought of like, I my next somebody will probably steal this idea if I say it out loud, but I'll do it anyway.

Like then my next podcast should be called Wiggle Room.

You know, because what we do as human beings, if we allow ourselves even the smallest bit of Wiggle room.

You know, to to like to just edge out of a commitment like, oh, it's out of our control.

It's, it's raining.

My flight got delayed.

The kids are sick.

I don't know.

Whatever it is, you know it it's so easy to step away from a commitment.

For me, I did.

I actually made it pretty easy in a in a way.

It doesn't sound easy to a lot of people, but I made a commitment.

I would run and that meant 3 miles for me.

So my minimum run.

For those three years was 3 miles and I, but I mean, I ended up running like 35 marathons during that period of time.

And the joke I make is like always, because obviously I had that whole addiction thing under control, you know.

And so I was still, you know, I ran like an addict in a way.

But I, I, I all.

And I think this is important.

It's important to me.

I I ran that hard every day because.

You know, in a way, I wanted to get rid of that part of my personality.

I thought if I ran hard enough, I could cut the addict out of me.

Like I could kill that guy because he was trying to kill me.

And what I learned in those three years is that the addict is all the best parts of me.

My obsessive nature and addictive nature is it's everything that makes me good at stuff.

You know, and as long as I don't put drugs and alcohol in my system and I point my energy towards the things I'm passionate about, it's a it's a superpower.

I mean, I'm not this isn't a brag in the in the in any way, but I I think nobody who spends a little time around me or knows my story doubts that if I say I'm going to do something, especially physically.

You know, it doesn't always mean I'm going to be successful.

I'm not even saying that.

But I mean I'm going to get to that start line and I'm going to, I'm going to take my best shot at doing this thing, whatever it is and the impossibility of it is for other people to own.

I think.

I think there's another big there's another big part of this and and we have a mutual friend, Jeremy, who we, he and I talk about this a lot.

And it's about anchors.

And this is, I'll keep this brief, but it's about, you know, the easiest thing to be in the universe is a critic.

It's easy to just shit on other people's ideas and their passions and.

And I look at it as a recovering addict.

In my life, there were people trying to like there was a rope attached to me.

They were trying to pull me back by saying, hey man, you know, you weren't that bad.

You just need to slow down, you know, and.

Even some family members who loved me, I realized that their fear was about what was going to happen to them.

Their fear wasn't about their fear was about me leaving them my success.

All of a sudden I become a guy who doesn't need them and their nonsense and a drinking buddy or all this.

I didn't need any of that anymore.

And So what does that mean for them and what does it mean for them in my life?

So their way of.

Of trying to they're not trying to do something mean to me.

They're just they're doing what humans.

It's a threat.

Yeah.

They're feeling threatened, yeah.

Totally.

They're worried about what's going to what about me if all this happens.

And so, you know, I just kept running during those three years and and there were days, of course, where I didn't want to do it.

It was raining, it was snowing, I was traveling, I had sick kids, I had you name it, it happened.

But by never, I mean literally.

By never allowing the thought of should I do this today the only thought I ever had was how am I going to do this today you know and that's a that's just a big difference in mentality.

You know if you torture yourself with wiggle with wiggle room if you that's a torture mechanism it's a self torture mechanism and and.

Yeah.

And you're doomed if that's the way you're going to approach it.

And and I just didn't approach it that way.

And you know and I look man, at the end of those those years, I also, you know I became curious about how far I could go.

You know when I started doing runs all around the world I entered 50 milers, then I entered 100 milers, then I entered races that.

Across the Gobi desert, across the Atacama desert in Chile, I ran all the way across the jungles of Borneo and Fiji and Vietnam.

And I I did literally the hardest races in the world.

And I think this goes back to our conversation on the bus because I understood and valued self-imposed suffering and I almost wish I had a better word than suffering.

But suffering is kind of a fun word.

Because here's the thing, man.

Anybody.

Anybody you ask, anyone listening to this.

And by the way, everybody on here, when I talk about addiction, no matter who's listening to this right now, you either have struggled yourself, you have a family member who struggled, you have a coworker, a close friend, somebody in your life and that you've probably even lost someone to addiction either through.

You know overdose or their body shutting down or suicide, you know, I mean it's it's all related.

So yeah, so everybody knows what I'm talking about even if it's not you know you yourself.

And I think it's important to note and you know what I recognize in the value of self-imposed suffering as of and I and I juxtapose that with the things that the universe just throws at us, right.

I mean we.

And I mean, there's a lot of Gray area in between.

If you do a certain lifestyle behavior, I'll pick an easy one.

If you smoke for many, many years and you get lung cancer and you're surprised you got lung cancer, you're really not paying attention.

Like that's not actually an out of the blue disease, that's a disease that you probably dreaded and thought it was possible.

You know, a car accident or or the death of a loved one, I mean so there's a lot of things that come out of nowhere in our lives.

So why not give yourself self-imposed suffering and in particular of the physical nature and and let's even switch gears for just a second.

Because it's miserable.

That's why not.

Yeah, well, but.

But what's not miserable is.

Are your Do you want to ship your kids, like off to like $10?

Two some days?

Do you want to close down your business and say, screw this, I don't know why I ever thought this was a good idea.

Some days, yeah, of course we all feel that way sometimes.

But if you've never felt that before, you might make.

A poor decision.

And So what I love to always say to my own kids even, is don't don't make a big decision at a low moment, because those moments aren't real.

Like if you just get a good night's sleep or two, I'm not saying the problem's going to go away, but your ability to process it.

And like, don't leave the marriage, don't quit the job, don't relapse.

If you've been sober for a while, like don't do those things at just some low moment, let that moment pass by.

But, but here's my here's my pitch for like running a marathon or 100 miles or biking across Europe or what anything that it might be that that you think might be your thing climbing a mountain.

There's going to come a time if you pick something hard like I've never run 100 mile or in my life that I didn't want to quit multiple times ever.

It's a long way.

I don't care if it's downhill and 60 degrees and it's next to an ocean and there's naked women along the way or.

What It doesn't matter.

You are going to want to quit.

And the only moments that I ever remember in those races are the moments that I wanted to quit, that I was certain that I couldn't go on.

So I actually want to get to that point.

I don't remember all the easy stuff.

You don't remember the easy days in your business.

You remember the hard days because they're the ones that have taught you the lessons that will help you keep going in the future.

So.

Those are the things we, like, obsessively seek out, Like to avoid discomfort, to avoid.

Like we spent our whole lives trying to box that stuff out and you're.

Worse.

Lean into it.

Yeah.

And worse, Worse.

Greg, we try to eliminate those things for our kids.

You know, I had a woman a couple months ago.

She's like, she raises her hands.

She's like, you know, I just want my kids to have it easier than I had when I was growing up.

And I and I just said, why?

Like, what do you have against your kids?

Right.

Because, I mean, you know.

Like, I mean how is that going to help them, you know, learn anything, get anywhere.

And I'm not saying like, you know, yeah, pull your pull your five year old out of the street if there's traffic coming.

But like you know, generally speaking don't be a snow plow parent.

And and and back to the beginning of our conversation.

I mean I'm not saying my mom, she was far from perfect in fact, but but she was a critical thinker.

I would ask my mom the obvious questions like.

I'll never forget funny story 72.

It's presidential election.

And like Full disclosure, my mom is a super liberal Like she's a theater person.

There's no, she's a hippie.

Like there's just no choice.

So I said to her mom, we have the presidential election at school.

So as school kids, we voted in school.

You know, just pretend election, whatever.

And I said who should I vote for?

And this is Nixon and McGovern and.

And she said.

Well, Charlie, you know some people think this and some people think this, and you're just going to have to make up your own mind.

Despite the fact that, I mean my mom not, there's not a, there's not a bone in her body that it would have ever voted for Nixon.

Like it just that's not who she, you know, that's that.

Now, you know, McGovern, I think only won one state.

So it was a it was a historic beat down in presidential elections.

And I think I was the only kid in my school that actually voted that way too.

So I probably got my ass kicked too.

But I'll never forget the teacher who she asked me, which is totally inappropriate.

You couldn't do it.

Now she asked me who I voted for and I said McGovern, it's there.

She had a I voted sticker and she like slapped it onto my chest like hard.

What's wrong with you?

Anyway.

You know, all that is to say do hard things, man, and and you know the the universe is going to serve up hardship for you and you know to try to avoid it and is actually not just pointless, but it's actually harmful.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

OK.

So there's lots of mindsets in there.

There's lots of layers because I think people have heard this message and they, they get it conceptually, you consistently do it and you do it on a level.

That's beyond most of us, like the vast majority of even after putting in a huge effort, we would quit, but we would quit so.

So once one first step is like seek out chances to struggle, to challenge, to, to push your level and when you hit those limits.

I I'm curious.

I want to know what are you saying to yourself when you're in 100 miles like when you're you did the Death Valley what five times that you tell me that you've done these unbelievable adventures.

When you are just empty, when you're hurting, what's going on?

What Like why do you keep going?

When when when I would stop?

It's easy.

I mean, I'm not kidding.

It's easy and and it and it's because experience has taught me, I'll answer it too.

Experience has taught me two things.

If it's 100, let's say it's Death Valley.

It's bad water, it's 135 miles, it's it's in second week in July and it's through Death Valley.

I mean, it's the worst race on the planet and you know, so multiple times I've gotten to mile 61 or 75 or whatever.

If I allow my brain and I've fallen apart, and if I allow my brain to say at mile 75, I've got 60 more miles to go, and I feel like this right now, it's impossible.

It's just impossible.

There's no way in my current condition that I can.

But I don't think that way.

What I know is when I feel this way, as a runner, I need to eat 1000 calories.

I need to drink.

I need to put some ice on my neck.

I need to walk for a little while.

I need to try to get my pain threshold from a A10 to an 8.

And I need to get to the next checkpoint where my support team is.

And so all I'm worried about is going two more miles until I see my car again and and and beyond that.

I do.

I mean, I literally.

And maybe it's just I'm I compartmentalize.

Well, I recognize that if I don't get to my car in two more miles, then I can't get beyond my car.

So instead of allowing myself to get stuck in this pain cycle and screwing myself mentally, then you know, and you can translate.

That's why I say do hard things.

That actually don't have great consequences.

I could quit bad water and it's not life or death for me, right?

I mean, I'm going to be upset about it or whatever for a day.

If I were to and I did quit one time, I had to and medically got pulled from the race, you know, it just wasn't my day.

And so I do know what that feels like, too.

But think about how that translates to your business or to your, you know, when you're having the worst day with one of your kids who.

Has gotten in some serious trouble at school or there's some real stuff going on.

Do you get a chance to just throw up your hands and say, oh, well, I'm not doing this anymore?

No, no.

And so giving yourself those opportunities to learn what that feels like in a situation that isn't critical particularly.

But when I get through that moment and I make it to the finish line of that race, I take those lessons with me and they translate so easily to my marriage, to my business, to my relationship with my kids, like it.

It teaches me to handle the hard situations that are going to come up and, you know, in in life.

And again, physically, people, people just don't realize what they're capable of.

And So what I Here's the other thing that I will say, though, because like, right now people are listening to this and they're thinking, okay, yeah, okay, Charlie, I got it.

I'm going to go plan this massive adventure.

Then they get caught up in the paralysis of analysis and they're trying to figure this out or whatever, and they think maybe they're thinking, too bad I'm going to go climb Mount Everest.

Well, for God's sakes, wherever you are.

Figure out an adventure that's digestible can be done maybe in a weekend.

Don't enter somebody else's event if you want to.

But don't forget, like, I love this lowest to highest thing and I do this all around the world.

I like going from low points to high points.

So you know, you could whatever country or state you live in, you could plan some little adventure to go from the lowest point to the highest or.

You could plan to ride your bike across your county.

Like I love this kind of thing.

Like let's say that's like 50 miles from end to end.

Well, you get a map.

You make a plan.

It's like doing a business plan.

It's a great learning tool.

You figure out, OK there's 57 elevens on the way.

There's a restaurant I'm going to stop and have lunch in.

I've got a support team that's going to drive the you know, my my car so that in case I need anything and.

Whatever.

And you just make a plan and you do it and and people just get way too caught up and trying to over plan and train for six months.

Man, you're not trying to win the Boston Marathon, for God's sakes.

You know, if you're a reasonably fit person, just go do it.

That is awesome.

So you're thinking about, you're thinking about Portugal already.

You're like.

Yeah, exactly.

I'm like, I got a whole continent here with amazing mountains.

Mont Blanc is not that far.

No, I mean it's that's for real.

Oh, that's awesome.

But I just love, I love the concepts you're saying here because what what you're doing is you're you're establishing low risk simulations, so to speak.

Like, very low risk.

It's a simulation for real life, and you can learn so much in the process and about yourself so that when real life does show up, you're like, hey, wait, I've, I've done something like this.

I've tested my capacity.

Yeah, I've.

I've gotten to this place where I can, I can think differently.

Yeah, well, and look, I, I, I would be remiss.

You know, I've over talked a little bit on a few things, but you know about this already, so I'll just tell you.

For your listeners and that is, you know, I became years back the first person by the way my wife, my, my life got better enough where I was the senior producer for a TV show called Extreme Makeover Home Edition for years.

And so everybody saw that show on a BC and it was the number one show on TV for years.

And at the same time I became the number one ultra distance runner in the world for a while.

So I went from this.

Addict type person to you know, doing some pretty cool stuff.

And I got this idea to run across the Sahara desert and I ended up through a series of crazy circumstances.

Partnering with with Matt Damon and Matt and I, Matt produced and narrated this film running the Sahara and I became the first person in history actually to run all the way across Africa about 5000 miles.

So yeah, so I ran from Senegal all the way across Africa to Egypt and the Red Sea.

You know, I ran through Giza, I ran.

I'm the only Westerner to ever run all the way through, you know, Libya, So Mali, Niger, Mauritania, all, you know, 6 Islamic countries and.

It was the most amazing experience.

And when it was over, I ran, I basically ran 2 marathons per day for 111 consecutive days without taking, without taking the day off.

So who who knew Africa was that big?

You know?

It was like, I should have checked the maps a little closer, but you can still get the film running.

The Sahara, It's on.

It was on Netflix and places a long time, but it was, it's on.

It's just on Apple on iTunes these days.

So.

But you know that that also led to the creation of what is today the world's largest clean water nonprofit called water.org.

And and you know when I ran I made a decision that I was going to start a clean water nonprofit.

I raised about $6,000,000 during the run.

And and after and.

We realized it was way bigger than we were going to be able to handle.

We partnered with someone else today, it's called water.org and we've deployed, we've raised about 1.5 billion.

We've deployed about 4 billion.

And you know, and here's the thing, Greg, it's, it's.

I had no intention of doing that.

You know, people also get way too caught up in outcomes.

You you cannot ever predict the outcome of something like this.

All you can do is focus on what's right in front of you, do the thing.

I was, I just wanted to see if I was capable of running across the Sahara Desert.

I wasn't trying to, like do anything more than that.

But out of that crazy idea came another thing.

That now affects the lives of millions of people in a positive way.

And they don't know who I am.

They don't know anything about, you know, I call it accidental philanthropy, You know, if you if you go do hard things and it is my other big lesson I I try to work with my kids on and they don't listen to me the same as most kids don't but.

Young people in particular get so attached to outcomes that right from the beginning when they're analyzing.

And you as a a business guy, you know this too.

You know you can.

If you get so attached to the outcome right at the very beginning, you you probably will never take the first step because maybe you've done all the analysis and you've come to the conclusion it's not worth it.

That may be true, but.

Your success.

I don't even know.

You know.

In fact, Greg, I barely even know what you do or whatever.

But my I I know that you've done well for yourself.

My guess, and this is this is not a genius statement you've gotten where you are, but the path for getting there ended up being much different than you thought would be.

Totally different, yeah.

And that's why again, people who get caught up and trying to map everything out and they've got to have every detail in place.

I mean, honestly, I just more power to those people if it works out.

But I can't, I don't.

Yeah, I don't do well with those folks because I'm a life is about adaptation and I don't care if it's in the moment or long term, It's not.

About avoiding the hardships we've already established, it's about who are you when the hardships come along.

Yes.

And write that down and it's it's there's this word metal METTLE, and it's kind of like what do you have inside of you?

What kind of metal do you have?

Like who are you when the hardships come along?

Yeah.

No, that's it.

Well, and it's easy to be an optimist when everything's going your way, right?

But who are you when the world throws those curveballs and you feel desperate and out of control?

And I mean, I'm going to say this one thing, and this is, case in point, my wife has cancer.

We've been married 10 years.

She's had cancer for six years.

We're still in the middle of it right now.

Like it's this is an everyday part of my life and her life and we never expect she's.

She played professional beats, volleyball and was a pro cyclist and like she's she lived in the Amazon by herself for years.

Like this is a badass human being and we had everything all mapped out, all these things we were going to do together and hopefully we still get to do them together.

But that's not.

That's not the way it works.

And you either, you know, you, you adapt to the situation and you figure out how to make the best of it.

And I haven't done a good job of that.

Sometimes, you know, there's been plenty of days where I freely admit, like it feels, you know, impossible.

But, you know, I just encourage people always to to, you know, make a plan.

And then when things go wrong, because they will, you know, then you get the opportunity to show what you've learned and and find you know the next right path.

Yes.

Oh my goodness.

So many great insights, Charlie, How, how do you sustain this long term?

You've been doing this for a long time.

And.

Like, how do you?

In fact, I want to take the whole picture because I'm I'm all about holistic optimization, whole life optimization.

I'm I'm confident that you're drawing on sources of power, not not just physical, but mental and emotional and social and spiritual.

How do you, how do you, how do you nourish your whole being, so to speak?

How do you like?

Because you it's like an you do endurance events but you have an endurance life?

Yeah, it's a great question.

I know you've got some things you've figured out, some things along the way of, like I've have to.

In fact, you've become a master of sustainment.

I have and you know and I'm actually thank you for saying that and I actually I normally.

I don't know, I I don't do a lot of self congratulating.

But I would agree with you in this case, you know I'm part of it is my desire as my wife would point out of to never have a real job.

So you know because I suck at that normal.

So I'm a speaker.

I'm a writer, I'm a consultant, you know and and I consult in longevity.

I do a lot of coaching.

And coaching means anything.

It's life coaching.

It's transcendence coaching.

It's coaching not just in longevity and Wellness, but in psychedelic therapies.

You know, I am a big believer and and look, man, I'm 30 years clean and sober.

Less than a month for now.

Assuming I don't, you know, relapse, I'll have 31 years and.

My way of celebrating, by the way, is I will run on July 22nd and 23rd.

I'll run for 31 straight hours not to.

Say miles of.

Course, right.

Yeah.

All right.

People always assume, and I've done this for many years, so I run for the same number first to equal.

And I'll do it with a bunch of other people at a treatment center up in Maryland.

And you know, it's my way of of honoring not just, you know, my time, but you know the other people that I've lost and those people who are still trying to figure it out And you know and all of that.

But you know, I I think when I use the word longevity and I'm using it with anyone and I think this does answer your question, how have I done it?

The how I've done it is to always try to.

Keep my mind open to the next thing that might help me.

Not jumping on the next bandwagon either though.

And I don't want to.

Like, I don't want to poo poo or get into arguments or have people write me emails about, you know, keto or fasting or whatever.

It's not my thing, you know?

I have lived a healthy lifestyle for a very long time and I don't need a fad thing to come along and.

You know, and try to change that somehow.

Like it's not.

And again, I'm not saying that, you know, if you listen to Andy Huberman or you listen to Peter Attia or some of these true, true experts in the field of longevity.

And the longevity is not just physical, it's mental, It's spiritual.

I'm partners with Deepak Chopra and a business around addiction and recovery.

So I've had a chance to be around this.

Beautiful man for, you know years and listened to his you know philosophy which is very I would say Buddhist in nature.

I'm great friends.

Everybody should write this down.

His name is Gabor Motte Gabor and his last name is MATE and he has a book out now called the Myth of Normal and he was, you know he's a Hungarian Jew in his.

You know around 80 or so who was rescued as a baby from the, you know, concentration camps when he was a kid and and he believes that and I believe it, you know, in trauma informed disease pathology, let's just put it that way, so.

So yes, we can trace certain diseases to, you know, maybe certain causes, whether they're genetic or environmental in some way.

But the vast majority of what ends up being wrong with us is actually stress related.

It's it's caused by traumas like I was talking about earlier in this conversation.

So those things that happened to what I thought to my mother, they happened to me.

Yeah.

Did they contribute to me being an alcoholic and an addict?

I am of the belief that absolutely 100% yes is the answer to that.

And a long time ago I would have told you that I thought it was just genetics because there's four.

I'm a fourth generation, you know, drunk as I like to say and like.

You know there, sure.

So there are some of those factors.

But you when you get trauma in you and in your body, it lives there and stays there until you figure out a way to get it out.

So the you used the word embedded before and I really like that.

I was just hanging on to that and this is it.

It gets embedded.

You got to get it out.

And for me, I've used good and people have accused me of my whole life like, Oh well, you know, you you're just, you changed addictions, now you're just a running addict.

Well, some of that was my way of getting at those parts of me that I couldn't reach through traditional therapy or through meditation or some other mechanism.

Like, I just felt like there was 25% of my.

Crap, that was it's like wedged way deep down in here, right?

And so how was I going to get to that if running 1000 miles or across a desert or whatever, if that wasn't going to get it, how am I going to get there?

So I I decided that I needed to open my mind to other therapies, you know, that are.

All of these things are going to be legal, like very, very soon.

Anything from ketamine is legal.

But ketamine, MDMA, psilocybin, all of these things are with and I am talking about therapeutic use with a professional.

People want to argue with me sometimes about what all that means and I'm like, look, man.

Just because an MD hands you a pill, you decide that that makes it okay like an antidepressant or some other thing.

Yet, you know, and and you and I both work with, you know, we have this veteran community that we're around who kill themselves at rates that are 10 times greater than the average American.

Yeah, we want to send them to talk therapy and like, oh, it's too dangerous to give them psilocybin.

I'm like, it's too dangerous to give them psilocybin.

I got to tell you, dude, putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger, that's pretty dangerous too.

And and no one's ever died of a psilocybin overdose.

So, you know, people just, they need to calm down on what they think.

You know, that things like, I wish there was another word.

Plant medicine is a little gentler, but.

You know, let's let's.

Let's deep dive a little bit here.

And so these those are all.

I'm not familiar with each of those but basically it's psychedelics and well, are you.

I don't know how open you are willing to talk about it and have you tried it?

Like are you around it?

I'm so curious because I'm hearing so many positive things coming out from from people who are addicts, people who have experienced severe trauma, soldiers like.

And and I've read about it, I've talked to you personally and the the things I'm hearing are really positive.

Yeah, it's incredibly positive.

And look the key.

And I just want to reiterate what I just said a moment ago so people don't get like carried away with the wrong idea.

Therapeutic meaning you have a professional therapist who is guiding you through this process.

You do a lot of pre work.

Meaning, defining what it is we're trying to get at.

Like what is the what is the issue?

What are we maybe the issue?

Let's just take depression, you know, for example.

Like a lot of people suffer from depression, and usually it's not the only thing depression can go with.

Addiction to substances, PTSD, obviously.

So again, especially in the veteran community, we're seeing a lot of people who have these things.

So you know, there was a study out of Harvard recently and it's the most comprehensive study of its kind of our time that basically says 2 doses of psilocybin, which is mushrooms.

You know, two doses of psilocybin at a prescribed amount and that is somewhere, you know, if you listen to Andrew Huberman's podcast about psilocybin and like, yeah, he just did that.

This podcast was just a few weeks ago, so it's easy to find.

It's two hours on psilocybin.

It's the best explanation that is both scientific and dumbed down for people like me who can act so you can actually understand it.

But those two doses, 7 to 10 days apart, essentially in the study subjects ended up getting 60% better results.

So psilocybin along with a therapist rather than an SSRI like Paxil or Zoloft or one of the antidepressants.

That, along with a therapist, 60% better results.

And it lasted for a year.

The the the antidepressant. 2 doses.

Seven days apart, one year positive benefit.

Exactly.

And no, you know, anybody who's ever taken an SSRI knows it has sexual side effects.

It has.

Kind of a.

It has all kinds of negative side effects.

OK, so your sex drive goes up or goes weird.

No.

Terrible.

No, it goes.

Not only does it go down, you can't, you know, you can't get an erection.

You can't like it's it's Ssri's.

Yeah, I mean, it's a good thing.

It cures your depression because the side effects would depress you all all on their own.

Yeah.

And look, and I am comfortable saying that, I've had a couple of experiences myself with.

You know, professionals at Johns Hopkins.

And you know, I am a person that believes strongly that intent matters with everything.

Like there may be people out there who would like say, oh, well, you know, you say you're a sober person.

Well, if you did this, then you're not sober.

I'm like, that is.

I mean, it's just not.

It's not true.

It'd be like saying if I went to the dentist and I had two root canals, but I took some hydrocodone for three days.

Yeah.

Like I'm no, I'm no longer sober.

It's just nonsense.

And anyone who feels that way, you're welcome to, like, unfollow me, delete me from social media.

You do whatever you want.

Because right now, Greg, let me just tell you, in the United States, less than 10% of people who go to rehab.

For a substance issue, less than 10% are actually still sober a year later.

It's more like 7%.

Name me any other industry in the world where a 7% success rate would actually be OK.

And even be sustainable or stay in business?

Yeah, those rates have bugged me for decades.

What if your car got fixed 7% of the time when you took it to the mechanic?

Or you go to a restaurant and 7% of the time you get a good meal?

Like it's but it's acceptable.

And I don't want to get on my high horse here too much, but it's acceptable because it's all about money.

Lobbyists are paying politicians and the prisons, the hospitals, big pharma, everybody.

All you ever have to do is look at who benefits.

From the treatment of keeping people sick in addiction and recovery and depression and PTSD and all these things, who benefits?

Well, it's pretty obvious who benefits.

I don't need to go down the list.

And so, you know, we have to look at alternate methods of, you know, of getting people help that they need.

And stop being so dogmatic about, you know, about certain things.

And I'm a huge advocate in the addiction recovery space.

I work with a place called Ashley Addiction Treatment Center in Maryland.

That's where I will be doing my 31 hour run.

And by the way, anybody listening to this?

July 22 and 23, I'll send you a flyer.

I don't know if you do show notes, but if there's some show notes, we'll put the flyer in there.

You're anyone's invited to come join me for.

It's on a two mile loop, so a lot of people just come and spend a couple of hours hanging out and running around in a circle.

It is a fundraiser, Greg, so I don't mind saying that.

Last year I raised about 100 grand during the run and that money.

That money goes for scholarships, for people who can't afford treatment.

So I unashamedly ask for people to toss some money in the Kitty if they want to.

And you know, everybody knows somebody that needs help with addiction or some other mental health issue.

And so it's an opportunity to, you know, to to do that.

And look, I have and I'm not, you know, I know, I I know we need to go soon.

But I wanted to tell you you, I think you know about this.

But my, I'm never shy about talking about my next big project, which is, you know, going from the Dead Sea to the top of Mount Everest.

And basically it's the world.

It's the lowest place on the planet to the highest point on the planet.

And I.

As I like to say, it's metaphorically, it's kind of the journey that we are all on from low places to high points and trying to find or our way to navigate through all of this, and it will be a big journey.

I'm actually going to do this on all 7 continents and I have yet to do Europe.

I'll go kind of from the Caspian Sea up to the top of Mount Elbrus.

It's one of the shorter ones, but it's a very complicated one because of where it's located.

But be careful, you might get sucked into it with me when the time comes.

Every time I hear you talk about when I first heard about, I'm like, I want to do that.

Yeah, well, I just made a big arrangement actually with some folks and the head of YPO in Israel, we are putting together a big program for the beginning of Dead Sea to Everest and.

Because, you know, it's a little hard to calculate exactly where I'll be at certain points along the way.

And for the listeners, I'm literally going to, I'm going to, I'm going to kayak across the Dead Sea, do a free dive in the Dead Sea to the lowest place I can reach, continue across to Jordan, run all the way across the Arabian desert to Oman Row, about 1000 miles across the Indian Ocean to India.

Mountain bike to the base of Mount Everest, which is a couple 1000 more miles in western Nepal, and then, you know, climb to the top.

And so there's so many problems that are inherently built into this, but people will be given the opportunity to come out and join and you know, we'll try to do some good along the way.

All this is on my website, by the way, which is just my name.

It's Charlie engel.com.

Also, you know, I spent a year and a half in federal prison, so all of that stuff is on my website.

And crazy story that, you know, I never shy away from, But all the details are on there if you want to see what you know, what it looks like to have everything, to lose everything.

You know, so I'm very open about all of it.

Gosh, so many stories.

We could keep talking for hours and hours and hours.

That's so awesome, brother.

I love.

I love what you're doing and that you took your own transformation, it sounds like, immediately just went outward with it.

I think Boulder, look, it's what you're doing right now, my friend, and that is.

And I, you know, we don't know each other super well, but I know this about you already.

You know, if you as a human being are willing to be vulnerable in front of other people and share those parts of yourself, it encourages other people to do the same.

And in particular with men, you know it's.

You know, it becomes a little more complicated in figuring out how to be vulnerable without sounding like you're complaining or I don't know, you just have to sort it out for yourself.

But you know, most of the time when we open up and talk about, you know, some struggle, I have found that 99% of the time what I get back as other people's, of other people's stories of struggle and.

The bond and the.

I think the power, one of the things I'd love to say, where there's pain, there's power.

And that applies in so many ways to what you what you've taught us today, bro.

Well, and if you, you know we belong and I'm sorry, I don't remember.

Are you part of go abundance?

No.

You know, I just, you know, yeah, yeah, I know about go ban it.

Yeah.

So that's another good example.

Like there's it's a great organization.

There's probably 1000 members, it's all guys.

But but what I love about it is they go do things.

So it's not just a bunch of talk on zoom calls and whatever, like they have regional things and they get together and they go do, they go whitewater raft, they go climb a mountain, they go do whatever and.

We all know, especially as men, and I'm not trying to exclude women here, but like they have the same experience.

But as men, if we we could meet in a coffee shop once a week for a year for an hour and we would not get as much out of that as we would a three day.

Get together on some mountain where we do something physically hard and we help each other and we bond through that experience.

Like that's how you become friends with people.

Is is going to do things with them, you know, not sitting around talking about, you know, business.

It just doesn't not how it works. 100% man.

So much goodness, Charlie.

I appreciate it so much.

If you were just just one last thought here, if you were to just really kind of hone down the most important message that you're sharing, and you've been sharing it for a long, long, long time.

Simple.

It is actually simple.

Pops my head right away and it just is this simple idea that you know well.

I even would say two things.

I said it earlier in our chat, Nobody's coming to save you.

First of all, like, it's not a that's not apocalyptic type message, It just simply is the realization that if you take that step forward, very much like, right, the Paolo Cuello famous book The Alchemist.

You know, like if you take that first step, the world will conspire to help you, like, but the world doesn't get together and try to push you out the door.

The world will.

You know, once you take that step out the door, the world will come together.

Doesn't mean it's going to be easy or go exactly the way you want, but but the real message is, is this what happens to us isn't nearly as important as what we do about it.

I mean good things, Bad things are going to happen to us every day.

Like all this is going to happen.

What matters is your response, not head in the hands.

And Oh my God, why does this always happen to me?

I'm not saying that we all don't have those moments.

We all have them.

I don't care who you are.

I had one a couple days ago.

You know where I'm like, going, you know, I can't do this anymore.

I'm saying those words out loud to myself.

I can't do this anymore.

Whatever was going on, I don't even remember.

Like, that's how fleeting they are.

But like you, you you have to let those moments pass.

I also, you know, I know it's a longer answer than you wanted.

But I I also believe I've also learned this lesson when I have that occasional, like, super off day.

Like, I can just feel it, man.

I've got a little depression going on.

Maybe I can't even source it.

Like, maybe I'm just overwhelmed.

Like, whatever it is, I I just, I I I go, I try to just like, go on there, apologize.

And if I can free up my afternoon and take a nap and watch a Netflix movie or go for a walk or whatever, then that's what I do and give your, you know, cut myself some slack.

Because I am a hard charger, most of us are that are going to be associated with you and me and we are harder on ourselves than anyone else possibly could be.

And so learning to have some self compassion is, you know, I think it's the hardest thing to learn how to do.

But just cut yourself some slack and get up the next day and put the armor back on and go back to work, you know, and.

And don't get caught up in in like the minutiae of of the things that happened to you, yeah.

Beautiful brother, So many big, big takeaways, and I feel like you've taught us today well.

Obviously your example is the biggest thing.

So thank you for that a lot of honor.

I know you're you're not looking for that but I I want to thank you and and give you the honor you deserve for going out for me and say look these kind of things can be done And then teaching us what you're doing these little these little strategies you have to think no this This is why I do it and this is how to keep going.

We we can take that stuff right now and and the people listening and I can take that.

And we can make significant improvements to our lives across across every aspect of our lives with these with these strategies.

And they are interrelated.

You know, people too often treat the all the way back to the beginning of our conversation.

If you just got yourself a cold plunge cuz it's the new cool thing to do.

I've got one.

So I felt I I believe in them but like.

Understanding that the commitment to doing, it's not about what is this actually doing for me, It's about making the commitment to do it every day.

That's what that's doing more for you than the physiological changes that might be happening because of the cold plunge itself.

It's about saying for at least this period of time, I'm committing. 10 minutes a day.

I'm doing this part, you know, it's going to happen every single day and then let's see what happens from there.

And you know, I think that that's the, that's the power in just making those tiny incremental little commitments that you can, that you stick to no matter what.

Yes, yes.

And you can get more out of the commitment and the consistency maybe than the actual thing.

Yeah.

Does this, does this work?

Does taking this vitamin work?

Does meditating or breath work or whatever?

Does it work?

I don't know.

I don't know, man.

I know I feel better when I do them.

But I also recognize that part of the reason I feel better is because I said I was going to do it and I did it, You know, I.

Love it.

I love it, brother.

Thank you.

Thank you for being on.

Pleasure for sharing your message.

Thanks for going out and about the world to try to make the world a better place.

We we appreciate and honor that man.

Same to you.

Same to you and I.

I look forward to my invitation to come to Europe to visit you sometime soon.

So.

And and I want to come on some sweet adventures.

I know you do.

Any little likes of whatever you're doing I can get in on.

I want in, brother.

We're going to make it happen.