#1 Running Coach on the Daily Habits That Create Elite Performers | Sean Brosnan - EP 799

24:50But it was still long, three seconds or something like that. So the point is, I told them afterwards. I'm like, guys, this is what I mean. The old classic story of the first time summer broke four minutes in a mile, Roger Bannister in 1954. It's like there was a whole bunch of guys that did it the same year. it's once somebody breaks that barrier and does something it's a mental block and i just wanted these guys to really think and be like okay this is this is all in your head you just you're physically capable i knew what they were capable of and then i feel like even though that was a really hard workout and some like why would you do a hard workout that two weeks out from some big race but i was like no i just it was perfect timing and i wanted them to believe and then it worked because i think they were like oh shoot we really can do this and then we ended up the national record before we had it for the national cross country team for a high school cross country team for a 5k average was like 15 flat we averaged 14 14 for a 5k and i had three guys break the national individual record in the same race 1403 1405 1405 on a cross country course that's the type of stuff where i was like we're gonna rewrite the record books and i think those type of moments helped us do it.

26:02And I think those are important at all different levels. Yeah. Those times are just remarkable and I can't believe how much they've come down over time because that when I was running 30 years ago, that would have been unheard of. Yeah. One of the interesting things that I found and I call it the compound mindset is I'm a big fan of rugby and I love what the New Zealand teams do before they even play, how they do that deliberate practice and ritual where they're trying to show this presence to the other team before they even compete. And I understand you did something in a similar type of way.

26:45When you would come to these meets, you wanted to have the most obnoxious presence, the biggest, et cetera. How much of your dominance do you think was won in the parking lot before the race even started? There's two things to that. There are high school kids and you want them to have fun and you want to create an atmosphere. I wanted an atmosphere that I never had. I always wanted that. When I first started Newberry Park, we showed up to a meet and I was a coach. From the old program, we had mismatched warm-up uniforms. We had a tarp we threw on the ground. We had no team tent. It was awful. It was embarrassing.

27:24We had a guy show up with a duke running sweatshirt i'm like what are we doing yeah you have a we're gold and black and you're wearing blue and even though it's a warm-up it just didn't sit well with me so i was like you know what i'm gonna go the complete opposite i'm just gonna have the best atmosphere for these kids so even as we got better it just it blew up our tent was like a fortress we'd have to go sometimes a few days ahead of time with parents and volunteers and set up this huge tent We have a courtyard in it. I just wanted an atmosphere. And then when we showed up to races, like our uniforms were like right on.

27:59Everyone was matching. Our warmups were like top of the line. We were doing stuff through Nike at the time. And it was all Nike stuff, head to toe. And it was just like, that's the image we wanted. Because the best team in the country and the best team in the state when I started was Temecula, Great Oak High School. They were the dominant school. And when they showed up, everyone stared at them. And I knew that with the pro groups, when the top pro groups showed up at track meets, everyone, I was like, you know what? That's what we're doing. And then obviously the respect is gained. Once you start running fast, everyone looks because you're fast, but I wanted to create that atmosphere.

28:34And that's what we did. And the kids would show up, everything was set up for them. These were pretty extravagant warmup areas that we set up with our tents and displays and stuff, just the uniforms that kids wore and everything head to toe. I wanted it to be perfect. Because like when you feel good, you run good. And it doesn't mean you're going to run fast because you're wearing the best stuff. But like it was all part of the image. And I think it just blew up and it just it helped just feel good about themselves. And people wanted to be a part of it. People wanted to be at the meet. Even when kids didn't qualify to run certain meets, they were showing up to hang out with the team.

29:06They wanted to be a part of it. And that's what we wanted to do. I want to talk about group dynamics for a second, because I think there's an important lesson here that can apply whether you're coaching a high school team or you're in a work environment. You had Nico, then Lex, and Leo. And as I think about this dynamic, how do you ensure that Lex and Leo were building their own legacy rather than just trying to live in the shadow of Nico? Lex and Leo were really good about that. The ironic thing is Lex and Leo ran faster than Nico did in high school, not in the one 3K indoors because in every other event, but they technically ran faster.

29:50I think they're a very close family. And I think they looked at their brother as, okay, he's a role model. That's where we want to be, or we want to do what Nico did. And they ended up running, like I said, they ended up running faster. Nico has progressed in college insane. And I think he went to the right program for him. He went to Northern Arizona University and one of the best coaches in the country. He's actually no longer there, but he was, it was the perfect fit for him. It was a perfect storm. And that's why I think he ran so well beyond. And Lex and Leo are in their junior year at Stanford right now, running well.

30:21They're both the top sophomores in the country last year in the NCAA. They're running extremely well. I don't know. I think that like the crazy thing about Newberry Park, like even not Lex and Leo, our top seven, we'll have a guy that runs, I don't know, 418, 416 in the mile. That wasn't fast enough to be varsity for us like you just weren't and it's that's hard because any other team in the country you were part of the varsity team but like i think just wanting to be a part of something at newberry park even the jv it's like i just think it created that image and lex and leo were the same they were like i don't know maybe they didn't have some of the accolades nico had they ran faster though and i think they just set that bar high we had another athlete colin solomon who was a national record holder and he was running with lex and leo every day and his brother was Aaron was national champ.

31:08And it was like, we had insane, like it just was snowballing. And then I had some girls break national records and it was just like, it just kept snowballing because everyone looked at like Nico and they're like, that's where I want to be. And I don't think there was ever any like hesitation or, Oh no, I can't live up to what he's done. It was like, well, I'm going to do everything I can to get there. I always say, I hate goals. I want to run this time. I always want the work you're going to put in. When we would go to camp, we'd have goal setting and the year that they all said none of them gave me an overall goal of this time this national championship I think they might have said national championship in 2019 when we won the first time but they all gave me a list of what they were gonna do to get there and I was like that's it they finally get it they want to put in they want to be a practice every day we had double practices three days a week we had to be at school at 5 45 a.m and then we had school a practice again at 2.30.

32:03They were like, we'll never miss a practice. We're going to get eight hours of sleep. We're going to make sure our iron levels are high. I was like, okay, do you guys get it? Now the results will take care of themselves. And that's where I think Lex and Leah were with their brother. They just looked at him as like, hey, he set the goal. Now let's go after it and let's do the work to get there. So for some of the listeners, they might not be familiar with cross country and how it's scored. But it's really critical to understand the role of the fifth runner. When we won our state championship and when I was a sophomore in high school, we began to realize how important that fifth person was.

32:48We had four of us who ended up going to division one schools to run, but there was a lag between our fourth best runner and the fifth. How do you make the runner who finishes probably wasn't this low in your case, but maybe 40th or 50th in the state meet feel that their contribution daily is the structural integrity of the entire program? Now it's interesting. Our fifth guy, we almost perfect scored we scored 16 points at our california state meet so it was like the love you know and the national meet we were very high too at the national meet we went one two three six my fourth guy was sixth place the national meet and then there was a guy in the 30s or something after that at the national championship or maybe in the 40s but that guy at the national level or even my jv guy that's not contributing or my seventh guy it's like you're still displacing other people and that's what I mean about the culture.

33:44Our thing was like, listen, like Lex and Leo are busting their butts up there to go one, two with Colin and Aaron and the top guys where Daniel's goal is to be in the top five, six of the whole race maybe. And then my sixth guy was like, let's get in the top 15. It's like, they all knew that everyone was killing themselves out there. My thing was like, you know, I was like, I had a guy, Dave, Dave, some people call it a DEV. I was like, Dave Doshi. I'm like, Dave, when you're out there and you're like trying to get like top 50 at nationals, like, you know, that Lex and Leo are dying just as bad as you are.

34:17So everybody, like every person counts. So I don't know, we had a real good dynamic that way that everyone knew their role and they just wanted to be a part of it. And then, like I said, that we had JV kids that couldn't race varsity, that they gave everything they had to be the top in JV and place in the top five in a JV race or whatever it may or the junior varsity and then whatever other races we had. So I don't know. I think we just, the culture was really, we shifted it to obviously everyone has their role and it's just doing the best you can do in that role. I want to talk a little bit, Sean, about nervousness and using it as fuel.

34:53So my freshman and sophomore years in high school, there were some meets where I was so nervous, I was puking my guts out before I hit the starting line. And Nico mentioned being abnormally nervous before his big records. When you're coaching athletes, do you view anxiety as something to be calmed or do you think it's a signal that the athlete finally understands the magnitude of their own potential? The nervousness is interesting. We worked, here's another little thing I did. We used a sports psychologist, a friend of mine that was a runner-up at the NCAAs a long time ago, works with some of the best athletes in the world.

35:32So we would have sessions with him there's a warm-up routine of mentally i think that we really got good at but there was always a lot sometimes yeah i could sense the great thing about nico is once the gun went off that guy was like he's so calm and he's so i don't say monotone but just not a super loud crazy person but then he is an insane warrior when he races and he will just it's insane the way he is his competitiveness it's i've which i've never seen from any athlete ever but i think Like I always was like, listen, I don't know. We never really had a problem too much with it. I think some people get a little bit of anxiety, but I'm just not a believer in fighting it.

36:10It's like everyone's going to get it, but there's little things we do. This is stuff that I've heard years back and recently just heard an interview of a sports psychologist almost say the same thing. It's like you got to focus on one thing. Sometimes you could like warm up and there could be like a fence on the side of the road. and you just, all I want them to think about is that fence and like all the different colors that fence can be because then what it does is it just focuses on something totally different than your race and what you're supposed to do. And even the color of the track, that's been something.

36:40It's like the track is gray or blue or orange is all different colors for tracks. It's like, just think about the color of that track because then it stops you from doing all the BS and this stuff. We do a lot of little things like that. I think we hype up certain workouts to be similar to races on purpose at the high school level, not at the pro level but I think it gets them used to it and it's like we always had pretty good performances we didn't have too many people really die from anxiety or anything like I mean die in the race or not perform well because of that and I think we just again it's the atmosphere because at the end of the day I remember talking to the girls once when they were like ranked top 10 in the country and they won their first state title I was like girls listen to me at the end of of day, your parents, your family loves you.

37:25You have friends. It's so cliche. It's just a race. Just relax. I know it's easier said than done, but at the end of the day, we make these things bigger than they really are. And I think if you can wrap your head around that, we've always been good about conveying that message when I was there. And man, we never had too much of a problem, I think. And we just had people really going for it. I think a good recent example of this is in the Winter Olympics, a quad god didn't perform as well as expected when he did the team competition. And I heard him talk after he did his solo program for the individual.

37:58And he said that he let the atmosphere and the magnitude of the Olympics get to him during those performances. So this nervousness happens to all elite athletes. And I think there's a lot to be learned here. yeah i think when you get to that national level too it's like we talked about it all the time in cross country and like you would know being a cross country runner like at any level like we're used to dominating the race so like being in the front at the local level and for us it was like a national level but our first national championship we had guys back in the 70s like almost scoring for us like in the national championship so i'm like listen like you got to be used to all these bodies around you and we just kept embedding that in their head if you keep creating that environment and getting so they know what to expect.

38:46I'm not a big believer in you think you're going to feel great in the race. The truth is you're going to feel terrible at a mile 2k into the race, but you got to be like, this is normal because if you don't think it's normal and you convince yourself, you're not going to feel bad, then you're going to feel bad. And you're going to just be like, oh my gosh, what's going on? Everyone's different. So you have to feel that out, but that's something we've always talked about. Yeah. I wanted to, speaking of Olympics ask you about the summer Olympics. Was it surprising to you that Cole Hawker ended up winning that mile?

39:18Actually, it's a funny story with that. I was at the Olympics. I ended up in the press box during that race because I don't know how, but it's a long story how I ended up in the press box with all the media because I was in a seat that was terrible and I was at the Olympics watching it. So I saw an open area. I'm like, I'm going over there. And I just walked by security by accident and then I ended up seeing people in the press I ended up watching it from the press box which is crazy the Olympics but I was sitting there and this guy from Norway was next to me in media and he was like asking me he's like who do you think is gonna win I was like honestly I think Cole Hawker is gonna win because Engelbritsen and Josh Kerr they're so caught up in each other I think he's someone weird is gonna win and they're gonna come out and I was probably lucky with that guess because it was like no money on it or anything but at the end of the day i just think that hawker's got a lethal kick and he's been so dominant it's like the 1500 is the one race where i think you can't fake it it's just i don't know where i think sometimes you could sneak in there it's the opposite it's like a 10k is hard to fake if it's if they start running early on fast but uh 1500 they're all the people that make the finals i say half of them have a shot to win because if it goes out slow it's positioning getting yourself in the right place and i don't know now he proved he's one of the best ever he won the 5k last year at the world championships he's breaking records and he's running amazing indoors he's running a mile this weekend in north carolina i'll be down there so we'll see how he does but he yeah he's just i don't know it didn't i i actually predicted it but it was kind of half kidding and it ended up being true so it was crazy i just remember watching it and for much of the race if people don't remember.

41:00He never lost contact, but he wasn't really anywhere near the front of the pack either. And sometimes for me, mentally, when I'm that far back, given how fast these guys can kick, it would be nerve wracking, but it's like he just timed it perfectly. He did. One of the greatest milers in history, Steve Scott, around 136 sub four minute miles. He had the American record for 25 years. I worked with him a little bit in San Diego. He was coaching me and this whole thing in San Marcos, California. And I remember he was giving me race advice once and we were talking about the mile, 1500, the metric mile, I guess you can call it.

41:38He told me, he goes, Sean, in the 15 and the mile, the race is one in the last 150 meters. And it's probably true. He said, usually the guy who leads the first lap isn't winning that race. There is exceptions to every rule, but like he's right. And like, it's who has that third gear, like who because they're all flying at that point if i actually looked at the championships and for all the running people out there every major championship has gone out in 158 to 201 it's not that fast for pros through the first 800 but they all close in like a 151 800 now and it's so it's who it's who can close and if you could if you have that third gear down the last 100 meters it's like you're gonna win a championship mile and that's kind of what happened with hawker he He has that gear and sometimes you can't teach that.

42:24That's just an amazing thing to have with amazing ability. You can teach it, but sometimes like in him, he's just amazing at it. So I want to talk about the pandemic for a few moments. So during COVID I live in a state here, Florida, where it was pretty much business as usual. Not a lot was shut down. Thank goodness for us, but you lived in a state that was the exact opposite. Yeah. Yeah. Rumor has it that you went to Home Depot and you bought some tools to allow your kids to practice on some non-sanctioned tracks during COVID. During COVID, we had to practice as a club and the school was kind of letting it like, hey, because we were still able to meet in really small groups at one point when that started opening up again, which was pretty soon.

43:13It wasn't too much. Nico and Jace, my two top runners at the time, two All-Americans, I had really good runners. Jace went on in Colorado, Nico, NAU. And I was able to, they basically gave up their eligibility. Once they told the high school, we're not running for you anymore, we're not a part of the, I was allowed to meet with them because it was technically my own club or camp. So I was able to find some ways around the rule where I had a camp that I did every summer. And then if I started holding meetings or practices through my camp, the county that I lived in Ventura, they basically deemed camps essential.

43:47So we never were not allowed to meet as a camp they would consider essential. So we would meet when groups of 10 and different things, but facilities were hard. They're all locked down. There was one school that was pretty close to us. That wasn't Newberry park, obviously that people just went on the track and nobody cared and no one said anything. And tons of people came by though people playing soccer, there were people in the pool, which was crazy. Cause I wouldn't jump in the pool when you're not supposed to people using the baseball fields. I think people just needed to do stuff. And for whatever reason, this school district just turned the other way.

44:20So instead of making it difficult and causing problems of jumping a fence, I was like, I don't want to, what do I do? So some people agreed, some people didn't. I took a lock cutter. I didn't cut the lock. I cut chain link off the lock and I replaced it with a carabiner, like one of those little screw on things that looked like a link. so I would just unscrew it every time we went and open up the gate and we would just like so our issue is like because I just didn't want kids getting hurt and so we had a place to practice and we didn't meet with big groups only a very few at a time and no one cared in the area so we just did it and it was awesome I just there's a lot of great things that came from COVID ironically I think as far as training it taught my athletes putting in great training blocks you don't have to race all the time and really focusing on working hard and that, that aspect.

45:08And you do, they were in school online, so they would take naps. They were resting. They would, they were hydrated. There were so many good things from it, but obviously there were more bad things that came from COVID, but, or that whole era of what happened. So yeah, I just made sure it was like, Hey, I'm going to do whatever I can, but this has nothing to do with the school. I'm going to do it. And then, yeah, I just made sure I did it. So it was pretty cool. One of the things I've found in my own career and talking to a lot of successful people, they have found as well is that success often breeds resentment.

45:40And many critics were trying to credit a shoe for your team's success. And as a student of the sport, how do you respond to the idea that technology rather than the uncompromising methods that you developed were the primary driver? yeah well technology has changed a lot in nico's day with all his national records they would know there was no super shoe or plated i don't know whatever they call it i don't know there was that technology wasn't there yet so he definitely broke some national records without it and we did some great things shoe technology doesn't really affect cross country on the grass it's not really going to do anything or not much of it unless you're on hard packed dirt a lot of california courses are like that but all of our records are not california courses they were all out of state national championships.

46:26So I just look at it like that. It's fair game. Everybody's wearing the same stuff. A lot of people also said, oh, it's only from two families. I'm like, two families? I was like, I have guys that are running national level times that aren't part of those families. I have girls breaking national records. The critics are always going to find something. It's Phil Knight in the book Shoe Dog, they talk about once you get success, you're going to be a huge target. People would do whatever they could. When I was out practicing with my guys during COVID, with people taking pictures of us, sending it to the school district.

46:58And it was just crazy. At one point, I thought that somebody was tracking my car. I looked onto my car for a tracking device. I'm like, how do they know where I'm going? There was one time that I went for a run with my wife and they took a picture and they were like, I was like, she's in her 30s. I was like, that's not a high school girl. Like they were saying I was practicing with the high school girls. You guys are crazy. It's not normal to be the best at something or to dominate and people don't like it. And what I found is the other coaches that are very successful, they're the ones that are good.

47:28They're the ones that aren't jealous because they know what it takes to be good. The ones that are the ones that always talk and say the negative things. It's like they're the ones that are never going to be at the top. And they're the ones that just, unfortunately for them, it's, I don't know, for whatever reason, that makes people feel better to say those things. And I don't know, we've always just brushed those things off. It's if they're talking about you, I guess it's a good thing, good or bad. Sean, I want to bring this full circle. So it's Huntsville, Alabama. You're in an Airbnb. It's the night before the national championship.

47:58At that moment, do you feel the weight of the promise you made back to those parents or did it feel like the result was already a certainty? In Huntsville, I feel like it was pretty certain. We knew we were going to win a national championship. It was just by how much, unless something catastrophic happened. But the pressure was, I wanted to go one, two, three, four, five at the national championship. And for people that don't know cross country, there's seven guys in a race. You're racing the best people in the country. And I want my five guys to be in front of the rest of the country. That was a very hard task.

48:31We ended up going one, we went one, two, three, six. So we came pretty close. And then, like I said, I forgot what our final score was, 20-something points. We just dominated. We won. We could have run, if you were to score, you only run seven guys. but if you would have scored my three four five six seven we would have won by a bunch of points too so it wouldn't have even been close no matter what but i think the pressure there was i wanted four guys to break an individual national record and i knew that they had to do it on their own and i think we just put ourselves we put the pressure on that way so it was like you know how you could be very excited about winning a national title but not happy with the results at the same time so we but we were happy with those results i think everybody ran pretty well and we lived up to the hype.

49:16And I think with COVID and not racing a national championship the year before in 2020, we ran like a pseudo one, but not an official one that they had in Indiana, but really wanted to prove and they wanted to prove, hey, you can do this and screw COVID and we're the best ever. And that was what people have said. That was like one of the best high school sports teams in history. It was unbelievable the amount of records and domination that they had that year. Yeah, it is truly to just think about that caliber of a meet, because I ran Kenny's and I ran the Manhattan Isle. Just to think of the caliber of people that you're running against and to finish one, two, three, six, it's an incredible feat.

49:58So I believe people flourish or what I like to call become passion struck when they feel their actions are materially consequential. Do you think a runner runs faster because they want to win or because they feel they're an irreplaceable part of a mission? Maybe both. I think everyone has their own individual reasons of why they're going to run or flourish or do well. I think there's some people that are super competitive and they hate losing and that's an attribute. and sometimes it can hinder you too. But I just think there's all different reasons of why. And it's as a coach, it's like your job to find that individualism.

50:36The biggest thing I always say in my coaching and I think in coaching in general is it's all individualized and people are like, yeah, I do that, but they don't. Everybody's different and everyone's gonna react to different things. Newberry Park was a different program. We were known for doing different programs for individual people that a lot of schools wouldn't do because they don't think it's team oriented. But we really trust, Most of our stuff in Cross was pretty similar for our top guys, but there were some things that were different that I just thought everybody reacted different. I think mentally and physically that question, I think everyone has a little different, if that makes any sense.

51:06I just think everyone, you have to find that reason why that person wants to do it or why they want to do well. I'm a big fan of Jim Quick, the author, and he has a book called Limitless. And in your book, you write that the only limits that matter are the ones you set for yourself. For the reader who has gone through this and isn't a runner or the listener who isn't a runner, how does the Newberry Parkway translate to the boardroom or classroom? I think it's everything. I think there's a fine line. This may sound a little nuts, but I think there's a fine line between being a little bit crazy and being confident in what you want to do.

51:45because I think when you really believe you're going to do something, you're going to do it. And everyone's, well, not everyone can do it. Not everyone can be an astronaut. I'm like, okay, I get what you're saying. But now that you said that, you're definitely not going to do it. It's, I just think my grandfather used to tell me, he's like, listen, just keep pushing that rock. Eventually it's going to move. And it's like, I just think people need to do that no matter what it is. I don't care if it's whatever your passion is, if it's in the arts, if it's business, because there are people that are very passionate about making money in a business.

52:20And then there's also in athletics, it's I just think I'm really big into manifesting and different things and not just being like, Oh, I'm just gonna tell myself I do something, there's an energy that you could really believe. I don't think I know that that's how things happen. There was a line that I said in an interview once and it picked up and it became huge. And I talked about my book, where I said, 420 is not fast for a high school mile. It's just not fast. My point was like, you got to think beyond that. And it's like, when I have coaches are like, how dare you say that? Because I have a guy that can't run 420 in the mile.

52:51That's what I meant by it. Like a high school boy running 420. And it's, but you're saying it is fast. So, because the thing is, once you don't believe it's fast and I don't say it, but really believe it, you're probably going to run faster than it. There's exceptions to everything, but I don't know. I just think that positive it, No matter what you do in life, I think that's what it comes down to. Because sometimes the most successful people, the craziest, you're like, man, what in the world? This guy is just off the meter or this woman's a little nuts, but it's like, because they don't stop.

53:21They're just like, they just keep going and they believe it. And it's like, you got to be successful that way. So you mentioned astronauts, et cetera. I have a lot of friends who happen to be astronauts and I interviewed one of them, Kayla Barron, probably 18 months ago. And Kayla is one of the younger astronauts, part of the Artemis program, but she was the aid to the superintendent of the Naval Academy when she was pondering becoming an astronaut. And she was afraid to turn her paperwork in. And at the time, Vice Admiral Ted Carter, who's now the president of the Ohio State University, she went to him for advice and she said, how in the world do I become an athlete?

54:00And he said, Kayla, you have to apply. If you don't apply, nothing else is ever going to happen. And this is a woman who doubted herself, who was the valedictorian of her class at the Naval Academy, was a Rhodes Scholar, had a master's degree in nuclear propulsion technology, was one of the first three females ever to serve on submarines, etc. So you look at her pedigree and you think, why would a person like that even have doubts? So I just bring that up because what you said is exactly the right advice. Just what I've been around and people I've been around my whole life and success. I think it's people could read books about this all day long, but if you really start believing it, it does happen.

54:43I'm just curious, Sean, when you see your former athletes now on the Olympic stage, age, do you still see kids who were trying to qualify for States and Excel, or do you see a new breed of athlete that you helped invent? Well, maybe both. I, a lot of them I'm still really close with like Nico. I still talk to Nico all the time. I talked to Alexa and Leo and a lot of my other athletes, Colin, Aaron, and yeah, a bunch of them like Daniel, like all these different athletes and Samantha, a girl who was a really good runner that I ran. she's up at Oregon now but I've always been about development I love when my athletes continue to do the athletic end of it and go running college and stuff and like I just yeah I think a little thing of both I think it's awesome like when I see Nico it is funny to think about when I met him as a freshman he's like 6 '1 6 '2 now he was he's tall actually for a distance runner he was 5 '1 when I met him his freshman year and like his uniform didn't even fit it would fall off his shoulder.

55:39And now he's this US record. He's one of the fastest all time ever in the 5 ,000. He ran a 1245, 5 ,000. He's the American record holder. He's one of the best in the world. He was fifth at the world championships. He almost got a medal. He's going to medal one day, I believe it. He's going to win a medal at world championships and Olympic games. I really believe it. And it's like, that's, it's pretty cool to see. But then there's other guys too. I have a girl who I coached who was like, she could barely break 30 minutes for three miles. And she went on to run for a college club team, stayed in contact with me.

56:12And she's running now 5Ks for fun. And she has a great corporate job. So that's cool too, because there's an end of it that she's not, she couldn't even make a division three college team, but she's still running and it's still part of her life. And that's cool to see them grow into that too. And I, she was just this girl who just wanted to be on the team and not be cut. So it's cool. And if you could go back to that day in 2016 and give that renegade coach one piece of advice specifically about the human heart, what would it be? And if I can give one advice, I don't, to myself, you mean? To yourself.

56:51I don't know. I guess I'm hard on myself sometimes. Sometimes I think I would have, I don't know, maybe just, I don't know. There's so many things. I just, I try not to look back too much. And it's like, I really don't. And it's, I don't know, me. Yeah, I don't know. That's a hard one. I don't even know if I have an answer for that. Because like, sometimes I just like, hey, I did what I did. I don't like to think I would do something differently. And I don't have any regrets. It's like, you make mistakes sometimes as a coach, as an athlete, as a person. And you just try not to mimic those. And I don't know, I wouldn't trade it.

57:20Honestly, I wouldn't trade anything I did. And I think I made the decisions I did and was happy with them and everything. And yeah, I don't think I would. I don't think I would change anything. I really wouldn't. Okay. My last question. What does it mean for you to be passion struck? To be passion struck. I think passion is a huge thing. It's like having purpose in a way. I think to be passion struck, you have to have purpose to wake up every day, to be passionate about something. If you could pick the one thing in life that you're passionate about, make that what you do. I think that's huge because I think that's what's going to get you to wake up every day to have purpose.

57:56Kind of what I'm trying to say. I'm forgetting the quote, but like, I think that's the main thing. It's what can you do to be passionate? Cause I think that, I think that correlates with having purpose. And I think when you have passion and purpose, you're unstoppable and like money will come, different things will come. You don't need to think about those exterior things. And I just think that's a huge thing for me. Awesome. Sean, for people who want to learn more about you, what you're doing now, the book, where's the best place for them to go? The book beyond fast, you can buy it anywhere where books are sold.

58:25It's online. If you want to listen to it, it's my voice. They get to hear me for a certain amount of hours. But no, it's a book that was written that was beyond running. If we wanted it to not just be a book about running, I think any type of athlete or motivational person that wants to just see a story and see starting from the ground up would want to read this book. Me, you can find me online, Brosnan. That's my Instagram handle. I'm always posting stuff, my new ventures in life and everything else I'm doing with coaching. And that's where you could find anything with me. Awesome. Sean, such an honor to have you.

59:00Thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to today's conversation. One thing stayed with me long after this conversation ended. Sean built one of the greatest high school running programs in history. He coached Olympians, national champions, and athletes who shattered records people once believed were impossible. But the lesson I keep coming back to has nothing to do with running. It's that extraordinary performance almost always begins with an ordinary decision. The decision to believe that today's limitations don't have to become tomorrow's identity. Sean reminded us that confidence isn't something you're born with, it's something you build.

59:38One practice, one choice, one repeated act of discipline at a time. And over time, those small acts began to change what you believe is possible. If today's conversation challenged the limits you've been placing on yourself, I hope you'll share this episode with someone who needs that reminder. Those personal recommendations are still the best way these conversations reach new listeners. And if you'd like to continue exploring these ideas, be sure to follow PassionStruck on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Subscribe to the PassionStruck YouTube channels and download this week's companion workbook through the Ignited Life on Substack.

1:00:13On Thursday, we're taking this conversation one level deeper because sometimes the greatest obstacle isn't the limits we've accepted. It's the story we've learned to tell ourselves about who we are. I'm joined by executive coach, neuroscientist, and best-selling author, Dr. D. Yvonne Young, for a conversation about self-compassion, resilience, and why the relationship you have with yourself shapes every relationship you'll ever have with someone else. We'll explore why so many high achievers continue to live in survival mode, how trauma quietly influences the decisions we make, and why leading others always begins by learning how to lead yourself.

1:00:51It's one of the most honest conversations I've had about what it truly means to flourish from the inside out. These biases and stereotypes only have strength until we question them. And once we decide that we're going to establish our own identity, our own set of core values, and our own beliefs, now the filters shift. And as we, if we come to the table with objectivity, thank God for neuroscience because mirror neurons work. And if I come to you with a smile and I come to you open with compassion and earnest, if you're a sane person, you're not some crazy extremophile, at some point in our interactions, you're gonna give back to me what I'm giving to you.

1:01:36Until then, remember, the only limits that ultimately matter are the ones you continue to believe. Go out there and live life passion-struck.