Transcript
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In this episode of the Loco Experience Podcast, I welcome Brad Cooper, the CEO of Catalyst Coaching 360.
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His was my favorite talk from the founded and focal event last spring, and I was more than pleased to bring his extensive knowledge to share with our listeners.
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Brad is a PhD in performance psychology and also the host of the Coaching Lab podcast.
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We discussed his journey into health and wellness and how he rediscovered his passion for running in his late thirties.
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Brad shared the story of launching Catalyst Coaching 360 after being laid off from his healthcare executive job and immediately set to work, building a platform and training program, which emphasizes the cultivation of fun, functional mental toughness, underscoring elements like movement, diet, sleep, and connection.
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Brad Reminisced about his early athletic endeavors and the crucial influence of his wife and co-founder Susanna in shaping his life and career, we ventured into topics like overcoming injuries, the significance of sound, sleep, and the need for creating space for reflection.
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We also delved into Brad's memorable experiences, including winning a two person race across America after a severe injury.
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And we explored the future prospects of Catalyst Coaching 360 and Brad's plan for his upcoming book on mental toughness.
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I took a lot away from our time together and you will too.
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So please enjoy my conversation with Brad Cooper, CEO of Catalyst Coaching 360 I.
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Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast.
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My guest today is Brad Cooper.
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And Brad is the CEO at Catalyst Coaching 360.
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He is a PhD in performance psychology.
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He's host of the Coaching Lab podcast and I saw his talk at, founded in Foco last spring and was like, dude, this guy should be on my podcast and share some of that smarts with our listeners.
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So.
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Awesome.
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Thanks for spending time.
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Yeah, I, I'm looking forward to it.
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And, and we'll focus obviously on the practical stuff'cause I think that's where the rubber meets the road.
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Perfect.
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The, the evidence is important to know that it's there, but what can I do?
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That's what
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matters actually do for Sure.
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Exactly.
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Well, and we'll do a lot of that and we'll also get to know Brad, like, why did you want to become so smart at this stuff?
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Uh, how did you, when was your first, uh, high performance athletics?
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Uh, engagement if you, if you recall.
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Hmm.
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Or was it a slow burn?
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A slow
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build?
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Yeah.
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I think it's a slow burn.
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Yeah.
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I, I, I've always loved it.
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It's always been a part of my life.
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Yeah.
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Um, rediscovered it late thirties actually.
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Okay.
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And I, I tell the story, I'm in health and wellness, so everybody's like, oh yeah, you've always been fit, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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No, through most of my twenties and thirties, we were raising kids and I would run when my jeans got tight and then I would stop running when they fit again.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And it, you know, now I'm running 50, 60 miles a week.
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I'm training for marathons, doing triathlons, that kinda stuff.
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But it wasn't always that way.
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It's something I, I discovered, fell in love with it and pursued that route.
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Yeah.
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Cool.
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Did you grow up in a fit family?
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I mean, it was, was it culturally born in 66?
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Where'd you grow up?
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So I grew up in Lakewood, Colorado.
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So just a couple hours south.
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Yeah.
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So Colorado's probably above, even
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back then was above the national
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average.
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And concern
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about that a little bit.
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If you think about when the running boom happened, it was early seventies, you know, Frank Shorter ran, run the Olympic marathon in 72.
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And um, the book of running kind of got things going, started hitting the world.
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Well, I remember a weird guy in town, he would run, we'd be out shooting baskets and he'd run down and around the block and we were like, never seen this.
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Like, this was crazy.
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I, I moved to Worthington, Minnesota, um, um, straight outta college.
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I had a job at a bank there, and I had gotten a DUI the night before I got my bank job offer.
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Mm.
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Uh, but they hired me anyway.
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Thank you Beth, uh, for trusting in me.
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Um, but I went down there without a driver's license.
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Wow.
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And so I had a mountain bike and like a big backpack that I took to do all my shopping and all my laundry and everything.
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And.
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Let's see, this was probably, it was 2019 99.
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Okay.
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Sorry.
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1999.
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You were partying?
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I was back then partying like it was 1999.
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That's why I got the DUI and I was like the only guy in that town of 10,000 that was riding their mountain bike around that town.
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Even then, that was the Midwest, you know, there were 25 years behind everybody else.
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Well,
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and as I'm thinking about it, one of the things I always think back,'cause we started our health and wellness coaching company in oh seven, and I always think back when I was 16 years old, I was bagging groceries and I fell in love with running then and it came back later, but I was trying to recruit my coworkers to go run with me at lunch.
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Interesting.
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So even at 16, I was this little kid bagging groceries and saying,
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Kurt, guess what?
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Let's, let's just go run a mile.
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Let's go for two miles.
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Yeah,
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yeah.
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Let's just get it started.
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And, and even now, like that's just interesting.
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And you can even see in my affect as I'm talking about it, I just love it when people start to get excited about something like that.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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It when when you start something simple.
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Yeah.
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I'm just gonna do a 5K.
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Awesome.
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First of all, never use the word just when you're gonna do something that's a big move.
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So we'll take that word outta the sentence, but even if you choose to start with a 5K, that changes everything because when you start to do a 5K training plan, even if it's super simple and you're barely gonna jog and you don't care about your time Yeah.
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You just wanna finish.
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Yep.
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You start eating better.
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Right.
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You start sleeping better.
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Well and running.
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I get up
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so much easier when you're 20 pounds later.
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Hell,
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you know, that was totally something I noticed.
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'cause I got into running actually for the first time really in my late thirties too, and I did some Wild West relays fun.
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I did the horse tooth half was my first run that actually actually trained for, that's great.
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What is that year 51 or something coming up, I think.
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Is that right?
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Yeah, that sounds
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probably so.
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And I, I remember that feeling, uh, of, do you know Mandy Mullen?
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I don't Oh, you need to, she's the organizer of the Run Winsor Race series.
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Okay.
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Which has now got a dozen races.
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We traded emails.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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Because I've, I was gonna do a couple of her races.
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Yeah, you definitely should.
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Because, and, and what she says is anyone can run.
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Yeah,
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exactly.
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Almost, you know, if you can't run, then you can walk.
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Yep.
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Um, and anyone can do something
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just about, almost anyone, you know, I just, as you were talking about that reminded me of a, a story.
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I think you'll, and our, your listeners will appreciate in probably oh 6, 0 7, whenever it was that Lance Armstrong ran the Boston Marathon.
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Yeah.
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Um, I was out there, I was running Boston and just having one of those days and I went out.
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Well, but then crashed and burned having some stomach issues.
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I started walking around Mile 12, 13 and I was just like, ah.
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And then this guy comes up and task me on the shoulder on a bike.
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He said, could you scoot over Lance Armstrong's coming through?
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And he had his whole cohort of runners keeping him paced.
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Right.
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And hand him food.
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Well I'm not gonna let Lance pass.
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Well, I had my company shirt on.
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Okay.
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And my marketing head kicked in and I thought the pros are done at this point.
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'cause they started earlier and the camera's gonna be on Lance the rest of the way.
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If I could just stay in front of the camera for a mile.
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It's free marketing.
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Right.
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So I was just like, just hang in there for five minutes.
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You'll get free marketing.
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Five minutes turned into five miles, turned into 12 miles.
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And I finished just ahead of Lance.
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Oh, that's awesome.
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And got, and my wife could watch the whole thing on the big screen.
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'cause Yeah, the cameras were on Lance the
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whole time.
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Totally.
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Well, and it's such an intense thing.
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We, in the wild west, really, we call it rabbits, right?
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Like if you, if you chase somebody down, you'd probably do the same thing.
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Right?
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Always.
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And the motivation.
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To stay ahead of somebody that's trying to come up and pass you, there is nothing like that, uh, that motivation or a real man.
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Yeah.
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Or to reel somebody in.
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But for me, maybe I'm just, I'm more of a avoiding the pain than a, a glory guy I guess.
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But, uh, these are way, both are really special feelings, uh, but you never run faster than when somebody's trying to track you down.
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So, so tell me about, you said you're a health and wellness coach, so is, who are your clients, I guess?
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Talk to me.
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Yeah.
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So,
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and, and I'm actually a coach.
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We have a team of coaches that work with employees around the country.
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We've coached hundreds of thousands of people over the last 19 years.
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Okay.
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Uh, but so you're the CEO proper, not
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just It's me
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and I do some
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coaching,
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correct.
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Yeah.
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We've got a, we've got a team and then my wife Susanna, she's the brain trust behind the coaching and Okay.
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All the training and the mentoring and the development of the training program, that kinda stuff.
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So it's a, it's a real, her strengths are where I have no strengths and we compliment each other very nicely.
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Yeah.
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So, cool.
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That's been a long term thing.
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Can you set the
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stage, like describe Catalyst coaching then a little bit more?
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Yeah.
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Like, uh, who companies engage you and your team to make their staff healthier so they can save on their insurance Exactly.
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Or, or
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more so, so that's, that's valuable.
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But a lot of small and middle-sized companies, they're not gonna see an immediate change with their insurance, but they're gonna see an immediate change in performance.
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Right.
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So your employee, they mean it took'em 40 years to get their bad health.
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They're not gonna shift that in six months of talking to a coach.
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Right.
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But if they, and we can get into some of the functional mental toughness research if you want, but if they dive into the, the performance aspect of that coaching, then they start performing better at work.
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And the cost of that, the ROI of that is just massive because you have these employees, maybe they're only talking to a coach once a month or once a quarter.
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Right.
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But their performance is elevated.
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You're paying for that coaching session 30 times over, almost right out of the gate.
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So that's, the health is beautiful.
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It's wonderful.
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We want that.
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We're gonna get that long term.
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But the performance is where the real rubber moves the road.
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So you're coaching their work
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performance as well, or is it more of a kind of a life per
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Yeah, exactly.
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So it's thrive, but they, they want thrive at work too.
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As part of it.
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Even if they don't, if they improve their wellbeing, their, their things they're focused on at home.
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If they're a better dad, if they're a better weekend warrior, if they're a better husband, that has to play over into work because you're a better person.
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You're bringing more to work, you're more rested, you're more engaged, you're more excited, you're ready to roll.
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Versus punching that clock, counting down, the hours hanging in there.
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Now it's time to go,
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right?
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You're,
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you're in like, it's just a different mindset when you're engaged versus, I mean, think about the word engaged.
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When you get engaged, for those people that have been married at some point in their life, you are on a different planet, right?
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And that's the same thing with your life, your work, your marriage.
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As a parent, you're on a path as an executive.
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Once you're engaged.
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Everything changes.
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Hmm, interesting.
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So you really like, almost like a group, group health insurance plan would try to attempt to cover the health needs.
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You're trying to cover the, the mental toughness and wellness and kind of just be an active coach for these large and small teams sounds.
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Yeah.
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We call it health, wellness, and performance.
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So interesting.
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A lot of times you start with the health because you're not thinking about wellness and performance when you can barely get through the day.
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Hmm.