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Triathlete Chris Bystriansky on Perseverance and Writing a Memoir · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_04: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_04: One of the universal truths of doing anything worthwhile is that at times you're just going to feel like giving up.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_04: Now, we all know that writing is hard work, but writing is only part of the work that we do as authors, right?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_04: There's the marketing side, the business side, the networking and relationship building, and so many other elements of running a business that can sap your energy.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_04: And when things don't go the way that you planned, it's really easy to quit.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_04: It's so easy just to give up and throw in the towel and just walk away from it and say, well, I gave it my best shot, but things are getting too hard.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_04: Unless you decided ahead of time that you're going to stick it out and that you're going to persevere.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_04: And that's why I'm really excited on this episode to introduce you to my friend Chris Bystransky, who recently released his brand new book, New Steel, replaced doubt and fear with resolve and courage.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_04: From two hip replacements to two triathlon finishes.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_04: And in his new book, Chris tells the story of going through a major health challenge, then going on to finish not just one, but two triathlons.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_04: Chris is a husband, father, real estate investor, attorney, author, speaker, coach, ironman, golfer, traveler, and much more.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_04: And as you can tell, he's a really busy guy.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_04: Chris has a BA in psychology from Illinois Wesleyan University, a law degree from the University of Houston, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_04: Chris is also the author of a fantastic book with a great title, by the way.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_04: It's called Renting from My Six-Year-Ltheons That Can Make and Keep Your Family Rich.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_04: And I'll leave it to you to grab that book and find out what renting from my six-year-old is actually all about.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_04: Well, in today's conversation, Chris and I talk about his journey from hip replacements to finishing two triathlons and what you and I as writers can learn about persevering through hard challenges.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_04: Chris and I also talk about why writers need to set health and fitness goals and where to start with those.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_04: And finally, Chris shares some thoughts on how he wrote his memoir.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_04: So if you've been considering writing your own story or your own memoir, you're going to find a lot of value in that section of our conversation.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_04: You can connect with Chris via his website, Chris Bystransky.com.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_04: And I know that it's a little uh a little difficult to spell, so there is a link in the show notes.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not going to spell it out for you here.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_04: You can go to the show notes to grab the link.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_04: So make sure and visit Chris's website.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_04: This was a really inspiring and fun conversation, and I hope you enjoy it.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_04: Chris, I'm so glad to have you on the show today.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_04: This is the first time you've actually been on the Daily Writer podcast.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_04: We've been friends for two or three years, uh, but this is your first appearance on the show.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_04: So glad to have you.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks so much, Ken.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Glad to be here.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Happy to be on the show.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let's have a great conversation.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've we've been friends for uh several years now, and it's great to actually sit down and and do this episode.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you very much.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely, totally my pleasure.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_04: So the first thing that would I ask about is let's just dive right into the topic of your book.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_04: So your book um called New Steel, replaced doubt and fear with resolve and courage.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_04: And you're talking about having two hip replacements, but then going on to do two triathlons, which is an incredible story in and of itself.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_04: So maybe let's start there and kind of walk through the main ideas or the main story of the book.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_04: Then I want to get into the actual writing of the book and some more granular writing stuff, but give us kind of the lay of the land in terms of why you wrote this book and what it's all about.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so New Steel um takes uh the reader through my experiences of having two hip replacement surgeries and doing going through the recovery process and then ultimately doing two Iron Man triathlons, which at the beginning of my whole uh process seemed incredibly outlandish.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was not even on the radar.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to be able to walk and play with my play with my babies and you know help out my wife.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: The thought of doing an Iron Man was not even a possibility for me.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: But then over a couple of years of doing rehab and exercises and getting stronger, I started to think about what can I do?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: What can I do to really feel like I've I've gotten back, or how much can I push myself?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And even though it would still seem outlandish, I had, I don't know if you called it an epiphany or just a complete change of thought, but I went from thinking, this is my box, I need to stay in the box of what I'm doing, the exercises that I'm doing, what I'm doing for a living, where I'm living, my friends, all of that changed.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: I had a completely different view, and I started to approach life with the question how would something be possible for me?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: What steps do I need to take to make something possible for me?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: So in the past, I would look at something and say, that's ridiculous.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do that.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: When I didn't even know if I wanted to do it, but it just wasn't in my box.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then my box, I shredded the box and I started to approach things.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: How can I do that?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: What steps do I need to take?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that has completely changed my approach to life.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: I left my corporate job, we relocated uh across the country, completely changed how we approach life.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Me and my wife both do that, both do these things.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: So the book talks about the recovery from the hip replacements through doing the Iron Man's, but it's really a change in perspective and really tackling challenges and really having a more fulfilling and active and exciting lifestyle.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I have to commend you on the book because not only is it a riveting story, it's really, really well written.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_04: And, you know, it's kind of a word geek and as a ghostwriter and all that stuff.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_04: I don't I try to be very sincere in my compliments to people.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_04: Like if I think a book is not that good, then I'll I'll say something.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_04: I won't, I won't say the book is good.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_04: I'll say something else, you know.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_04: I always want to compliment people and make them feel good, but but I don't ever say like the writing is really, really good unless I really, really seriously mean it.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_04: And the way that you have actually written the narrative is like I hope that you consider writing a novel someday because you're really, really good at storytelling.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_04: Like, even stuff like the length of the paragraphs and even like the very first opening line of the book.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_04: And you kind of give people like a warning, like, hey, I use some profanity here and there in the book.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_04: And I think in in this case, it's absolutely necessary because you grab us by the throat right from the very first sentence and you don't let go.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_04: So I just I want to commend you on that because I think it's riveting.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: I I appreciate it.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: I I thought it was very important to try to convey the best I could the emotion that I was going through the morning of my surgeries.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the I was absolutely terrified because I did not know what the future would hold.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I did not know if I'd be able to walk again, how bad of a limp I could have, how successful I would be helping my wife, if I'd be able to play with my kids.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was absolutely terrified.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: The surgery was just one part, but all those other things magnified my fear.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was a big, strong guy who did a lot of active things.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was not supposed to be having a hip replacement surgery.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't at my age.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: I had my first hip replacement in my late 30s.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to start the book in a way to convey the fear that I was feeling on the morning of the first surgery.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_04: So, how how do you think about writing a narrative?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_04: I'm really not even sure what I'm asking, other than you have a natural sense of rhythm when you're telling a story, even you know, like the idea of going several paragraphs and having several like one one sentence paragraphs.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_04: And there's really like a novelist rhythm with this.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_04: So, do you feel like that's an intuitive way that you write?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's the way I think, and I I think it's the way I talk as well, but I'm just trying to break it up to to make it digestible for the reader because there's a lot of key points throughout the book, and I don't want to bury them in a longer paragraph sometimes.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I see that happen a lot.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_04: In fact, I was um looking at a book in Barnes Noble the other day at historical, uh like a memoir of like a president kind of a thing.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_04: And I noticed that like the paragraphs are just so long, and I'm like, oh my gosh, dude, like you got to break up these paragraphs.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_04: It's absolutely insane.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_04: So I always appreciate it whenever authors break up paragraphs and make it a lot easier for the reader to digest the story.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I've had some great coaching, and even when I was reading books, as I was writing my book, I was looking at other books and looking at the format, looking at the style.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, I like that.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I like how this is broken up.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Let me try to incorporate that into this book.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in in New Steel, I struggled in the writing process of how am I gonna tell this story?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what are the chapters gonna be about?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: What are the different sections of the book going to be about?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to try to think think what would be interesting and what would make sense because there's a lot going on.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm happy with the way it came out, I'm happy with the structure of the book, not only the chapters, but also the the different parts of the book.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's relatively easy to follow.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_04: So for authors or aspiring authors who are considering writing a memoir of their own, telling about a certain thread in their life or a certain experience, do you have any advice for them about what maybe to include or what not to include or how how to go about telling their story?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_04: Because there's there's so much anybody can include in a memoir, but you you can't include everything or else the the book would be a thousand pages, you know.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: I I think this I don't know if this is a cliche or not, but pour your soul into it.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Really make yourself, and I try to do this, make I tried to make myself as vulnerable as possible.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: I give away a lot of information about my life that I've never told anybody.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was important because all of that builds up to the fear I had going in, and then why I had this epiphany in my life to change my lifestyle and go and tackle things like Iron Man's or other endurance events.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Every piece matters in the book.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to bring in history, so I had to be very vulnerable.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're gonna write about yourself, I think you need to open up and really let people look into your soul and in your brain and what you're thinking.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, just try to cliche, pour your soul into it.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_04: Were there any things that you included in earlier drafts of the book that as you went through the editing process, you thought, uh, that's too personal or that's too arcane, or they're not gonna like that detail and that you that you kind of excise that as you went along?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if there was any specific things that I took out completely.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: I may have abbreviated them just for just for length.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I had to put in some key stories in there to illustrate certain points and to really keep it a little bit light because it's it's a scary beginning.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I I had to try to do some things to help the reader smile a little bit and not get too concerned.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_04: I thought one of the and I know you weren't trying to make the story funny.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_04: Um, obviously, there's a lot of non-funny things about the story, but I had to laugh when you when you just give the little detail in the opening scene of the book about how when they were prepping you for surgery, they came along and they put an X on your hip.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_04: So they made sure that they wouldn't they wouldn't work on the opposite hip.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_04: And it made me think of a story that I that I saw on the news last year where surgeons had amputated the wrong leg of somebody.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_04: And I thought, oh my gosh, how does that happen?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_04: But like, is that a common enough thing to where like they have to come along and actually mark which side of your body to work on?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think they mark for a reason.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, there's a lot of different redundancies to make sure that they're operating on the right limb um or right joint.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I was more than happy to confirm and reconfirm and reconfirm again.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: But it was it was just surreal.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Every every minute that I was waiting before the surgery was very um very tense, and I just found it funny that the nurse came in and with a sharpie and put a big X on my on my hip.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm that is really glad she was there to do that.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I've been with my dad, as he's had different surgeries over the years, and he had a uh double hip replacement actually last year.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_04: Uh they did it both at different times, but I don't remember them actually marking the hip, but maybe they did and I just didn't notice it.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_04: But I I could clearly see why that would be important because man, if you're a surgeon doing five or six surgeries a day, I guess.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_04: Oh I I can imagine it would be easy to make that mistake, I suppose.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and yeah, the surgeons work quickly.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they they do have to make sure that they're doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's easy, I guess it would be relatively easy to get confused because they work in multiple operating rooms.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and they have a team opening up a patient in room one, and then they'll come in, the surgeon will come in, and he or she will do the actual surgery and then leave to go to the next room where a team has already prepped a different patient, a different team has prepped a different patient.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So these things are going pretty quickly, and I'm just glad they they they got it right, nailed it.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I have not any I have not personally heard of any horror stories.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've read of some, uh, just like you, but I'm glad that they did that.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just one of the things in the morning that I remember uh like it was yesterday.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: A couple things edged in my mind um that morning.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: So um glad to have that behind me, but that was a uh a key point of that morning.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_04: So one of the things that we talk about a lot in the writing world, and of course, you're an author, so you would know this multi-book author, is this whole idea of sticking with things and perseverance and keeping at something.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_04: And you've demonstrated this not only by having multiple books out there, but you also went from having a double hip replacement to then doing a couple of triathlons, which I know requires a lot of work and perseverance.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_04: How do you think the lessons that you learned in training for those triathlons would apply to people who are doing creative things like writing?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: There are some similarities?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of parallels.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to set out on something, to set up on a major goal, whether that's writing book, writing a book, launching a business, tackling um uh a mountain hike or an Iron Man triathlon.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then you get into it and things slow down, things get more challenging, and it's easy to quit.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to come up with excuses not to move forward.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: But just like writing a book and just like preparing for um an Iron Man or what have you, you have to overcome those challenges.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: You have to push through, somehow get or somehow get around what's in front of you.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Whether a lot of times you might have to bring in somebody else, or you might have to get discipline yourself to just keep going, to think about what's in your corner that could help you.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: What assets do you have that are going to help you move forward?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if you're writing a book, you still have that same great idea.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just get it down on paper and we can revise it.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get it down in a document and we can revise it.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: I had this incredible English teacher when I was in high school.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: We used to have book tests every three weeks on some of the classics.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the test was you come in, class was an hour long, and it would be about 20 multiple choice questions, and there would be like 20 answers for every one.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you better have read that book recently to know all the details.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: But then the last half of the test, which was basically like 90% of it, was an essay.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he would ask a very broad question and he'd want you to answer it.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you had to you had to come up with 500 words, otherwise, he wouldn't even grade it.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: You'd get an F.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he would tell us that the cure to writer's block is writing.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Just start getting something down, get the juices flowing and keep moving forward.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: In that scenario, we didn't have any time to edit.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: But when we're at home now writing books, we can edit, we can edit, just get something down, maybe three, four, five different ideas, and then you can pursue each one of them, and maybe only one of them you're truly passionate about and truly want to put your soul into that, and that's the one you pursue because I think that's the one that the reader is going to understand and feel the emotion coming through the pages.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're faced with challenges or not being able to move forward, get stuff down and just let it develop.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the ideas might start with a trickle and then they just keep coming, keep coming.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: I could write, I had to cut the book off at some point.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: But it you could just keep adding chapters and keep adding ideas because they're still in there.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I gotta make a book, I have to write a book that is manageable for someone to read, entertaining, informative, and inspirational.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, 200 pages is about right.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: A thousand pages may not work so much.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_04: So how long is your book?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_04: I don't recall.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_04: It was it like 200 pages?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh or was it shorter?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: I got it right here.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's just under 200 pages.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_04: That's a great length for a nonfiction book that uh of that genre, like a memoir type of a thing.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's um three to three to five hours for three to three to six hours for a typical reader.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_04: We'll get back to the conversation in just a moment, but first, a big thanks to today's sponsor, Vellum.
• 19:07
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• 19:43
  SPEAKER_04: That's trivellum.comslash daily.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_04: And now back to the conversation.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_04: So I know a lot of our listeners are interested in health and wellness and energy and those range of topics because we can't divorce our creative energies and our thinking and our writing from our actual bodies.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_04: So for people who let's kind of address two different groups here.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_04: Let's say someone is in group one, which is people who are not really that physically active, they want to take those first steps to maybe get to, I'm just gonna throw out an arbitrary goal of doing, let's say, a 5K, which is a really great kind of initial health goal, I think, because uh 5K is within the reach of almost anybody, even if you just walk it.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_04: So do you have any thoughts on on how someone could go from basically zero to a 5K and um maybe speak to the perseverance and sticking with it and how long something like that might take?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I know from my personal experience that when I'm active, I am much more productive and I think more clearly, and every system in my body works better.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I I approach things like that, and I like to challenge myself.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I do bigger events.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: But look, it doesn't matter what the event is, the event could be one walk around the block.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy, it's it's very difficult to start.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Very difficult.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: But once you start, you're there, you're you're moving, you you have momentum.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: My wife tells me she hates working out for the first minute, and then the next 29 minutes she feels great, you know, and I I'm relatively um similar.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I can I can get on board with that.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's just important just to start, and if possible, think about the bigger picture.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just a walk or a 5k, it's it's an opportunity to meet somebody who's doing that as well.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's an opportunity to experience something new.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of these events, they're parties too.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Go for the party.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: I've done a lot of these different events, and you have some very fast people on one end, you have some very slow people on the other end, and they both get paid the same when they finish, which is zero.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: True.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think too many people think about a 5k or a race or other endurance event and they judge it by the time it takes to complete it.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that that's the right way.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think historically people have done that.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: I would like to see things measured by the happiness you get, the friends that you make, the smiles that you give, the people that you meet.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: How about that?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: How about we judge whether or not this was an effective use of our time by all of those things rather than some time?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's a different, that's a completely different metric.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so many people involved in this that no matter what your pace is or what your goals are, there's somebody who will do it with you.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: All it takes is walking into that first event.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Get into that first event.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Go to a running store and find out what events are coming up.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've never been into a running store and treated poorly.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't look like a runner.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: So these are great people who are very welcoming to everybody, everybody's shape and size and ability.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's a community, and most people are not there to set speed records.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're there to meet people and be active.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of other benefits, like minds gonna work better, you're gonna sleep better, you know, health, weight, all of these things.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: So pick a reason to go.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Any of those.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Go to meet people, go for the party, go for the fun, the smile, the beer after, whatever it is.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Just go, just start going and get one of those experiences in.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I I really second that.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_04: I've done a few races the last few years, uh, like 5K, 10k, um, half marathon, those kind of things.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_04: I'm always really, really slow, like I'm not a fast person at all.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but it is, it's like a party when you do those, and it's incredibly motivating.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_04: Plus, there's there's like an inner third grader in all of us where you cross the finish line, you get a medal.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_04: You kind of like want to do a little dance, like, yay, I got a medal, you know.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_04: There's something really fun about that.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's something, there's something magical about a finish line at an event, any event, any event, because there are people who who zip through it and it's no big deal for them, but there are people who are absolutely struggling to finish that event, and that is magical because to me, somebody who's struggling to finish that may have overcome way more challenges to get to that finish line than somebody who zips through that, and that's very motivating and inspirational to me because I know they're suffering, I know they have every excuse not to be there, and but they're there anyway.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, you know, they're there, they've signed up, they know they're not gonna be great at something, they sign up, they participate, and they they struggle and they finish, and that is incredibly um inspirational to me.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_04: Oh my gosh, yeah, it's it's really, really inspiring.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_04: And even if you come in like dead last, you're still doing better than like 99.9% of people.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, but see, yeah, but see, that's not last.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's not last because a population we're comparing ourselves to is incorrect.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, the the total right approach is to not compare yourself to anybody, like compare yourself to you.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Was I better than am I better today than I was yesterday?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you finish one of those events, you even get there, you're doing better than you were doing yesterday.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but if we're gonna compare ourselves to other people, okay, I don't recommend this, but if we're gonna compare ourselves to other people, the population to compare ourselves to is not the population who's at the race.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: The population to compare us to is everybody else.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if there's only a few hundred people at that event, but there's hundreds of thousands of people in your community, you're doing way better than almost everybody in your community.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: So compare yourself to you to yourself yesterday, but if you have to compare yourself to somebody else, compare yourself to everybody and not just a population of the people who are there.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_04: Now, what about somebody who maybe they they've ran some races and they want to take health and fitness to kind of like the next level, something like a triathlon, which is more of a hardcore?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_04: I would just I would think of it as a hardcore thing.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe that's not how people who do it actually think of it, but that's something that requires a lot more training and endurance.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_04: What does a training plan to successfully complete a triathlon look like?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_04: And maybe for those who don't know, maybe give us the rundown of what's actually included in a triathlon.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the the triathlons are different lengths, okay?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's sprints which are just um maybe a 500-meter swim, uh, maybe a 20k bike ride and a 5k run, okay.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's on a sprint side, and then you have longer ones, um, like an Iron Man.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: An Iron Man is uh 2.4 mile swim, uh 112-mile bike ride, and then a full 26.2 uh mile marathon after that.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: But regardless of what event, whether it's a 5K or an Iron Man, I think step number one is to go find other people who are doing these things and join them.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, because it's gonna change your peer group, it's gonna change your your perception of what's normal and what's acceptable.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you're hanging out, if you're spending time with people who are just sitting around drinking beer, they may not motivate you um or give you the right mindset to go do an Iron Man.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: But if you start hanging around with people who are training for Iron Man's, who have done Iron Man's or other triathlons, your perception completely changes.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Something that whole endeavor becomes much more reasonable because it's acceptable behavior.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Those are two different peer groups, but one of them is going to support you and the other one is not.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I would think that step one in any athletic event or race or what have you is to go spend time with those people.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: And they're all over the place.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's groups all over the place.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then really to you know, I like to back into what I need to do to make sure that I finish.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then everything under other than that is gravy.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: So if there's a time limit, I figure out what my paces are on a couple training runs or swims or rides or what have you, and then I kind of understand what my pace is.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then I do projections of okay, if I maintain this pace, this is the time I'm gonna finish.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if I'm comfortable with that, I just maintain my training.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm not comfortable with my time, what my projected time, I'm gonna increase my training and what have you.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: But you start doing the math on these things and they become a lot easier, a lot more manageable.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's very daunting to 5k, 10k triathlon, what have you.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: But then you start doing the math, you're like, oh, okay, I could do that.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: So meet people who are doing those things already.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not only on physical endeavor.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to be a writer, go spend time with other writers.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to do anything, you want to take on any challenge, just go find people who are already doing that kind of thing.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're gonna get information, you're gonna get motivation, your mindset is gonna completely change into believing that these things are doable.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_04: And isn't that really partly what all this is about is changing your mind about hey, I can actually do this thing, whether it's writing a book or doing a race or whatever, because if you don't think it's possible, then you're not going to want to go through the training or the process of getting there.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_04: But then when you when you're around people who are like, well, yeah, of course it's possible.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_04: You can do this and you can do so much more.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_04: It really, it really changes what you feel like is possible for you, which is the beginning of I think any sort of a meaningful change in your life.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, even think about writing a book.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: If if if I were to sit down and say I'm gonna write 60,000 words, I'm like, wow, that could be a little bit daunting.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I'm gonna get to that.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: But if I start with what 10 subjects would I like to talk about in the book?
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what's my overall idea of a book?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then what are the 10 subjects I want to talk about?
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I just have an outline, all right?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I've got 10, 10, they become chapters, and then okay, in this particular chapter, these three subtopics go there.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: So now I've got three subtopics times whatever 10 chapters.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then, okay, I'm just gonna write four or five sentences about this subtopic, and then four or five sentences on this subtopic.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden you've got a thousand, two thousand words, and you just start to expand on those ideas and what's really what's really motivating you to write what do you really want to write about?
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: What are you pouring your your your your soul into, and you just go with that?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: The same thing with any with any type of race.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you look at a whole triathlon or any type of event, it seems long and daunting, but if you could break it down into by mile or by every five-minute increments, I could do that for five minutes.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right, you know, I could it's a it's a a a marathon, for example.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, running 26.2 miles seems like a lot.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I can do it.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: But if I walked two minutes and ran one minute, could I do that?
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Could I do it if I had a friend with me?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you start to think that all these things are possible.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you start to build up the strength, the mindset um of being able to move forward and being successful in these things.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: So little pieces go a long way.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_04: And that's especially true when it comes to doing a book because all that a book is is just a collection of words.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_04: You know, if you can write a 500-word blog post, you can write a 60,000-word book.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that there's really no difference, except I think it's actually it actually is easier when you put it all into a book.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_04: Because when you're blogging, every blog post is like a separate, its own kind of separate thing, typically.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_04: But when you're doing a book, they're all strung together with, you know, in a specific order with a specific theme and all that stuff.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_04: And all that a 60,000-word book is is just 120, 500-word blog posts, you know, which is really not that many when you just even if you just like do one a day or something.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I think I would have a hard time writing a short article because I want to hash things out.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I want to shake them out and really expand on something I'm I'm trying to say.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, 500 words goes by like goes by like that, and you're like, I'm not done.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I haven't really conveyed the meaning that I want to convey.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: So to me, it's easier to go a little bit long to go longer and then just start building out different ideas related that can really help somebody.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_04: You probably hate doing a daily podcast like this one then.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_04: Because this is, you know, the daily daily writer show, which people are listening to right now, obviously.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_04: We have an interview once a week, and then the other six episodes during the week typically are little short episodes.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_04: When you look at the word count, they're about 200, maybe 250 each.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_04: And it's really just kind of my way of testing and ideas to see what I think about something.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and sometimes I get feedback on the oddest episodes, things that that I kind of look at as ah, that was sort of a filler episode, you know.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, I was just testing out some dumb idea and people love it.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_04: Other times I put out stuff that I think is, man, this is like the best stuff I've done in a while, and it's crickets.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_04: So it's you never know when you put stuff out there how people are gonna respond to it.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_04: It's funny.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's a lot of great content that certainly you can get out more content, a lot of different content by going shorter.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I appreciate that.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I enjoy being able to hash out ideas and really tying things back.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I understand that.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I read shorter stuff too, so I I totally value all of that.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_04: I just like it depends on what your goal is, you know, and what you're trying to do with it and and all that.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so people can grab your book on Amazon, obviously, um, as well as your previous book, Renting from My Six Year Old, which is a really cool book.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_04: We didn't even get into that one.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um, where else can people go to find out more about you?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_04: Where would you point them?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you just go to my website, uh Chris Bystransky.com.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's information in there about the books, uh, coaching program, real estate, what have you, uh, some different activities.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, reach out to me.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to be in contact and answer any of your questions.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_04: Awesome.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_04: Well, this has been a blast, Chris.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_04: I appreciate you taking time to share your journey with us.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_04: Give us some great writing tips as well as some great tips on fitness and exercise, and you're kind of the whole package here.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_04: You're you're like getting it, you're not only helping us get our books done, you're helping us get healthier too, which is awesome.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_04: So appreciate you so much and and so glad you made time to come on the show today.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much, Ken.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: I hope everyone enjoyed it and I shared some uh pearls of wisdom with everybody.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Keep writing, keep moving forward, everybody.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_04: All right, thanks so much.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_04: Well, hey, I feel like I always say this at the end of episodes, but my goodness, I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I say this sometimes here on my podcast, but one of the cool things about doing a show like this, where you have interviews, is that you get to talk to really inspiring people all the time.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_04: And that's certainly the case with this conversation with Chris.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_04: You know, there are a lot of things when it comes to writing and running a writing business, there are a lot of things that cause people to get frustrated.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_04: It's sometimes it's emotionally draining work.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_04: There's the marketing and the business side and the networking, as I mentioned at the top of the episode.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_04: There's a lot of things to do.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_04: And there are a lot of places, you know, there are a lot of um little parts of this business where sometimes you just get a little frustrated and you're like, oh man, this is hard or this is difficult, or I've got to learn this new thing, or I've got to do this thing in my business that's gonna require this level of uh perseverance and energy that I've got to kind of dig down deep and find that.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_04: So I hope that this conversation with Chris about overcoming these two hip replacements and going on to do two triathlons and writing his memoir, I hope that this has encouraged you to keep pressing on, to keep pushing forward in meeting those challenges head on.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_04: Nobody ever said this was easy being a writer or trying to build a writing-based business.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_04: And if somebody ever told you that it was going to be totally easy, well, they didn't really tell you the truth because we all know otherwise, right?
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_04: So again, I hope this conversation has encouraged you and inspired you as much as it has me.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_04: Again, I encourage you to check out Chris's book called New Steel.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_04: There's a link in the show notes to the book.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_04: You can grab that on Amazon.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_04: And I also encourage you to check out Chris's website, Chris by Stransky.com, and there's a link in the show notes so you don't have to guess on how to spell that.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_04: Many thanks to Chris for being a guest on today's episode, and as always, my friend, thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.