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Coming up next on Passion Struck.
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One of the things I usually tell people is that it s really a mindset thing.
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For a lot of people, in their head, it s like, oh, I can t do this.
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I see how far you, I don t know if I can get there right.
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And one of the things I try to tell people is that don t fall into this comparison trap.
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Like your day zero will look different from my day zero, and that s okay.
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Your day 100 will look different from my day 100, and that s okay, because it s not where you started, it s where you re going.
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Welcome to Passion Struck.
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Hi, I m your host, John R. Miles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world s most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you.
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Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself.
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If you re new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays.
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We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes.
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Now, let s go out there and become passion struck.
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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Episode 357 of Passion Struck.
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Consistently ranked by Apple is one of the top 10 most popular health podcast in the world.
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And thank you to all of you.
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Come back weekly to listen and learn how to live better, be better and impact the world.
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Passion Struck is on syndicated radio on the Brushwood Media Network.
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You can catch us Monday and Friday from 5 to 6 p.m.
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Eastern Time on Apple Music, TuneIn, or wherever you listen.
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Links will be in the show notes.
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If you re new to the show, thank you so much for being here, or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member, you need to check out our episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans  favorite episodes that we organize into convenient topics that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show.
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Either go to Spotify or passionstruck.com slash starter packs to get started.
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In case you missed it, last week I interviewed two great guests.
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The first was Dr. John Deloney, who s a best-selling author, mental health expert, and host of Dr. John Deloney Show.
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For over two decades, John s immersed himself in research, experienced personal growth, and compassionately guided countless others towards reclaiming their lives from the grips of anxiety.
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The key to this transformation lies in the power of choices.
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Six essential choices that pave the way for a non-anxious life.
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These choices that he outlines in his new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, are not easy, but they are the stepping stones towards a brighter future, enabling you to rise above challenges and find peace amidst chaos.
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The second was with Katie Horwich, who is a writer, speaker, mindset coach, and women s empowerment activist.
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She s the founder of WANT, Women Against Negative Talk, a platform dedicated to empowering women
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to move forward in their lives fearlessly by shifting their negative self-talk patterns.
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Katie is also the host of the WANTcast, the Women Against Negative Talk podcast.
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We discuss Katie s new book, WANT Yourself, which offers a revolutionary approach to transform your self-talk patterns in a deep and lasting way.
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I also wanted to say thank you for your ratings and reviews, which go such a long way in bringing more people into the Passion Star community where we can bring them daily doses of inspiration, hope, and meaning.
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If you loved today s episode or either of the other two I mentioned, we would appreciate you giving it a five-star review and rating and sharing it with your friends and families.
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I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners.
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Joining us on today s episode is Martinez Evans, a man whose life is a testament to the power of intentionality.
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Martinez has embarked on a mission to make running a sport for everyone.
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which is fueled by his unwavering commitment to inclusivity and empowerment.
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Martinez s journey began with a pivotal moment when a doctor s stark warning prompted him to take charge of his destiny.
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In the face of the daunting ultimatum, lose weight or die, he chose defiance and purpose.
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Deciding to run a marathon, he set out on a path that many deemed impossible.
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Since that pivotal moment, Martinez has run not just one, but eight marathons, along with numerous other distances, all while carrying the strength and determination of his 300-something pound body.
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His story resonates not only through his remarkable running achievements, but also through the intentional choices he has made to inspire others.
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Today, we ll delve into Martinez s newly published book, Slow AF Run Club, the ultimate guide for anybody who wants to run.
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It s more than a running manual, it s a blueprint for living with intention.
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Martinus empowers readers to break free from societal norms and embrace their unique selves, regardless of size or perceived limitations.
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Martinus  passion goes beyond running.
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He s a vocal advocate for size inclusivity, mental health, and diversity, and he passionately speaks about these issues to inspire change and create a more welcoming world for everyone.
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Today, listeners, you ll learn from Martinez-Evans how to infuse intentionality into your own life.
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Whether you re a seasoned runner or someone considering that first stride, this story will encourage you to set audacious goals, cultivate resilience, and foster a sense of community that supports and uplifts.
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Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life.
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Now, let that journey begin.
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I am so honored today to have Martinus Evans on PassionStruck.
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Welcome, Martinus.
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Thank you for having me.
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So as I was doing my research, getting ready for this, it turns out, I think you and my father grew up pretty close to each other.
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My dad grew up in East Detroit and lived off of 7 Mile over by Kelly Road.
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And I remember growing up as a kid, Denby High School, if you know where that is, was pretty close to his house.
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And we used to play around those neighborhoods as I was growing up as a kid myself.
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John, that s a full circle moment because you probably don t know that, but I went to Denby High School.
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Oh, I didn t know that.
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Yeah.
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Well, it was literally maybe two football fields away from my father s house.
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Oh, that s what an amazing ball circle moment.
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Well, I remember him telling me growing up there wasn t necessarily the easiest way to grow up as a kid.
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Did you have similar experiences?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I had a very rough lifestyle.
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Growing up on the East Side of Detroit, I had a very tough life.
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Before the age of 10, I had two brothers pass.
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One brother passed.
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He got killed doing things inside the streets.
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And then another brother died by suicide.
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In addition to that, I also grew up next to a crack house.
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It was one of the things I had to cross or walk past every day of my life to go to school.
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Well, I am so sorry to hear that.
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And I remember growing up as a kid, I think my grandparents lived there from the time it was in the 50s or 60s all the way into the early 2000s.
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And I just saw that neighborhood change in so many ways during that period of my life, starting in the 70s until she ended up moving away when she got into her elder years.
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But I m so sorry to hear that.
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One thing we might also share is I remember every time we would go to Detroit, my dad always wanted to get Detroit style pizza and he would always talk about going to Buddy s up in Warren.
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But my uncle would always take us to a local convenience store that he thought had better pizza.
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Are you still a fan of the Detroit pizza or do you like other styles better?
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Oh man, this is a big debate between my Detroit friends and my New York friends whenever they get in the same room together.
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I m a fan of both, but if I had to choose one, I m choosing New York pizza over Detroit pizza all the time.
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I agree with you.
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I don t like the thicker crust as much as I like the thin crust, but we digress on Detroit for a few seconds there.
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Well, I have a really good friend, Tom Riley, who played for Notre Dame on their football team from that kind of 85 through 88 year period where they won that national championship.
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And Tom, similar stature to you, he s about 6 7 , 6 8 , even now is probably 350 to 400 pound range.
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But I remember him telling me that while he was at Notre Dame for so many of the years, him being
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A football player kind of defined his existence and then he ended up getting really injured playing and his last year he wasn t able to play and he said it was such a shocking transformation going from having these varsity tables, everyone looking out for you, being surrounded by people who were wanting to see you succeed and help you get through to then feeling like he had no support at all.
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Did you have a similar experience?
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Because I understand you started off playing college ball and yourself got injured and then had to make a pivot and went back to a different university.
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That is very interesting.
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Yes.
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I would say it is definitely something that I experienced as well.
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football and then life after collegiate football.
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I didn t necessarily get injured in football, per se, in my story.
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What actually happened to me is that the football coach quit.
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So when a new coach came in, he told everybody that everybody s going to have to retry out.
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And I don t know, 19-year-old Martinez was not for that.
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So I quit football.
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Luckily for myself, I had a decent GPA and transferred to a different school.
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And to go through that, going to a school where your name
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it was respect was given or it was just always commended because you were on the football team.
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So just being like a regular individual, but still having like football team habits.
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So what I mean by that is that when I started playing my freshman year in college, the football coach would tell me, you are too light.
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You need to gain more weight.
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And he would tell me, eat whatever s not bolted down to the ground.
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When I stopped playing football, I still had that habit.
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or meeting demands of playing football, but I was still eating like I was.
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I remember Tom telling me, similar to you, he went through a coaching change as well because halfway through his time there, Lou Holtz came on and he told me it was really interesting because you either felt like you were part of Lou Holtz s team or you didn t feel like it at all, but he said the whole program changed.
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And another thing I can sympathize with you on is I had a number of friends at the Naval Academy who played on the football team.
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And interestingly enough, these guys, especially the linemen, would try to gain all this weight, but then in order to get commissioned, they had to get under 250 pounds.
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So I remember so many of them in this mad rush over the last six months that they were there trying to lose 40, 50, 60, 70 pounds so that they could get commissioned in the military.
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I think that s the craziest thing when, I would say, our bodies become commodities for whatever sport.
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For a specific position, you got to be a certain weight, you got to be a certain height, and so on and so forth.
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But I find that interesting that when you add Navy, the Naval Academy on top of that, how that dichotomy of gaining weight and being this big to play this particular sport was almost at odds of them getting commissioned.
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and what that really is telling about, like, what really matters in life, per se.
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Like, I just find it very interesting, especially being on the other side of, like, no longer playing football, or just no longer being even interested in watching football anymore, because, like, I ve seen the behind the scenes that it doesn t even, like, interest me anymore.
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Well, it is interesting.
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Almost all the professional athletes or high caliber collegiate athletes I met who play football, almost none of them now watch the sport.
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It s interesting.
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Tom does a yearly get together and he has somewhere between 20 and 30 of his teammates from Notre Dame come to his house.
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And I would say the vast majority of them, Steve Berline, Tim Brown, people of that caliber played in the NFL.
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but almost none of them today have anything to do with it or even watch it.
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So it s more common than you would think across these elite athletes.
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Absolutely.
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Well, Martinez, can you take us back to that pivotal moment when your doctor gave you a stern warning to lose weight or die, which I can t even believe a doctor telling someone that.
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How did you find the inner strength to turn that moment into a catalyst for positive change?
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Yeah, let s talk about this.
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So I started running back in 2012.
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So before then, I was working at Manswear.
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So I was a commission salesman on my feet eight to 10 hours a day.
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And actually, I wanted to go see this doctor because I was having some hip issues.
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So this was the first time he ever seen this doctor.
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He didn t know me.
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He didn t have any
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And I m sitting in a doctor s office, John.
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I m like, Doc, I started this job.
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I have hip pain.
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I used to play football.
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I don t know if that has anything to do with it.
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But I m on my feet eight to 10 hours a day.
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And he goes, I know why you re in pain.
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Me, OK, like why?
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Because you ain t put a stethoscope on me.
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You ain t touch my thigh.
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You didn t do anything.
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And he just went on to say, you re fat.
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And then he also went on to say, you need to lose weight or die.
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John, I was taking a bet because yes, I m a big guy.
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I ve been a big guy all my life, but I just told this man, I m on my feet, like eight to 10 hours a day, right?
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Like I m moving, I m shaking, I m on the shelf floor.
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It s not like I m just sitting at home, like laying on the couch eating potato chips.
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So for him, it was just to say, you need to lose weight or die.
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I was just taking a bet.
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So then he also went on and said, you need to start losing weight by walking on the track and eating a better diet.
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And I laughed because I was already on my feet eight to 10 hours a day.
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I d say something facetious.
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I d be walking.
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I m going to run a marathon.
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He laughs at me and tells me that s the most stupidest thing he has heard in all his years of practicing medicine.
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Now, Esteem is really coming out of my ears, right?
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And I had a few other choice words for him that I won t say on this kid-friendly podcast.
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But I ended up storming out of that doctor s office.
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And as I was driving home, I seen a running shoe store.
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And I went in there and I told them I need shoes and I need them now.
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Because in my mind, they already had clicked.
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I was going to run that marathon today.
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Now,
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There was a problem, though, John.
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I did not quite know how far a marathon was.
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So for the longest, I was telling my friends, oh, I m going to run a 5K marathon, until one of my running friends came to me and was like, Martinez, those two things don t make sense.
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There s a 5K and there s a marathon.
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So John imagined, my friend, OK, well, how far is a 5K?
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And they go, that s 3.1 miles.
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Okay, so now you re reasoning, well, a marathon can t be no more than, what, 10 miles?
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So how far is a marathon?
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And he s like, 26.2 miles.
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And I was like, 26.2 miles?
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What is this?
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Who runs it?
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But it was one of those things where I made that commitment to myself that I was gonna run this marathon.
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I was gonna prove this doctor wrong.
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And that was the initial fuel to my fire to continue to go on throughout this journey.
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Well, just to give you some context, I know a thing or two about running because I ran division one cross country and track at the Naval Academy.
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But you are absolutely correct in that if you are used to running a 5k or a 10k, even a half a marathon, there is a huge colossal jump up to running a marathon.
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And the ones I ve done, especially once you hit that 18, 19, 20 mile area, it is always brutal to get through that period.
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I don t care how good a shape you re in.
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Exactly.
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Well, you want to hear something incredible.
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I have a good friend of mine, Kellyanne, who just did the seven continent marathon challenge.
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She did seven marathons on seven continents in seven days.
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And to make it even more incredible, the first day they started in Antarctica, and she said, as they were running in their snow boots, one leg seemed like it was so easy until they turned around and were in the middle of a 40 mile per hour wind.
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hitting them the other way as they re running in full snow clothes.
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And she ends up making it about 10 miles into that and had a blister on the bottom of her foot, about the size of a tennis ball.
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So she had to compete in that marathon and the rest of them with that large blister, which had to be excruciating.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Well, getting back to your story, I remember when I was in the military, there was a senior officer that I worked with who was a heavy smoker, etc.
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And he, similar to you, came up with this ambition that he wanted to run a marathon.
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And I remember as he was starting out, he was not able to run from one telephone pole to the next one without stopping.
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And he told me he started to judge his runs by going from one to two telephone poles, to three, to four, to five, and eventually gave up smoking and eventually accomplished his goals.
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As you were starting out on your journey, how difficult did you find it to become a runner?
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Oh man, John, it was by far one of the hardest physical things that I did to that day.
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Even like playing collegiate football, running and like running long distances was the hardest thing that I did.
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So let me tell you about my first run.
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So, you know, I get home with these running shoes and I am inconveniently sandwiched in between two gazelles.
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One guy is going 10 on the treadmill, the other guy is going nine on the treadmill.
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And I m sizing these guys up, and they making it look so effortlessly on these treadmills.
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So these guys are going nine, and I can at least go seven.
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I put seven on the treadmill, and as the belt is ringing between my legs, I m thinking to myself, like, I don t know.
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I don t know if I can do this.
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And then I was like, you know what?
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I gotta do this.
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So I get on the treadmill, and I feel like my life blasts before my eyes.
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or my body was rejecting the treadmill.
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But when it was all said and done, I actually fell off the treadmill.
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And the noise that my body made when I fell off the treadmill was deafening.
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And that s the gazelles were still running on the treadmill.
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They looked down, like, are you okay?
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I was like, yeah, I just lost my balance.
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That was my first run.
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And when I looked up at the treadmill, I ve only ran 15 seconds.
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To go from not being able to run 15 seconds and following up a treadmill, it was definitely a journey from like that to actually running marathon.
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And it was so hard, but it was also rewarding because one of the things I just kept telling myself is that you can do it, you can do it, keep going.
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So every day, what I did starting now was go on a trip and just run a little bit longer.
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So I went from 15 seconds to a minute.
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And then a minute to like a minute and a half and so on and so forth.
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And really started off there until I was able to run five or so minutes straight.
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So similar to you, I think a lot of people have these audacious goals that they would like to achieve in their life, but they have an issue of even getting started.
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And then once they get started, they have this natural inclination that when you face hardship or it doesn t go as easy as you think it s going to go, you end up stopping.
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What advice would you give someone who s maybe listening today who feels hesitant or apprehensive about starting whatever it is that they re ambitious to do and how they can take the initial steps to get there and overcome their hesitations?
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One of the things I usually tell people is that it s really a mindset thing, right?
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And so for a lot of people in their head, it s all,
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I can t do this.
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I see how far you ve come.
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I don t know if I can get there.
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And one of the things I try to tell people is that don t fall into this comparison trap.
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Like your day zero will look different from my day zero, and that s okay.
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And your day 100 will look different from my day 100, and that s okay.
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Because it s not where you started, it s where you re going.
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So that s the first thing that I ll tell people.
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The second thing I tell people is that we have to calm the inner critic, right?
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Like this inner critic we have in our head that s telling us we can t do it, it s impossible.
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Most of the time, it s in our voice.
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So it s literally you telling you, you can t do something.
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So one of the things that I ve learned throughout all of the years of running and doing this is that
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A, not everything you think about yourself is true, and B, not everything you feel about yourself is real.
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So one of the ways that I take this into process is to name my inner critic.
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So I gave my inner critic a name, a persona, and then that way, it s not me telling me these things, it s this inner critic.
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So for example, my inner critic name is Otis.
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So whenever I have a defeating thought or a thought that s like trying to challenge me to say, no, you can t do it, it s not me telling me this, it s Otis telling me this.
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And now I can actually reason with these thoughts to say, okay, well, why are you feeling this?
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Is this because of fear?
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Is it because of doubt?
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Or is it because of something else?
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And really be able to reason with my thoughts to be able to move forward with that particular thing.
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Yeah, I think that s some excellent voice and it is that inner critic that halts in so many ways the absolute visions that we re trying to create for ourselves that we end up burning down because we let our mind get in the way of the progress that we could make if we were intentional about choices we were making to take us closer to those goals.
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I think that s a really important lesson for anyone to hear.
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Now, when I was reading the book, I understand that as you were running these races, you had some people who were pretty skeptical about your running style and were even making jokes to you about it.
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How did that influence you and how did that evolve into the shirt that you re wearing right now that says Slow AF?
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It s something about a person of size being active that kind of gives the liberty of other people to feel like they should tease that person.
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And this has happened even when I played football.
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I was just linemen, right?
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Running to the wide receivers.
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They would joke on this as well.
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So it s something that, A, I built a tough skin about, but also knowing that most of the time, your biggest critic are people who don t even
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have a slightest idea the hardship and the obstacles you have to go through to even get to where you re at.
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I was running New York City Marathon.
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This is the first time I was running New York City Marathon.
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And there s this bridge called Queensborough Bridge.
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I m not sure if you ve heard of this bridge.
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But Queensborough Bridge is a very
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nasty, mean bridge.
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And the reason why this bridge is mean is because there s no spectators on this course, on that particular bridge.
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It was literally you, the sound of your feet pounding the ground, other people around you breathing, and then the sounds of trains, right?
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It s by far the most depressing thing that you go through.
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And it s also a point of the race where the voices really start to kick up to tell you, you can t do this.
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You get off this bridge and you head on to First Avenue, which is also a steep incline.
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And as I was on First Avenue, I made eye contact with this guy.
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And he was pointing at me, thinking he was about to turn me on.
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give me a high five or something when I go over there, I think I m on my AirPods.
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And he called me slow, I won t say the words, but you can infer what slowly up means.
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He called me slowly up and told me to go home.
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And I was taken aback again.
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And I asked him what?
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And he was like, you re slowly up, go home.
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And in true New York fashion, I get into arguments.
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Because I m like, you re on the side of the course, drinking a beer, laughing at me, pointing at me, telling me I need to go.
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Meanwhile, you re on the side of the course drinking a beer.
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You re not even running.
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It don t even look like you re running.
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But you have the nerve, the gall, to call me slow and tell me I don t need to be on this course.
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When I finished the race,
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I vowed to myself that I was going to wear it slowly up across my chest as a badge of honor.
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It was almost like the S on Superman s chest.
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That was my S. And for me, it was just a constant reminder of there s so many obstacles that I had to go through to get to the starting line, let alone all the obstacles in a race that I had to go through to get to the finish line.
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That s what slowly up meant to me.
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And that s how I got there.
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When your great book, Slow AF Run Club, which was released in June, you talk about embracing your body as it is right now.
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How did you cultivate self-acceptance and how do you encourage others to do the same?
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That is a great question.
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How do I cultivate self-acceptance?
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I think one of the things that we really have to do, John, is limit the amount
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inputs that we get.
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What are we watching on TV?
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What are we watching on social media?
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And what are these messages telling each other and telling us about who we are?
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My background is in marketing, right?
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I really understand like how most marketing goes from a deficit mindset versus from a bondage mindset.
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Most marketing is telling you, oh, you don t have this.
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Oh, you want washboard ads.
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Oh, you want X, Y, and Z. All you need is this peel, or all you need is this powder, or this shake, or so on and so forth.
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So one of the things that once you learn that and you understand that all marketing is made to do is to make you feel either bad about yourself and to make you buy into that particular product, I really start to just dig deep on myself to really understand, well, what are my wants and my needs in order to make myself feel happy, right?
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So one of the things I noticed is that running was the thing that brought me the most joy.
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And being active was the thing that also brought me joy as well.
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So I vowed to myself to say, you know what?
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I m going to run and be active regardless if I lose weight or not.
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So if I lose weight, great.
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But if I don t, that s not going to stop me from being active and enjoying my life to the fullest.
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So one of the things that I tell people, like your question,
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It s to really think about the benefits of physical activities and really break it down to simplest time.
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People think, oh, I need to be healthy, which means I need to lose weight, which means I need to work out.
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So then they work out and then they don t necessarily lose weight in that amount of time that they had in a month.
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And then they get discouraged and they don t work out anymore.
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They just lose the motivation to do that.
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So one of the things I try to tell people is that instead of using weight loss as a goal, like what about using, what about all the other benefits that comes with regular physical activity that
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can help you be more beneficial and will lead to a healthier life, even if you don t lose weight.
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This is one of those things of really changing that mindset to really understand that weight loss don t have to end all be all and really think about health, but also to understand that marketing and diet culture marketing is really meant to make you feel bad about yourself and the goal of making you buy a pill, powder or shake or follow a particular diet.
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Yes, I know so many people right now are taking that new prescription drug to do the quick weight loss technique because I think there s so much societal pressure on people to feel like they have to lose it.
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But I think in the book, as you were just alluding to, you bring up so many incredible benefits in your case of running, but in anyone s case of doing physical type of exercise, including better sleep.
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Stronger muscles, cardiovascular health, sense of community, mental health, et cetera.
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How have all these positive impacts shaped your life now that you ve started to do this and how do you help others experience those benefits too?
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Absolutely, Jeremiah.
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How it has shaped my life is that running and physical activity has taken me to places that I ve never been or probably would have been in my life.
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For example,
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I had the opportunity to run in London with friends and just go pub to pub looking for trickle pudding.
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I had the funnest time doing that.
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I was able to run in Berlin.
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I was able to do things that I never thought I would do.
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Cross the Golden Gate Bridge.
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Physical activity was more or less the gateway for me to enjoy life and travel to various places that I ve never seen in my life.
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So I think that s something that I want to be able to give to everyone else, to let them know that you never know what this sport or this particular physical activity will take you.
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Like you just said, you just had a friend run seven continents, seven marathons in seven days.
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That s amazing.
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And those are the types of things that running and having physical activity in your life can bring towards you.
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If I didn t run, I would never think about
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Traveling to all these other places and running and having specific goals of, I want to try to run all 50 states or being a part of the Southern Continent Club and things of that sort.
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But now that I m having that, those are things that I can look forward to and to aim and strive to.
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Well, Martinez, I have purposely not brought on some mega stars onto this podcast because I think you have someone like Tony Robbins or someone of that caliber.
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People tend to have a hard time relating to how do I go from.
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where I m at today to Tony Robbins, because it s a, let s face it, it s a pretty big jump.
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But let s look back at you.
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You started this journey about 10, 11 years ago, really from square one.
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And you ve now been featured in the New York Times.
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You ve got a bestselling book.
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You ve been on the cover of Runner s World.
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When you started this journey 10, 11 years ago, would you have ever imagined that any of that would have happened?
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Absolutely not.
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I was just more or less trying to prove my doctor wrong and let him know that I can run a marathon and do it and not die.
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But it has been an amazing journey these past 10 years.
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And I m just extremely grateful that I can be a light to other people in their journey wherever they re at right now.
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It has been amazing.
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I m currently on a 40-day book tour.
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Just to see the amount of people that come to me
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tears in their eyes, smiling, laughing, and just being like, you changed my life.
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And like your story is just something that feels attainable and something that I can just heavily relate to.
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And for them to just let me know that I and my story has changed my life.
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And for me, it was a complete honor because it was something that I never
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Looked out to be right.
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I never thought to myself.
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Hmm.
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I m gonna go and run a marathon Seniors, I m a rockin a book and do all this other stuff.
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It just fell in my lap I see myself as a reluctant leader and a lack of better words or a reluctant superhero because This wasn t the thing that I looked forward to This wasn t the thing that I was like, I m gonna do that towards it.
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It just fell in my lap
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I want to unpack that a little bit more because intentionality often involves setting audacious goals and you set the audacious goal that you want to run a marathon.
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But sometimes as people are going through the motions of trying to achieve these audacious goals, they get stuck.
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How do you strike a balance between setting your ambitious targets and remaining kind to yourself along the way as you run into hurdles towards achieving that goal that you want to ultimately succeed in?
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So that is a great question.
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One of the things that I ve learned throughout this journey is that most of the time, it s not about the end product.
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Most of the time, it s not necessarily about the goal.
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It s about the journey that you went on in order to reach that goal that means a lot more and is more attainable.
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For example, yes, I said that I thought she was called a running American.
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And I did it.
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But I put so much stock into that, John, that after I ran the marathon, I got extremely depressed.
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And this is something that happens to, like, elite athletes as well.
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Like, I remember Usain Bolt saying him spending four years to run nine seconds.
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And then after him running those nine seconds, just feeling empty inside and just feeling what was all of this for?
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One of the things I just try to tell people is that, yeah, the goal is great.
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but enjoying the journey.
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Another example, I told you I went to Berlin, so I was running.
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So I spent a year and a half training for this thing.
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I hired a coach.
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I told myself, I m going to have this PR.
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I m going to run the best race I ve ever ran.
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And I get there, and none of the chips were in my favor.
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It was humid during the race.
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It rained.
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The sky just opened up and it got poor.
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And I get to the finish line and the finish line is closed.
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So I m trying to have this conversation with this guy with a big German accent to let him know, oh, I need to get to the finish line because I m still running the race.
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And he s like, no, race is over.
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So I get, I run the marathon.
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didn t I get the chance to cross the finish line and my heart was broken.
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I bawled, bawled heavy tears because I spent all this time, money and effort for this particular goal and it was literally in my sights and couldn t, wasn t able to finish the race.
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But one of the things my mentor told me was like, now that s the opportunity to rise up and take that opportunity to subdue you versus defeat you.
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So the next weekend, John, I already had another race planned, and I ran that race, and it was the fastest race that I ever ran in all of my careers.
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So it goes to show that all of that hard work doesn t go anywhere.
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It doesn t just go away if you don t hit your goal.
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Like, you go out there another day, and now you ve ran the fastest race that you ve ever ran.
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So that s why, for me, goals are great.
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Something s really to take to.
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But that journey, really, that journey is the thing that really means the most.
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Because once you accomplish that goal, you can feel empty inside.
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Because you spent so much time working on it, and now you don t know.
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Well, one of the things you were just talking about is having resilience.
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In what ways do you think running has helped you cultivate resilience in the way you lead your life?
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Running, I like to say, is an allegory for life because doing tough things in one thing can be transferable to other parts of your life.
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10 plus years has definitely translated to me starting my own business, me starting a clothing line with no experience and just going on a journey, me creating an app for my community.
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Pretty much any and everything that I ve done for the sport of running has been because of me knowing that I ve done other things in the sport of running.
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It s one thing to say, okay, oh,
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Running a business is hard, or starting a business is hard, or learning how to create clothes is hard.
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And my thing is, what s hard, what s even harder?
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Like running Big Sur marathon.
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What else is harder?
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Running up a mountain.
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What else is harder?
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Conquering your voice.
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Conquering that inner voice that s telling you to no, don t do it or tell you to quit.
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And you go on to do it as well.
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I would say everything about me, where I m at now, has really been about resilience and being resilient in the sport of running.
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has definitely translated to me being resilient in the sport of life.
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Yeah, it s interesting.
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I have a really good friend who lives right up the road from me who s a retired Navy captain SEAL.
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And he tells me all the time that the thing that scares him the most is public speaking.
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And I think
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Here you are, this guy who s gone through Budge, you ve gone on numerous combat deployments, you reach the pinnacle of being a Navy captain in an elite fighting unit, and you re telling me you re scared to go talk to people?
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And he said, I absolutely was terrified.
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And you know what he did about it?
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He has just thrown himself out there to speak anywhere.
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He volunteers at churches.
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He volunteers at colleges.
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He volunteers at high schools because he has a message that he wants to tell the world.
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And he feels that if he doesn t get comfortable on the podium talking to people, he ll never be able to influence people the way he wants to.
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And I think
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The same thing could be said about any goal that you want to achieve, but it s purposely putting yourself into that uncomfortable situation that gets you there.
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And I use that story to lead up to this because I understand now that you ve created a global community
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with the Slow AF Run Club, which is an incredible feat by itself.
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But how are you, through this club, inspiring people to take actions like my friend did to change their lives?
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Oh yeah, so the Slow AF Run Club has about 17,000 members worldwide.
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And our mission with the Run Club is to inspire one million people to run in the body that they have right now.
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One of the things or a few ways that we do that, um, it s about providing education, inspiration, motivation, but also group meetups across the nation.
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And one of the things that typically happens, this is literally just the cycle of our members is that a member come in and they re like, Oh, I m not a runner.
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I think I can do it.
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So on and so forth.
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And what the community does is love on that person, right?
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Let them know that they can do it.
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provide them with tips and tricks to get them on their first run, check in on them after they ran their first run in order to figure out what other things they need to help troubleshoot on.
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And it s really about letting people know that they re not alone in this journey.
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So just the fact that people knowing that they re not alone, people continue to start running.
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They run their first race.
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They feel so proud about themselves when they get that race medal in their hand to say, look, I ve done it.
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And they continue to go run more.
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And then they just become the next individuals to help the next person who s coming in, telling us that they can t run.
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They don t know what to do.
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And they just want to be active.
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That s how all the Slurper Club does it.
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amazing thing to see how this community has a life of its own and pretty much runs itself now at this moment.
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If someone out there is wanting to start their own movement, what were some of the challenges that you had to overcome in creating this community?
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And what were some of the things that allowed it to really accelerate?
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Because I remember when I was doing background on this, you only had 10,000 members in the club.
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Now you re up to 17,000.
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And I find that these things are compounding effect and they just keep growing and growing, but getting started can be a difficult task.
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I would say the first part, yeah, that is the difficult part, going from zero to one.
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I started this community with 40 people, and now we re up to 17,000 members.
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And I would say one of the difficult things of doing this community
4
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was really trying to figure out a mission that we can hone into, figuring out our messaging.
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And then the other thing is really letting people know what we want them to do and what was their expectations inside of this community.
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I think that s another thing that for a lot of people, they don t have or they don t necessarily give the next step for someone to do.
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More or less how I think about my community and how I think about most things,
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is that this community is a party, and it s a party at my house.
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John, if you came to my house and I had a party, I wouldn t just open the door and not say anything.
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You come to my house and it s the first time you re in my house and it s my party.
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I want to make sure you get good.
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I want to make sure that I grabbed your coat.
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I want to make sure that you got water.
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I want to make sure that you found somebody that you can have a connection with so you can talk to somebody and feel entertained.
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And I think when it comes to online communities, people just say, oh, people
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been a part of Facebook groups before or whatever, and people just know how to do that.
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And my answer is no, they don t.
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You have to be the model for it, but you also have to think about what you want individuals to do at your party.
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I think that was the biggest challenge that I had, and how I overcame it, is to really think about that.
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This is my house.
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you re having a party at my house.
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And I want to be the hostess of the mostest.
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So that means that once you leave this party, you re going to go out to your other friends.
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Yo, I was a Martinez-Adams party.
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And let me tell you, I had the greatest time ever.
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And the next time this man have a party, you should come because you re going to have a great time as well.
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So that s how I think about my community and running communities.
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And I think that s what s missing out of communities, especially in the space of like info businesses and things of that sort is that everybody has a community.
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SPEAKER_01
These communities be like raving communities, but
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they re not doing anything to make a community or a party fun.
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It s like having a party and not having music or doors in them.
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You just have a space and not give people any other direction to do inside of this space.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, I love that answer.
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And you got to have the community have fun.
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SPEAKER_00
You got to get them to feel like they re part of it.
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They want to bring others into it, experience what they re doing as well.
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SPEAKER_00
Well, you re doing a great job of it.
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And I understand, Martinez, that your advocacy in the club extends beyond running to issues like mental health, inclusion, and diversity.
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How do you use your platform and the club to intentionally address important topics like these?
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It s about leading by example and being a serving leader.
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So mental health is definitely a big thing that has affected me.
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So early on today, I told you that my brother died by suicide.
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So that has been a big thing in my life and it has been a big thing that I deal with from the age of 10.
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It s one of those things that I just want to make sure I give back.
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and let everybody know that they re not with their particular issues.
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And one of the things that we do inside the community, like I said, I m a servant leader.
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It s by leading by example and letting people know that these are the expectations that we expect inside of this community.
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Everyone is expected to be an advocate for mental health.
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Everyone is expected to be an advocate for inclusion.
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And if you re not doing that, maybe we re not the community for you.
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So it s just already ingrained in expectations that this is what you re expected to do inside of this community.
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It goes back to giving people rules and boundaries and expectations and not just giving them the space and not telling them what to do.
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So it s almost like starting a Facebook group and setting the guidelines in it of how you want people to act in the group.
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More or less, but I think it goes beyond that.
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People don t read those guidelines.
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Ain t nobody reading those guidelines.
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I think it goes to like setting an example and having constant conversations about it inside the community.
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SPEAKER_01
Cause it goes back to that thing of, yeah, these are the guidelines.
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Real action happens
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via conversation amongst each other.
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By having deep conversations amongst each other, that s where real action happens.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I couldn t agree more.
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Well, following on that discussion on mental well-being in your group, I wanted to ask you, how do you intentionally prioritize mental well-being, especially while you re now juggling a very hectic schedule?
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You mentioned that you re on a 40-place book tour right
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now, you ve got other things that are going on.
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And I know myself, when I ve become really busy, that it s easy to deprioritize that.
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So how do you make sure that you re keeping it front of mind?
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So that s one of the things that s taken through my life.
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There s always time off.
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just already baked into this thing.
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And I think just having time off and having rest is one of the things that s super important for mental health.
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Another thing is that for being a therapist, I ll see my therapist sometimes twice a month, once a week, depending on the time.
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But just having someone, a third party that can help me with what I m going through.
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And then the last thing I do, John, I think it s a sleeper that a lot of people fail to do.
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It s just journal.
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When I m ever on a flight or I m traveling somewhere, or right before I go to bed or even when I wake up in the morning, I just journal a few lines just to get my thoughts and feelings out.
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Just to even just talk about what s going on in that particular time.
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And that s something about writing those thoughts, feelings, emotions down.
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It can be cathartic so that you can release, so you can go out through your life.
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I think that s extremely important.
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And they often say, until you write something down, you don t release it or it doesn t come to fruition.
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Well, Martinez, can you share an intentional habit or routine outside of running that has significantly contributed to your personal growth and success?
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Habit or routine that really has contributed to my success is having monthly talks with my mentor.
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I have a mentor that I talk to on a weekly or sometimes monthly basis that I bounce business ideas off of.
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So any hair, brain idea or when it comes to my business, I run it through my mentor first and we re able to have these brain trust meetings about
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what I m thinking to make their job is to tear down these ideas and thoughts in order to build it up stronger and help question what s the validity but also the ultimate goal for this new tactical idea that I have in mind.
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So that s something that I do on a regular basis.
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And then Martinez, my last question for you would be if someone was listening to the podcast today and they were going to pick up your book and read it, what would be one or two key things that you would want them to take away from the book?
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Or it could be this episode.
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Absolutely.
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So the two things that I want people to take away from this is that a mindset is key.
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It s like that famous quote, whether you think you can or you think you can t, you re true.
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So that s the first thing, is that we all have to work on our mindset and really tone down that voice that tells us we can t do it.
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The second thing is, it s not where you re starting, it s where you re going.
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All of us are gonna have a day soon.
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All of us might even have multiple days, and that s okay.
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But four is slow and four is still progress.
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So those are two things that I want people to remember throughout this book as well throughout this podcast.
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Okay.
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Well, Martinez, thank you so much for the honor and privilege of coming on our show.
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It was such an honor to have you.
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Thank you, John.
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I really appreciate it.
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I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Martinez-Evans, and I wanted to thank Martinez, Marissa Franco, and Penguin Random House for the honor and privilege of having them appear on today s show.
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Links to all things Martinez will be in the show notes.
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Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature on the show.
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Videos are on YouTube at both John R. Miles and Passionstruck Clips.
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Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals.
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You can now preorder my upcoming book titled Passion Struck, where I give you 12 powerful principles to unlock your purpose and ignite your most intentional life.
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Links will be in the show notes.
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We are also on the Brushwood Media Network.
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You can tune in every Monday and Friday from 5 to 6 p.m.
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Eastern Time.
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Links will be in the show notes.
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You can also find me at John R. Miles on all the social platforms.
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and you can sign up for my newsletter at both JonRMiles.com or PassionStruck.com.
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You re about to hear a preview of the PassionStruck podcast interview that I did with Ivo Bergmans, who is a renowned philosopher, management consultant, and author of the groundbreaking book, Paradoxical Leadership.
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Through his practical methodology and extensive toolkit, Ivo shows us how
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how to transform diverse dilemmas into creative solutions and paralyzing polarization into constructive dialogue.
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People might think, oh, paradoxical leadership, that is very difficult because we always need to find the perfect balance in the middle.
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No, that is absolutely not true.
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In fact, it is, you can go black, you go white, you can go gray, you can go everything in the middle, but you need to make a conscious choice.
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Remember that we rise by lifting others.
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So share the show with those that you love and care about.
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And if you found today s episode useful, then share it with someone who can use the advice that we gave today.
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In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen.
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Until next time, go out there and become Ashenstruck.