How Running Toward Yourself Changes Everything | Cory Richards & Blake Mycoskie

27:26uh the as things do the the friend circle naturally chose a side and and they chose her uh and and then this this profound isolation set in and i moved back to la after about three months and that's when the writing really started clicking it really started to pour out and i think this gets to a question of do we need pain to create? And do we need to be the mad genius? Does there have to be madness to create great art? And I want to say there doesn't, but evidence would suggest that that's commonly a part of it. Well, one thing I was curious about is during that relationship, if you look back, it was like, oh, it's pretty clear that this was going on.

28:15But you really had turned a blind eye to it for quite some time. I think that this can, you know, be applied to so many things in a mental health journey. You know, I look back at my life and I'm like, okay, when I was really suffering, I was living a lifestyle that was not at all who I am. You know, speaking about what kind of the elephant in the room was. And so I just think that, you know, for anyone who's listening and watching, I'm glad and I appreciate you being so open and vulnerable about this because it is uncomfortable. But I think what hopefully it will do is encourage someone to really, if they are struggling right now, like get a pen and paper and write down like, what are the things that you're not telling anyone?

28:58And then eventually that'll lead to what are you not telling yourself? Well, it's interesting because in the book, there's another place, and I had done this before, and this is classic where we repeat patterns. In my marriage, I had been unfaithful. I had not addressed the things that needed to be addressed. And I was still not addressing them. And in the chapter in the book where I write about that, where I talk about infidelity and I talk about secrets, I was in Africa. I mean, it was the hardest expedition I've ever done. We're on this river going from the Angolan highlands through Namibia into Botswana.

29:34And it's these long days of just absolute torture. And yet you're immersed in nature. So there's this wholeness to it. And And also this slow, steady reduction. And I felt so bare. And it was during that time that my ex-wife and I had sort of engaged with the legal path to end the marriage. And when I wrote about it in the book, I talked about termites. Because this environment that we were sort of seeking, the Okavango Delta, is built by termites. And the way termites work is they feed on death, basically. They feed on decay. Yeah. And they build these islands in the Okavango Delta. And those islands become these places of refuge.

30:20And the way it works is they build these termitariums. And then, so they're the tallest place sort of around. Birds come, they perch on them, they seeds. And then plants start to take root. More sediment starts to coalesce and gather around it. And they build these islands in the Okavango Delta. And I had the sort of realization back to the original point that like secrets are the termites of love and intimacy. They destroy it. That is so dead on. They will eat it until it is so porous that it collapses. And yet they also point to these islands of refuge. To your point about what we're not saying to ourselves.

31:08they point us towards exactly that. And the more we keep secrets, the more we erode internally. Look, everybody keeps secrets. That's just part of life. And we learn to hide what we believe is unlovable in us. And the more we hide those things, the more unlovable we believe ourselves to be. And as that happens, we start to collapse. And then there's proof that we're unlovable because our life starts to collapse around it and the shame compounds. And yet, if we turn into those things, we can build our own islands of refuge that help our ecosystem thrive. If we're brave enough to say, look, these are the things that I struggle with.

32:00This might sound crazy at first, but this year I met some engineers from Nike who invented a new type of office chair that has not only changed my life, but actually saved my back, especially because I am on about five hours of Zoom calls every day. The MoveLab chair has two different pivot points under the seat, which keeps your body in continuous micro movements all day. The founders told me it is the equivalent of taking 3 ,000 steps and all the lubrication of your joints and the blood flow is why my back no longer hurts and I can focus on my work so much better. I loved it so much that I actually joined the team as a co-founder and I will be sending one to every person I know when we launch this fall.

32:46If you're interested in learning more or pre-ordering one, we only have 500 in the first run. You can check us out at movelab.com And that's spelled M-O-O-V-L-A-B dot com. I decided not to take advertising for the first season of No Magic Pill, so I could actually use these moments to talk about something I'm super passionate about. Now, one of those things is my morning routine. And every morning, it starts the same way. I drink morning water. I take this packet, I pour it into this bottle, and I drink it. Now, what's in this packet? It has creatine, altheanine, magnesium, many other supplements, electrolytes, basically all the things that I used to have to take so many supplements for.

33:30I mean, my kitchen counter, it looked like a pharmacy. I mean, it had bottles of pills and pills and pills. And half the time, I would even forget to take them. So now it's all in this simple formula that my friend Austin created. And I do it every day. And this month, we're giving everyone a special offer. Go to morningwater.co forward slash no magic pill. And when you sign up, you'll get 25 % off your first month. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. I would love to spend a moment, and then we'll come back to your story. But just, like, how do you think about men's groups? How has it been important to you?

34:02If someone is listening or watching, and they're a guy, and they don't have a men's group, what would you tell them? If they're a woman, what would you tell them to tell their man about a men's group? Because it seems that it's been a really important part for you. It's been a hugely impactful and important part. So men's work for me started with a guy named Kenny Kane, who is one of my deepest, dearest friends. The idea is like, where do you go when you're a kid to talk about all your secrets? Go to the Treehouse. Treehouse is a structured men's group where there's eight at a time in a cohort.

34:33We run several cohorts concurrently. We meet every two weeks in person. We sit around the fire. There's no drinking. uh we it's structured around eating together sometimes doing a little breath work but not intense breath work that's not really why we're there and then we'll have some structure around different aspects that we want to address so the first one being purpose like what is what is your purpose for life and one of the exercises we do that i think is so amazing is boiling your purpose down to a single word i worked with this guy dave phillips who's amazing up in vancouver for years back in the Tom Shoes days.

35:14And he has a whole book. It's like a tiny little book, but it basically helps you go through all your values and all these things. And you finally get to like one word. But the word is not, for example, when we did this, I was like storytelling. And Kenny's like, that's not a purpose. And I said, well, what do you mean? That's what I do. And he goes, exactly. That's what you do. That's an extension of your purpose. So what is underneath that? Eventually, at that time, and it's changed and that will happen, I realized that my purpose was compassion, right? I wanted people to be invited into a place of openness and honesty where they felt like their whole self was welcome, not just the aspects of themselves that they wanted to project or they felt like were lovable.

36:00We do exercises around defining values. And then we do more granular work around, okay, where are you spending your time and your energy? Which are two different things, right? Yeah. For example, if you are spending a lot of time at the gym, that's a time allocation. If you are spending a lot of energy being pissed off that you're not going to the gym, you can be spending a huge amount of energy thinking about that. So the way that works is you have essentially 10 points of energy and time and you look and you go, okay, where am I spending my time and energy? After we do the exercise, we get to a sharing point.

36:41So there's some structure there. I think that's good. I do think having some structure, having some prompts can be really helpful, especially getting guys just talking. One of the things that I'm really hoping comes out of this conversation and this episode is that if someone's listening or watching and they're not in a men's group, to consider it. To consider either starting one or getting a few guys together and just testing it out. And then if you're a woman listening and there's a man in your life who's not in one, really encourage them to think about it. Yeah. There is no magic pill. That's what I would call the show that.

37:12But if there is something that has been somewhat like a magic pill for me, it's been my men's group. Another thing I'm really passionate about is therapy. I read this quote. I can't remember if it's in your book or another article, but you said, psychology is an imitation out of victimhood, not into it. What did you mean by that? I am so passionate about this. I think one of the things that happens is we get into therapy. We learn the language around ourselves. We understand our family of origin and our traumas and things like that. And then we stop there because we have the language around it.

37:46We mistake the languaging for healing. It's not. It's just the beginning. And so we get stuck in the cycle of victimhood. This is what happened to me. These are all the things that have impacted me. And now I can verbalize them. And in doing so, I think I've healed. That oftentimes becomes its own form of victimhood. Psychology and the understanding of what happened is the jumping off point. So we can ultimately let go of those things. and we're living in agency rather than victimhood. This is going to be one of my great plugs for the Hoffman Institute. Have you done the Hoffman? I haven't done Hoffman.

38:23So I'm a huge proponent of Hoffman. I did in 2016, had a huge impact on my life, but that is exactly what Hoffman's about. It's about taking to the place of really deeply understanding what happened, giving you some vocabulary, but then the second half of the week is all about, you know, how do you let go of this? How do you forgive those people in your life? How do you forgive yourself? How do you have the tools to move forward? It's one thing that I really appreciate about, you know, what you wrote in the book. You've f***ed up a bunch. Oh. And you've been on an apology tour. Oh, yes. Like, you have really embraced the art of the apology and have asked many people in your life for forgiveness, which has also, I think, helped you turn that lens to yourself and forgiving yourself.

39:08Apology is one of the most powerful tools we have and specifically self-forgiveness. I don't think that necessarily means you always need to apologize directly for something that has the potential in doing so to harm the other person. Yes. And, and they were bringing up that pain again. Exactly. I mean, there's, there's people that I hurt, you know, many years ago in my life that I have done a lot of work actually with Hoffman around forgiving myself for, and then like, just like, like energetically sending them my apology, but I'm not going to call that person and bring it up again. And who knows?

39:48I mean, that's, that's very self-indulgent now they're living their life and I'm going to interrupt their life so that I can maybe check a box. I think you see this a lot in AA, because there's a big part of the 12 steps that is admitting the wrongs you've done and the harm you've caused because of them. One of the things that I would love to also unpack is, I think a quote I'm going to read says, what if mental health conditions like bipolar, ADHD, or depression aren't things to fix, but unique ways of experiencing the world. What did you mean when you said that? I was very depressed, and I had this realization that this was somehow a gift, because in feeling these things, it made me more capable to connect with other people who have the same experience, and in doing so, I can engage with real empathy and understand it more holistically.

40:45I don't believe that these things are meant to be healed entirely. I think they're meant to be managed. If you solve or heal bipolar disorder, you erase 80, 90 % of the world's greatest art. We don't want to do that. What we want to do is manage them so that people stay safe. Yes. Because feeling them isn't necessarily bad. It's just uncomfortable. Yeah. And there's a big, big difference between that, the two. The episode I was just talking about did not happen that long ago. Okay. And this is something that people don't see about my life. It's very easy to externalize it and look, okay, you've done all these things and you're only 45 years old and you've lived multiple lives.

41:34It feels really good to hear, but they don't see the days that I can't get out of bed. And recently I had one of those, and I've used every modality. I've used psychedelics and meditation and pharmaceuticals. And yes, I still take medication. And I don't believe in this movement that says we don't need any pharmaceutical help. On this show, I do talk a lot about with people, you know, who have not had good experiences as pharmaceuticals. You know, when I was misdiagnosed with bipolar, I was put on four different meds that largely took me from a very depressed person to a suicidal person. Right.

42:12Which is very scary. I then got off all those meds, but then I added another med, Trazodone. Yeah. Which was really helpful for me in getting my sleep back. Yeah. And then monitoring my mood. And I just recently have kind of weaned myself off that because I got through that. So this show is definitely not anti-med in any way. Yeah, yeah. And I'm so glad to hear that you are objecting to this kind of movement that is percolating out there around that, you know, pharmaceuticals are bad because that is not at all true. And there's a lot of evidence that shows that many times they don't work. And if they are working, it's a placebo effect.

42:48So there's it's a different. So with you specifically, what, because there might be someone, hopefully there is someone watching or listening that either has been diagnosed as bipolar or they feeling that they maybe are hearing your story and they aren't on meds. What meds have been the most helpful for you? Yeah. I mean, we hear these anecdotal things that like, oh, I changed my diet and it changed everything. Okay. That might've happened. That can be very true. But it's important that we don't don't categorize things by the exception and not the rule. I do think we're overprescribed in this country.

43:25I think we jumped to that solution too quickly. For me, I was in this spell. I was very depressed. And I thought to myself, there has to be a better way. I don't have to keep going this dark. Yeah, fighting this hard. I don't have to fight this hard. So I rearranged my medication. And I take three and people are going to be like, oh, my God, that's so many. But they're all for very specific purposes. Lamotrigine, which is one of the longest standing, best medications with very few side effects for sort of mood regulation. I take Vralar, which, again, very safe, very effective for bipolar 2 specifically.

44:04And that kind of helps with the lows, right? And because bipolar 2 and things like ADHD are very overlapping. Yes. Um, I have a very hard time concentrating, like incredibly hard. Wow. You're doing great on the show. Well, thank you. That's because of the third medication. Great. Um, uh, I take a very low dose of Adderall. Okay. And that helps just narrow it down. Right. And it just makes life easier. But that leads into another really good point. Diagnoses come with these huge stories, right? And there's a lot of shame around the stories. and so people don't talk about them. Yeah. I don't know if you saw the doc, The Dark Wizard by Sender Films about Dean Potter.

44:48Oh, I want to see it. Oh, it's absolutely exceptional. Okay. The woman that worked for me for a long time, Jen Rapp, was with Dean. Right. Yeah. She was his romantic partner when he passed. Yeah. And he, you know, at one point, and it talks about it in the documentary, so I feel comfortable talking about it. He was on medication and he was like, if you ever tell anybody, I'll kill you. Right. Wow. You know, and those were his basically his words. And that amount of shame around a diagnosis around is, is, is so powerful because what it's doing is you can see it's a result of the story you're telling about what's your faulty or something.

45:27You're broken, wrong. You're broken. What's wrong with you. Right. And so when we talk about diagnoses, whether it's bipolar, ADHD, narcissism, it's so important that A, we don't attach a story to it. All they are are words that create a container around a set of behaviors that are an extension of neurobiology. Totally. That's it. But being bipolar and the story I lived with for so long was something was fundamentally flawed in me. And I was broken and fucked up and beyond repair. And so you live and die by that story. That's not what bipolar is. If anything, that diagnosis, whether it's correct or not, can have more harm on you because of the identity that you create to substantiate it.

46:18Well, and it's not, you know, it's not so cut and dry. It's just a story we're telling that can have both positive and negative effects depending on the story. Because my belief is, look, bipolar can be, and ADHD, ADD, can be superpowers. They really can be when managed well, right? That's why you don't cure it. So it's about managing. It's about management. Yeah. And so besides medicine, what are other ways that you manage it? Well, this goes back to community. Dan Buettner, who started Blue Zones, talks about, you know, longevity. And people are trying to biohack their way into longevity right now.

46:57They're trying to move the top 0.1 % by wearing blue blockers and, you know, ice plunges and sauna and doing like optimizing, right? Right. Those are that's trying to move pebbles when you should be looking at the boulders. Yes. And the boulders are so simple. It's community. Lots of time in community. Finding your community. Aligned values. Aligned integrity. Accountability. It's eating mostly whole foods. Right. And if you can bias towards plants, that's great. You don't need 200 grams of protein a day unless you're trying to be a super beast. It's walking a lot. It's spending time outside. it's getting enough sleep i love it these are the rocks that need to be moved right for the pebbles right it's you know why are you wearing blue blockers the issue is scrolling right it's not it's it's being on your phone it's not the blue light yeah you know it's so true so true so it's very simple and i think you know we're in this age of self-optimization one of the most popular podcasts is huberman and by the way i like andrew he's a great i think the information is beautiful But what it's led to is sort of this monk culture among men and women where we're trying to optimize these tiny little things.

48:11And it actually creates more stress. It's interesting because, you know, I worked with this therapist for many years, Terry Reel. He's written amazing books. Oh, my God. I don't want to talk about it. One of the best books ever. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great. So Terry's coming on the podcast in the fall. I can't wait because that's going to be a super personal one because we worked together for 10 years. And he wrote a book called I Don't Want to Talk About It, which is really about how, you know, a lot of things that men go through, but specifically how they're kind of self-medicating through many different things.

48:41But the reason I brought up Terry is he used to always say to me, Blake, you have to stop optimizing. Yeah. He's like, you optimize everything in your life. Right. You're trying to optimize your relationship with your kids. You're trying to optimize your vacation. You're trying to optimize your work. And this was before I recognized with this amazing therapist that helped me through my depression that my core wound was that I never felt that I was enough. Right. And so Terry and I didn't get to that language, which might have been more helpful if we had. But we very much I look back at those conversations with Terry now and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I was constantly trying to optimize because deep down I didn't feel that I was enough.

49:22And I think a lot of that is what we're seeing with this kind of biohacking, you know, kind of obsession with optimization is I actually think we have a cultural sickness is that, you know, especially among men is that we just don't feel we are enough or that this moment is enough. Yeah. The wellness culture thrives on the idea that you are not well. Yeah. And disengaging with that, I think, is one of the most powerful things you can do. The idea of not being enough is cataclysmic for the ability to navigate life well. And I lived with that for a very long time. And I think that in the introduction, you said, you know, running from myself.

50:06And I would rephrase that in saying I was running towards myself. I was just trying to find the truth of the enoughness that exists at every moment, in every situation, no matter how dark there is. There is a cup that is so full within everybody that it can be shared at any time. There is a flame in all of us that is enough. And when you think about the passing of a flame, lighting the wick with the flame of another candle, the transfer of energy does not diminish the flame of the burning wick, the existing burning wick. It just passes. And what I'm saying is that flame, that cup is always existing in us, but the search for enough leads us to do monumental things that ultimately point towards the fact that it was always there.

51:04And that is a tale as old as time. You do, do, do, do, do. You succeed, succeed, succeed, succeed. And yet the cup that you're trying to fill was always full. Yes. You don't necessarily want to go around that. That journey is important. I wrote in the book, only the summit can illuminate its own insignificance. That's beautiful. So you have to get there to understand that it never mattered. That's amazing. But it does matter because you had to get there. You had to get there. Yeah. It's like, yeah, I actually sat in this exact chair when I was interviewing Matthew McConaughey. and this story came up and it was basically when I met Ted Turner.

51:48Yeah. And Ted Turner told me, he said, Blake, I really see that you're the type of guy that's going to get to the top of the mountain. You got what it takes. And on the top of the mountain, there's this beautiful golden chest and you're going to get there and you're going to see in the chest. And I've been to the top of the mountain already and I've looked in the chest and I'm going to tell you right now, the chest is empty, but also I'm going to tell you, you still got to climb the mountain. Yeah. And that's exactly what you're saying about the summit. And it's, but you got to go through that.

52:15And then, and then realizing the chest is empty. Yeah. It's okay to go back and climb the mountain again. And it's okay to look in the chest again, to remind yourself, remind yourself. Yeah. It doesn't mean that you give it all up. I mean, you can be an aesthetic, you can do like all of those things, but it ultimately the lesson is you are enough as you are and being enough as you are. What are you capable of then? I feel so much more alive and creative as an entrepreneur because I am doing it from a place of wholeness now. All those years of Tom's, I never felt that I was enough. And so I was doing it out of desperation for this external validation that would make me feel like I was okay.

52:57It was just literally a fix, you know? Right, right. Now, you know, starting companies, starting this podcast from a place of I am enough as I am is like a superpower. It is. And that's why I am so, you know, I love sharing the bracelets. So I would love to give you one. Oh, my God. Please. So in the box here, there's two bracelets, and that's very intentional. The first one is for you to wear, which I'll give you now. And then the second one is for you to share with someone else. Can't wait. And it's kind of like what you said with the, you know, the lighting the flame, right? Yeah, yeah. You know, just because, you know, it doesn't diminish the flame to light another one.

53:33And that's the exact same here. Let's see which one. put it on and there we go great and um and also with the bracelet comes this really great poem that my friend in q wrote and so what i'd love to do is kind of close this amazing conversation and we have a few more things we'll do afterwards seeing the bracelet on your hand hearing your story especially as you've articulated you know the importance of really grounding yourself in this and how when you do, the potential is amazing. Like I saw your eyes light up as you were talking about that. And I was like, that is exactly, it's so great to see you in that place.

54:13And, you know, one of the things that we love doing when we share the bracelet is this poem. So I'll close with this. Okay, here we go. Corey, I see you, the you behind the you, not for anything you've done or anything you're going to do. And I'm going to pause right now because I've read this poem to a lot of people. And those four lines, I feel like I am speaking to you with the most honest that I've ever said it. Like I really do see you. I don't stop to say it enough, but I believe in you. And if you could see yourself from my view, you'd believe it too. That's why I'm giving you the gift that I'm receiving too, a message to remind you in your lost or feeling blue.

54:59A mantra to repeat when times are tough, because no matter who we are, we are always enough. It's a silent prayer I'm sending for the world's mental health. I wear this symbol for myself and as a bond to someone else. It's a blessing and a gentle push to never give up, because no matter who you are, you are enough. And every single word, Even though my friend Adam wrote it, I feel like today when I read it to you, every word was my own. And I look forward to who you'll share the bracelet with. I just am so excited for this conversation to get out there. This has been such a healing journey for me.

55:38Like I said, started with reading your book, bringing my camera back out, doing the birthday project, then being encouraged to do the show. And what an amazing thing that that was a year and a half ago. And here we are sitting here today, just getting to share this journey. So Corey, thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been absolutely amazing. Thanks for having me, man. If this episode spoke to you, please share it with a friend, family member, or someone you love. Because No Magic Pill is not just a podcast. It's a resource to help us all live better lives. Hit the subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

56:17And let us know what you think by leaving a comment. A quick note that this episode is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional regarding any medical questions or concerns you may have.