Ironman Great

Dr. Cooper

Jordan, Bird, magic, or Jerry Rice, Tom Brady, Jim Brown and Lawrence Taylor. Every sport has the athletes who made it, what it is. When the sport of triathlon began, the sports big four included Dave Scott, Scott Molina, Mark Allen, and today’s special guest two time Ironman, world champ and author Scott Tinley. Now you might be thinking, does the word Scott in your name have some sort of aerodynamic advantage? We don’t actually get into that. It is interesting to see that combination with those four, but you are going to love this episode. Welcome to the latest episode of the Catalyst Health, Wellness and Performance Coaching Podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Bradford Cooper of the Catalyst Coaching Institute. And today we’ll definitely be tapping into some great stories from the early days of triathlon. But we’re going to go much deeper. Tinley’s 2003 book Racing the Sunset is a personal favorite of mine that goes well beyond sport to the lives we’re living. For our listeners who are already coaching, the event of the year is coming up in Estes park, Colorado in September. It’s the Rocky Mountain coaching retreat and symposium. If that’s an interest to you, if you’re already a coach, the super early registration discount ends at the end of this month. So don’t miss that. Our speaker lineup is outstanding. Includes triathlon Olympic medalist, Susan Williams. Details about this incredible event or the upcoming NBHWC approved coaching certification, if that’s the route that you’re on right now is the available at CatalystCoachingInstitute.com. And if you want to talk about either one of these, just shoot us an email Results@CatalystCoachingInstitute.com. We’ll set up a call. Now let’s transition into this discussion with two time Ironman world champion, best-selling author Scott Tinley on the latest episode of the Catalyst Health, Wellness, and Performance Coaching Podcast. Mr. Scott Tinley, it’s a pleasure to have you on the Catalyst Health Wellness and Performance Coaching Podcast. Thanks for joining us.

Scott Tinley

Thank you, Dr. Cooper. Really appreciate you guys inviting me.

Dr. Cooper

Yeah, it’s gonna be fun. Lots to talk about today. So I was watching some interviews with you. You’re the two time winner of the Hawaii Ironman world championship, 82 and 85. The first one was in 78. You were part of that first-generation you were part of the big four. I know a lot lot goes in with that. What drew you to that race in the first place at that time? It wasn’t this worldwide sensation. It was something where, again, I don’t wanna put words in your mouth, but you were kind of like, well, let’s give it a go.

Scott Tinley

Well, to be fair, I was actually more of a second generation. Um, there was a, uh, a cadre of individuals who, um, yeah, they were foundational members of the multi-sport, uh, movement beginning in 71, 72, um, a small cultish sports happening in and around the beaches and the bays of San Diego. I didn’t do my first triathlon until 1976. Um, so, myself, Scott Molina, Dave Scott, Mark Allen, um, you know, we, we also have shoulders to stand on and those were the Tom Warrens and Jerry Panes. And they, you know, and, and, you know, you could go down the list, right? Yeah.

Dr. Cooper

So what for you specifically, what made you say I’m going that route? What was the draw? What was the draw? What, what, what makes you sit there and go, ah, you know what, 2.4, 112, marathon, what the heck?

Scott Tinley

The shorter story is that, um, you know, I moved to San Diego from orange county in 1976 to go to college and, uh, somehow ended up watching one of the early triathlons and early August of 76. And, uh, I thought, man, that’s really cool. When’s the next one? And the guy’s like, well, I don’t know if we’ll ever do one again, cause this is just a mish-mash of people to come in and gather and tossing together, you know, swim, bike and run on a Wednesday evening. And, but you know, here’s my phone number. And if we do it in the next couple of weeks before, uh, before fall sets in, we’ll let you know. So I got a call and he said, okay, we’re going to do the second annual mission bay triathlon. And, uh, you know, it’s August 23rd, a Wednesday. It’s always on a Wednesday night, always in the evening, no permits show up. Do you have a bike? I go, no, but my roommate does, the roommate bike showed up, ended up third place, had a good time, learned a lot and said, there’s something there. I don’t know what it is. But if, if another one of these things happens in the next decade, I’ll be on a starting line. And then, then the Hawaii thing, you know, that, you know, as the history goes, all sort of came from some of the early competitors, you know, John Collins, et cetera, who participated in those, those mid seventies events in San Diego. And of course, Collins went on to, to, uh, be redeployed in Honolulu, took the notion of swim bike, run into that venue. And the Ironman distances, are of course of historical value. As we know, you know, the the 2.4 miles from the Waikiki rough water swim, 112 miles from the, around the island bike race, which actually was 115 miles. And it was over two days, they moved, they moved the transition three miles, so they could swim into the right place. And of course the Honolulu marathon, so.

Dr. Cooper

Right. Very good. All right. So early eighties, you Mark Allen, Scott Molina, you train together in San Diego. I did not realize this story for those of us unfamiliar with triathlon people that are listening. That’d be like Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers training together, you three were of the best in the sport at the time. What was that like? It seems like it would be zwift on steroids. You know, the problem with zwift is everybody’s doing too much every single day. Did that not happen where, you know, Scott was having a good day, so he’d pull you and then next day you’re crushing it. And so mark, staying up with you. What was that like?

Scott Tinley

It was Mark and I, and Scott Molina who were kind of thrown together on the first sponsored team, which means they gave us at first free jerseys and spaghetti dinners on Sunday night, and then they threw us a few bucks. Um, and then there was Mark, excuse me, Dave Scott, who was up in Davis, California, kind of the lone Wolf doing his lone Wolf thing. And, um, so mark and I and Scott Molina, you know, were just tossed together by fate, uh, Scott Molina, who had moved down to Cal to San Diego from, um, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh bay area, a spot. And Mark, Mark had been going, had just graduated from UCLA, you know, and I had been there, I don’t know if, what for seven or eight years by then. And so, you know, we, we just started hanging out. Um, and we learned a lot from each other and it, it was kind of one of those things where you looked around and go like, well, we don’t know if this thing’s ever going to be professional. We don’t know if this is going to be money. We don’t know if we can ever find sponsorship, but right now all three of us are kind of looking for the next step in our lives. So why not go for it?

Dr. Cooper

Very cool. The idea of the three of you training together, it’s just, just crazy. What did you enjoy when you think about the professional endurance athlete lifestyle? We’re going, I loved your book. We’re going to talk about this in a few minutes in terms of transitions, all that, but what did you enjoy most about being a professional endurance athlete? What, what was that like you mentioned at the early stages, it was, you know, t-shirts, but what, walk us through that? What, what was that early life like as a pro?

Scott Tinley

Well, I, I never envisioned myself as a corporate guy. I’ve, uh, you know, even though I’ve had, uh, I’ve had a lot of very good jobs, none of them have ever been associated with, uh, with corporate culture to the extent where I was sitting in a cubicle. So the idea of autonomy, um, of being beholden to your own efforts and your own trials and tribulations and successes and failures for me, that that was, um, that was desirable because I had been on team sports where the other people had kind of failed and screwed up the team. Right. Or maybe I failed and screwed up the team. And I thought, ah, you know, if I’m ever going to be a legitimate sports person, it has to be an individual sport. And, and, and anything I achieve or do not achieve, needs to fall on my own acclaim or lack thereof. So I think that agency was a big draw for me then, um, and remain. So today, you know, I mean, what I do and what I, I can’t work for anybody else, I’m unemployable, I’ll put it that way.

Dr. Cooper

You’ve worked it out pretty well my friend that’s good stuff. And the lifestyle itself. So that piece of it, but the travel, the training four or five, six hours a day, that what, can you give us a little behind the scenes of what that was really like?

Scott Tinley

Well, it was more, it was more than four or five hours a day. I hate to admit it, but yeah, we certainly over-trained, but yeah, you hit on a couple of good ones, uh, you know, the opportunity to, to, to basically see the world on somebody else’s meal ticket. I mean, I would go to France for the weekend to race, and I’d want to race back right after the event on Sunday afternoon, because I knew I wanted to be, you know, at a swim workout on Monday. You know, I look at that now and go, like, what, uh, what were you thinking? I did appreciate the travel at many points in my career and, and meeting people and experiencing, uh, you know, different, different cultures, different places, different ideals. And, uh, that was a big draw for sure. And I liked the fact that, that I wasn’t attracted to the compensation because there was none. At some point we all did pretty well. You know, we had our clothing company and that, that certainly helped out, you know, it’s one of those things where, you know, you ask a kid from the Bronx, man, what’s your, what’s your dream? Are you kidding me? Like every kid from the Bronx, I fall asleep every night, dreaming about striking out the side, pitching for the Yankees at the bottom of the ninth, seventh game of the series. We’re playing the Dodgers and I strike out the side. Right. And that’s just pipe dream for millions of young kids. And I just happened to get a taste of that for a few years. So I, I appreciate the hell out of that, that I, that I got that taste.

Dr. Cooper

Yeah. You, you, you mentioned the four to four to six was not accurate, Brad it was a lot more than that. I remember starting your book where you’d be pulling out the driveway on your bike while your neighbor was pulling out in his car and he’d be pulling back in from his work day and you’d be pulling back in from your bike. And he’s like, dude, where you really riding the entire day? And you’re like, you know, it was an easy day, But, uh, yeah. Yeah, you definitely put in the time. No doubt. So with that in mind, we’ve got a lot of masters athletes that listen to this. A lot of folks that are looking for pointers, what would you say? You look back and you go, yeah, we completely over-trained. If you were competing as high level, as you possibly could in your forties, fifties, sixties, what would be some advice for folks that are, are in those age groups that are saying, I don’t know, I was, I was training 20 hours a week when I was 30 years old. Should I still be training 20 hours a week? Should I be doing more strength training, any tips that you’ve come along as you’ve gone through this process and learned about yourself, folks that you’ve worked with, people you’ve talked to, et cetera?

Dr. Cooper

Yeah. Yeah. I’d say read more books and, uh, and reduce your mileage. But, uh, you know, I always think about the max airman’s poem, desert data, and there’s that wonderful line where, where he says gracefully surrender the things of youth. Um, and I don’t know that I have, but, but I, I, I look at some of my colleagues who are in my age category, you know, and I’m in my early sixties now and they’re, and they’re doing pretty well. And I sort of try and understand what methods and what practices they use in their thirties, forties, and fifties, to get to that point where they’re still charging in this sixth decade. And you know, a lot of it is just, um, it’s being smart, listening to what your mama said, everything in moderation and trying to focus on what your body’s telling you. So you wake up and you’re tired and your training log says, uh, I, you know, you need to run 9.3 miles and go, like, I think I’m only gonna run 3.1. You have to be mature enough to surrender those things that you can pull off in your twenties, thirties, and maybe your forties, but dude, you ain’t pulling them off in your fifties, sixties, seventies, and eighties, they just got, they’re going to come back and bite you on the in one way or another.

Dr. Cooper

And have you seen, I should know this in advance, but are you competing now? What is your, what is your goal now? You out there just enjoying doing the weekend stuff, are you every once in a while, dialing it in and trying to give everything you got, where where’s your head in terms of not competing at the levels that you were before, by any stretch, but getting out there for a real race and lining up with guys and seeing what happens?

Scott Tinley

The last time I had the faintest notion of being competitive was, uh, the Xterra world championships in Maui, in Maui. I think that was 2017 maybe. And I was going to be in the, uh, the 60 to 69 year old category. And I thought, okay, you know, I’m gonna, I’m gonna post up and see what I can do. So, so for several months at a time, I actually focused on, on something more than just participating. Right, right. You know, I did some intervals. I looked at my mileage. Um, I stretched, I ate well. And, uh, anyways, there is, there is for a variety of reasons did not go well. And that, that, well, that was a total waste of effort. So, so I haven’t, I haven’t participated in a, in a triathlon in several years. Um, and I have no plans to, um, I don’t follow the sport specifically, but, but I am hopeful for its future in a post COVID world. Um, and I, uh, you know, I embrace, um, what the Olympic movement has done and what the USAT our national governing body has done, but, but there are challenges, you know, uh, you know, I mean, the whole notion of, of Ironman, uh, being the, the, you know, the, the ultimate goal for people, you know, that’s, um, become a kind of mythic fallacy and people need to realize that that is not an achievable thing, nor a helpful thing if taken to obsession. If you can, if you can compete in one or two, right, and check that box, and you’re good with it. And it may, you know, maybe do one a year, that kind of thing. But, you know, people go like, okay, I’m going to do two or three iron mans a year. That’s a recipe for failure, from a variety of, of psychological and more so physiological conditions in your body as you age into the last best trimester trimester of your life. So not to disparage iron man, they’ve done amazing things for the sport. We need to rethink what that means to a lot of people.

Dr. Cooper

If I’m hearing you, right. You’re not announcing your comeback at age 70 today.

Scott Tinley

There’s only one. I don’t, first of all, I, I couldn’t certainly couldn’t qualify, but they used to have this deal where if you ever won the race, you know, they, they did, they allow you to come back and participate. I don’t know if that’s still in effect, but there’s only one way that I would go back and participate in the Ironman. And that would have to do with, you know, something like one of my family members really wanting to do it. And, but other than that, I’m a fan of the Ironman. But, you know, I, I was there 20 years in a row. I left a lot of blood on that highway. So, um, I feel like I’ve done my part.

Dr. Cooper

Yeah, no question. All right. We’re going to jump into transitions with your, with your book in a minute. But one more question, knowing what you know today, if you were to go back, you talked about the over-training, so that would be one piece. But if you were to go back when you were at your peak and change a few things, tweak some things, what, what might that look like? What would be some of those things? You mentioned the travel you’d soak in the travel a little bit more, but in terms of the training piece, in terms of the lifestyle piece, what might be different?

Scott Tinley

I don’t know, Brad. I, you know, I mean, I, I tend not to want to rethink or, uh, go down that path of regret, you know? I mean, certainly we, we, we all could form those cliches. Like if, if I knew then what I know, and this gives you that opportunity to do that a little bit. Yeah. Um, I mean, look, I made decisions based upon what information, um, I had in my quiver at the time. It wasn’t always correct. Sometimes it was right on. Sometimes I was lucky. Sometimes it was due to the research I had done, but I think if there was one general thing that I would suggest to your listeners would be that your heart and your emotions and your spirit that drives you on. And this is, there’s a rationality of what your body can do physiologically. And, and somewhere in the middle, it’s the correct place to be because, you know, you can’t exist like only focusing on, you know, on a screen, on a power meter, because you can know you’re going to become a freaking robot and that’s no fun. And certainly, you know, we know that the early history of the sport has more organic characters, should we say, um, that exists now, but that said it would be nice to, to have had more data. And I didn’t have a coach. There were no coaches, there’s no books. I look, you know, we were lab rats making this up.

Dr. Cooper

Well, and even aero bars. Right? Didn’t you transition into the aerobars? You didn’t have them early on. You had them a little bit later?

Scott Tinley

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Anyway, so it wouldn’t have been nice to get some feedback, but I don’t know where that would’ve come from.

Dr. Cooper

Yeah. Good stuff. All right. So let’s touch with your book. I read it, you wrote it in 2003. I believe, didn’t you?

Scott Tinley

First version came out in 2003, there’s an updated version. That’s like, 2009. I think that includes more, more research and more data. But yeah, the first version was right around that early 2002, 2003 period.

Dr. Cooper

I dug into the 2003 one. And I can’t tell you your first sentence. I’m just going to read it for, for everybody that’s out there that maybe hasn’t read it yet. It was a hawk, that end of my career. I cannot tell you my friend, how many times that sentence has popped into my head when I’m out riding or running or I’m in a race or something like that. It it’s, uh, so powerful. Can you expand upon what, where that went? What, what that, what you meant by that?

Scott Tinley

Well, I was just would have been around 1999 ish. And let’s see, I was 42 at the time, and I was trying to milk my career. I, you know, I, wasn’t looking forward to finding a corporate job or starting all over again. And, but, you know, but I had a house payment and a wife and, you know, I’ve gotta get my together. Come on Peter pan, you’ve got to grow up. So I was at an event somewhere in the Midwest and I was kind of hopeful that I’d be in the top five, top 10 worst, you know, I was having a bad day. And suddenly I’m on the run with cramps. You don’t think, you know, I’m shedding parts everywhere. And I just kind of stopped. And I looked around and people took off, like, you know, from the age group behind me are passing me, people were passing me and I’m just like, I suck. But then there was a Hawk, you know, and I kind of sat there, you know, I’m a huge fan of predatory birds, particularly red tail, and Cooper’s hawks and I see this red tail. And he’s kinda like making bird noises, you know, and I’d go like, that’s so beautiful. That’s so amazing. You know, I should pay more attention to nature. Oh, by the way, you’re in a race, you might want to finish the event. So that’s where that sentence came from.

Dr. Cooper

Wow. It’s interesting. The things that stick out with us when we go through that kind of stuff. So a lot of our listeners are in the midst of some sort of transition. It may with racing, it might be age, it might be with a relationship or career or whatever. So I’d like to touch on some of that, because that was, that was really what you dialed in, in this book. Why did you decide to devote your time and energy to studying this topic of transitions for athletes in the first place? Was it, was it autobiographical? Was it you’re trying to discover your own journey or was there something else that drew you to that? What, what took you down on that path?

Scott Tinley

Um, well, to be honest, Brad. It was because I was all messed up. I didn’t know where I was going. I was confused about my next place in life. Again, I’m 42, 43 years old, you know, it’s the year 2000, the cusp of a new millennium. And, uh, and you know, I knew I had options, you know, I wasn’t broke, I had some skills and, uh, uh, but I didn’t see myself wanting to be, you know, a salesman or a coach or, you know, something that would have just been an extension of what I’d been doing for the last 15 years. So I started talking with retired professional athletes. Individuals who I’d met along the way, or people, you know, give me contacts, asking them, you know, what were some of the contexts that affected your transition, both positive or negative? You know, what were some of the details that, that might’ve contributed to how you’re doing now or how you wish you were doing now? And, you know, and I found that that not only was it largely understudied, but so much of what we were learning from, you know, this, this condensed version of life transition could be transformative to, as you know, other areas of life, relationships, particular school programs, jobs, et cetera, et cetera. So I just threw myself into it and it, I went back to graduate school and ended up being a, um, my first master’s thesis. And then, you know, ultimately it was my PhD dissertation a decade later. Um, and the book came along and, um, yeah, it, it, it was a cool thing because it was one of those deals where you do at first thinking that, you know, you’re a little bit selfish, you know, focusing only on, on what you need, but, but then, you know, just over the years, you know, having these discussions with people who read the book or who came to the conferences that we put on, or somehow connected with, with the data that we had published, like, you know, when they say that, you know, that was cool. That that was, that was important for me to, to understand, um, because I hadn’t thought about it before. Anyways, that’s, that’s the long version of where it came from.

Dr. Cooper

What surprised you, I won’t say most, but what were some of the things that surprised you in your findings as you dug into this, as you talk to these different people, as you collected the data, did you come out of it saying, okay, well, I figured that’s how it would be, or did you come out of it saying never thought, not never saw this coming?

Scott Tinley

There was a couple of contexts that were, were very surprising and they all go, they go against what popular culture and what particular media forms have professed before. One of them had to do with financial status. And what I found was that if you retired or were transitioning with a whole bunch of money, well, you never had to work again or be it, you know, if you’re in a sport that you, there, wasn’t a compensation, you know, like I have a niece who was a gold medalist and women’s water polo. She didn’t retire with any money in the bank. So the better context was to have, have a certain amount of capital and ability to transition. So you had some resources that give you two, three, four years where you could go back to school, you could find a new job, you could start your own business. So, so that was interesting, um, because if you had too much money or not enough, you were less well off than if you had what some of my friends call F you money. Right. So it just means you can kind of do what you want. That was a cool one. And the other one was, um, trying to figure out why females had, female athletes had less emotional trauma in transition. And again, popular culture in some shallow research had suggested that it was because they could refocus their identity in a matriarchal role. Okay. I’m going to go from being the best tennis, tennis player in the world. Now I’m going to be a mother. And, you know, and that’s a simple transition because being a mother is so, uh, self, uh, fulfilling in that identity place that it replaces everything I was getting from being, you know, a female professional athlete. That wasn’t the case. What we found was that female athletes often transitioned better because they’ve been transitioning and dealing with the of, of male patriarchy in the world of sports for 250 years, right in America or worse. And that they’ve always in their mind thought, okay, if, if I can make some money, if I can get a sponsorship, if I can have a couple good years, that’s great. And so the level of appreciation for what they were given in female athletes way higher than what many males were able to acclaim. And so when female athletes retired, they’re like, Hey, I had a good time. You know, I traveled the world, I made some money. Uh, I met a lot of people. I’m super fit. I, you know, I learned how to be healthy and now I’m gonna move on to the next thing in my life, whatever that, so, so that, uh, so the outset of, of being a female again in a traditionally, uh, formatted male world of sports, um, you know, was to their advantage.

Dr. Cooper

Did it help you, as you talked to these folks, as you collected the data, did it help you with your transition? Did it make more difficult? Because all of a sudden you’re completely focused in on it?

Scott Tinley

Yeah, what do you think psychotherapy is? I didn’t have to pay a counselor because I was, counseling myself. But no it was fantastic for me. And, and honestly, um, one of the first things that happened to me, God, I’ll never forget this part. You know, where I was confused, by how you know where I’m going to go next, and what about, you know, supporting my family and my kids and et cetera, this, this friend of mine says, oh, you’re going to talk to this guy, Jerry. Oh yeah. He was a, he was a linebacker for the, for the green bay Packers, you know, between like 1973 and 1978 or something. Okay, great. Jerry shirk has studied this stuff and he really understands it. So I go meet Jerry shirk, you know, this guy’s like six, 12, you know, he’s a gentle, giant, a beautiful man. And the first thing he says to me, he goes, he goes, you know, Scott, the sooner you can realize that the best part of your life is over the sooner you can get on to having a decent second half. And I thought okay. First of all, that’s harsh. Second of all, it’s brilliant. And third, that’s exactly what I needed to hear.

Dr. Cooper

Wow. And then you had several moments like that, where people just said something that you went yeah. That’s critical.

Scott Tinley

 

All day long. Yeah, it was, it was, it was a gift for me to find that passion and to go down that rabbit hole of experience, because you know what I mean? Quite honestly, a lot of people in transition, they try different things that don’t work and they get frustrated. You know, I tried this job, I’m going into this relationship. You know, I tried this, this school program and it’s not happening. And they go pick dead end, dead end dead. And where do I go now? Right. Well, you go back to the crossroads and you try something else. Eventually one of those avenues will work.

Dr. Cooper

So someone who’s listening to this and they’re thinking, Hey, I’m in that transition now to any of those categories, we talked about, what advice would you have for them? If they were sitting down with you and saying, Scott, you know, you’ve been through this, you wrote about it. I’m struggling. I’m not sure whether to make transition whether or not whether to take this route or that route. What, what, what guidance would you give them?

Scott Tinley

Well, I mean, certainly you have to follow your heart, whatever that means. Um, you know, sometimes, uh, the intuition is, is way smarter than your rational ideas. I would certainly talk to as many people as possible. You know what I mean? Just pull people aside in the middle of the sidewalk. Hey, can I ask you a question, right? Yeah. I need some advice. I can go this way. I can go that way. So follow your heart. Talk to a whole bunch of people, find professional help, man. There’s, there’s some great people out there now who were, who are doing amazing work, you know, in counseling therapy that focuses on transition. And if you don’t like the person the first couple of times you talk to them, find somebody else, you know, I mean, eventually you will, you will connect with someone who’s going to help you with your mental health. You know? And that unfortunately has been a stigma for our system for many years. People are like whoa, you’re seeing a shrink, should I put you in a home? No, I’m just going to get my stuff together man. Find someone who can help me.

Dr. Cooper

The first one you mentioned was follow your heart. And then you subtly kind of under your breath said, whatever that means, what, what does it mean to you? Why did it come up first? Why did you say number one, A, because you’re not alone. I think we all go, but I’m not really sure what that means?

Scott Tinley

Yeah. Well, if, if I knew exactly what it means and I could bottle it up and sell it, I wouldn’t be a school teacher now. I, you know, I think most people have an inclination as to where, where they should be in their life at any particular point in time. And, but, but there’s this level of fear about what it may cost for them to move in that direction. I’m unhappy in a relationship. I don’t like that I only have a college degree. I don’t like this job. I don’t like where I live. I don’t belong here or there. And so they do this sort of very rational risk reward, ratio, balance sheet, and then they, they come up with the answer that’s okay. Well, right now it’s not a good time. When is the better time, you know, is it next week, next year, five years. So, so that whole notion of following your heart is, is, you know, at some point, once you do all your homework, sometimes you just got to close your eyes and jump. And if you land smoothly and everything’s great, then good on you. But if you hit a rocky bottom and you’ve got to climb back up the cliff, then, oh my God, now I sound like Tony Robins or something. Cut me off.

Dr. Cooper

Go get him, Tony. Um, all right. So books written, not quite 20 years ago, you read it, uh, you said there was some more science about 2009. If you were to rewrite it today, what would you add? Would there be a new chapter? Would there be a new approach that you’d say, you know what I would like to add as extra one on A?

Scott Tinley

You, you know, you, I mean, I’ve written seven or eight books and each, each of them could certainly be much better. Particularly the ones that I wrote after racing the sunset, where, you know, where I felt they were under edited and I read them now and I go, ah, well, how did I screw up that, that character? Um, I, you look, you put things out there at any given time based upon where you are in your life and what, you know, what you’ve achieved and how good you feel about exposing yourself, you know, through a published narrative. Uh, and you can’t go back, you know, it’s like, it’s the timestamp. There it is. You know, it’s like, it’s like, your grandma takes a picture of you at 10 years old. And she carries it around, you know, and you’re 16 going like, oh, I was such a dork and I was 10 mom or grandma, can you just like, make my hair longer or blonder or something? You’re like, no, that’s you at 10. And you gotta own it.

Dr. Cooper

You were 47 when the book was published, approximately right around 17 years ago. So using that example of your grandma, you’ve gone through some other transitions since that time, I’m guessing. Did this, did the perspective as an athlete transitioning, help you with the next transition? And if so,

Scott Tinley

I don’t know if it did or not. I think, uh, probably not. I should, you know, I should probably go back and read my own stuff. That’s, that’s what I was thinking. Come on, dude. I mean, no, look, I, you know, and things have been pretty well for me, you know, over the past decade or so, but there’s been some, some rough points and I, you know, I, I think innately once you go through those and you experience, um, what works and what doesn’t work, later in your life, you know, you don’t sit down with a yellow, legal pad and go, okay, I did this, then I shouldn’t do that. More, it’s you trust your experience and your thoughts and you stay awake late at night and you think, okay, I really need to do this. Not that.

Dr. Cooper

So the other large group of our listeners are health and wellness coaches. They’re coming alongside people, helping them think through where are they going with their life, where they’re going with their health, their wellness and performance, et cetera. What, what advice would you give to them? Because many of their clients are coming to them in the midst of some sort of transition. Maybe it’s just, I want to lose weight. Maybe it’s school pursuit, maybe it’s a career thought, but you mentioned some things of what you would say directly. Is there a one-off where you’d say, well, have them keep this in mind.

Scott Tinley

Yeah. That’s a good question. But, um, particularly in, in the midst of this pandemic crisis, for so many of us are, um, we’re struggling for things that we’ve lost and we don’t know how to safely find them again. I was telling somebody the other day, they go like, what do you miss the most? And I was like, I go kissing people on the lips and he’s like, wow, that’s gross. It just, it popped in my head. I don’t care what, you know, it’s like my dead grandmother or my little sister or whatever. It’s just one of those things. But anyways, um, I think that you have to be brutally honest with ourselves, know where, where are we in our lives? What have we achieved to date that we can be proud of? And what might we strive to accomplish to the best of our abilities in a challenging time and the time that we have left. And these are sort of substantial questions of existential reality. A lot of people don’t want to go there because it sounds too heavy. What are you talking about? Like what do you want to do before you die? Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Right. Bucket list stuff. Right. But it doesn’t have to be that dramatic and you know, and that over the top, you know, you can just start with a small list. You know, I wouldn’t mind doing this in the next two weeks, even if you don’t have to do the list, just, you know, write it on the old palm pilot ride my bike.

Dr. Cooper

The Palm pilot was a callback for folks that are like, wait, what is he talking about? I know exactly what you’re talking about. All right. Uh, transitions, obviously not a one-time thing. Is there a transition you’re going through now? Is there something you’re facing now? And if so, what are you learning through the process?

Scott Tinley

Yes. Um, I’m not going totally public with it, but, um, I, I, you know, I think it’s this,

Dr. Cooper

you are coming back at age seventy aren’t you?

Scott Tinley

Yeah. Really, a lot of it’s just this, you know, this general fragility of, of life, you don’t truly expect it or experience it or admire just how crazy, all this beautiful thing that we can appreciate can go away like that until you start to, until you’ve lost a few things that mean a lot to you. You know, it might be a loved one. It might be a sense. It might be part of your health, occupation, et cetera. And then suddenly you go like, wow, I had all that and now I don’t have all that. So it really gets back to, to what I said about female athletes, appreciating what they had, the more that I can appreciate what I’ve been able to accomplish or would have been gifted or what my parents brought me growing up, you know, or coaches, teachers, colleagues, et cetera. Then the happier I am, you know, I’m not, I’m not wishing I had something I’m appreciating what I have.

Dr. Cooper

And that’s new for you.

Scott Tinley

That’s a big one. And that’s, and that’s a lesson that I have to remind myself every day. Like, okay. Just, it ain’t that bad. There’s a lot of people who have it way worse. Yeah.

Dr. Cooper

Very good. Scott. I really appreciate it. Best way for listeners to keep up with you, would it be on Instagram?

Scott Tinley

Um, yeah, I have social media. I don’t use it much. I have a couple of Facebook accounts. I have an Instagram account. Um, I have a website. I don’t post anything there. Scott@ScottTinley.com, but you can get ahold of me, that’s my email. And then, um, we have, we have Trihistory.com if you’re interested in the history of triathlon on Trihistory.com. So that’s, that’s a really cool site that we’ve sort of chronicling and putting together a lot of images and stories about what happened in sports, multi sports in the past. Shameless plug for my novel right, in the wake of our past.

Dr. Cooper

Perfect, perfect. Well, Scott, thanks so much. I know it was tough for us to get this on the calendar, but really appreciate your time. It was a lot of fun.

Scott Tinley

Alright. Same Brad. All right. Good luck with everything. Thanks for having me on, really appreciate it.

Dr. Cooper

All right. Take care.

Scott Tinley

All right. Bye.

Dr. Cooper

You didn’t realize world-class athletes could be so philosophical, did you? Thanks again to author and two time Ironman world champion, Scott Tinley for sharing his time with us. Thank you to you for tuning into the number one podcast for health and wellness coaching. Next week, next week is one of our hidden gem episodes. It features Dr. Lisa Bellenger discussing how to maximize both our physical and our mental wellbeing. As always feel free to reach out to us with any questions about your current or future coaching career, Results@CatalystCoachingInstitute.com, we can set up a call. Or tap into additional health wellness, and performance resources on the website at CatalystCoachingInstitute.com. Now let’s go be a catalyst making a positive impact in the lives of our clients, our community, without burning ourselves out in the process. This is Dr. Bradford Cooper of the Catalyst Coaching Institute, I’ll speak with you soon on another episode of the Catalyst Health, Wellness and Performance Coaching Podcast, or maybe over on the new YouTube coaching channel.