Endurance Sports, Suffering & Life: A Balanced Perspective with Danielle Pellicano

Parker Condit: 0:00

Hi everyone and welcome to Exploring Health Macro to Micro. I'm your host, parker Condit. In this show I interview health and wellness experts and by the end of each episode you'll have concrete, tangible advice that you can start implementing today to start living a healthier life, either for yourself or for your loved ones. And that's the microside of the show. The macro side of the show is discussing larger systemic issues that contribute to health outcomes here in the United States. In today's show we're talking about endurance sports, suffering, coaching and how the fitness industry has evolved, and for those topics we're interviewing none other than Danielle Pellicano. Danielle is the founder of Pellicano Endurance Coaching. She's one of the top endurance coaches in the country and she's also an accomplished athlete in a variety of disciplines, but more importantly, she's one of my closest friends. So in this episode we certainly get into specifics around endurance sports and coaching, endurance athletes, discussing the process versus results or process versus outcomes, building community and much more around coaching and fitness. However, the main purpose of this episode is actually to serve as an introductory show for anyone who doesn't know Danielle, that we can reference in the future and the reason we would need to do that. We'll discuss it in more detail at the end of the show, but a preview is that Danielle will be a recurring co-host once a month for a segment we're calling on the floor Again. There'll be more on that at the end of the episode, but without further delay please enjoy my conversation with Danielle Pellicano. Danielle Pellicano, this is going to be one of those fun episodes for me, because a lot of times when you're interviewing somebody that you've known for many, many years, it kind of gives you an excuse to ask them questions that in a normal interaction that format would be a little bit too interrogative and inappropriate amongst just a normal friendship. So this is kind of a fun opportunity for me to really dig into some really interesting topics. And the first one that we want to touch on is suffering, which might seem a little bit counterintuitive, but I think it's going to be an interesting sort of introduction to you and your training philosophy. But I thought of suffering with you Again. This is where it's going to be counterintuitive, because there are I think there's a lot of opportunities for people. Or maybe a better way to say it is that you tend to live life very fully Anytime. I've interacted with you when we lived in the same town and worked together. You always seem to live a very full life in a way that you're not just doing things to do them, you're doing a lot of things that you want to be doing. So you've managed to sort of craft a life in a very full way. Anytime you interact with people and I think that's kind of your superpower is that you end up transferring that to other people that you interact with Anytime we end up hanging out, I always feel like it's a very full day. There's no half days with you ever. So I'm curious where suffering kind of comes into that for you, because there is a lot to endure. It's going to kind of weave into your training background, your endurance background. So I think the first thing I want to hear from you is if you see suffering as sort of like this inevitable part of life and if you can find a way to integrate it into your life. Do you see deliberate exposure to suffering as part of your philosophy in training, or is this sort of a byproduct of how you train?

Danielle Pellicano: 3:30

Good intro. I was thinking about it today because I knew we were going to talk about this and I feel like suffering. As soon as you say it, people are like ooh, bad word, negative, dark, like just challenging, and I feel the endurance world has created this world and this word right, like I mean I remember running workouts, cycle workouts, and SufferFest is a company that branded workouts, based along that, like who can suffer most From a training philosophy? I thought about it a lot and who am I to say what is suffering to an athlete? I feel I know what for me, what it takes to go to that place that is extremely challenging mentally and physically. That is the definition for me as suffering, because it elicits a response that elevates me personally and then professionally as a coach, because anytime I race currently I pretty much strictly race now to a utilize that as a strength on how to coach people better, finding events that I feel would entice others to challenge themselves. And then for me, I think, at my clearest, when I'm performing at my highest and so, being an entrepreneur, I realize that the attraction to that suffering or putting a goal out there that exceeds kind of my physical ability, like it scares me a little, even when I always do well, in my opinion, is that I have so much time to think and it has actually harbored some of like my best, like practices, if that makes sense. And then I look at clients and I feel we have done a slight detriment to attracting people into challenging themselves because we now keep layering on harder, faster, more. And that's where I was excited to talk about the concept of suffering, not to just sit here and talk about all these accolades that I have had or clients have had, because what might be a really challenging thing for me could be actually quite easy to one of my elite athletes, right. Because where I think we've hurt the endurance world slightly is we keep tackling on that more and bigger and hours of suffering therefore makes you better and in my opinion, a 90 minute effort in the zone four or five race is just as suffering than a zone two, three for 10 hours, right, and it's actually scientifically proven. So again, it's perspective and it's different for everybody.

Parker Condit: 6:18

Yeah, so I'm glad you're already touching on the fact that it's very individualized, oh for sure, per person, and we're going to definitely dig into that quite a bit. But I do want to stay on the suffering topic because I feel like there is and maybe if people don't like the word suffering, you can think of the word enduring right, enduring and suffering are probably going to be very similar and somewhat interchangeable throughout this conversation, but I feel like there is crossover between people who can get into endurance sports and endure or suffer, and a very high ROI in other aspects of their life. Is this something you've seen with your athletes and, if so, like which aspects of their life tend to reap the benefits?

Danielle Pellicano: 7:01

I have taken my coaching over the years and I thought about a lot today as well. It's like you layer on experience. So I think when people hire me, they are hiring experience, but they're also hiring connection. You can't pull something out of someone if they don't deeply respect you in my opinion, not just because of, maybe, the physical attributes that you have had but that they resonate or they feel that you've connected with them on some level, that you can pull that out of them right. So I look at a lot of the concept of like how do you get people to perform at that level and what does it do to them? I think it is. It shapes their life always positively, and I don't know if that's because I've been lucky enough to have almost all of my clients set a goal and achieve it. But I've always said like it's almost like the race itself is the funeral to the training, because it's the lead up that all of the changes happen. The race itself, in my opinion, a lot of the time, like you've hopefully set your person up for success, that there's almost like a morning that happens after racing, because what you love the most was all that time of accountability, all of the new training practices that you learned along the way and how that has applied to other areas of your life. You can't be, in my opinion, in the endurance world and not be very disciplined in your personal life, whether or not that's professionally speaking. It's your home life, as a father, as a mom, as a husband, wife, et cetera. Everything is in order, but that also makes you very A-type a lot of the time and where you almost can't not be without the structure.

Parker Condit: 8:50

I was just jotting down a note.

Danielle Pellicano: 8:51

Yeah, for sure.

Parker Condit: 8:52

And the word was structure, right as you said it. I want to come back to that and see if people who are not inherently A-type individuals can end up using endurance to build discipline and structure that they might not normally have. But actually it was funny exactly what you were talking about, because I was watching something yesterday from Ryan Holiday's podcast with Stephen Pressfield and they were talking about starting a new book or a project. As they're both authors, feel free to look both of them up. The War of Art, for Stephen Pressfield is the most famous book, and then Ryan Holiday Anything of the New Age Stoics he's written about what he writes about how starting a project or a book is incredibly intimidating and daunting. Finishing the book and or project can feel empty, bittersweet and a bit disorienting. But then in the middle period where you're well into starting the project, you have no idea when you're going to finish and you're lost in the day-to-dayness of it all is simply wonderful. So I saw that and I was like I wonder if there's going to be any transfer to either that feeling of an endurance race or endurance event or, probably more so, the entire training period.

Danielle Pellicano: 10:03

So I think, based on what you said, would you agree, it's more the training period that that sentiment relates to yes, because it's what that's the feedback loop that you hear after you've taken someone who, I'll be honest, I would say, a minimum relationship with. I don't care who the person is if it's a younger athlete, and when I say that, I'm saying 20s, 30s, or the aging athlete, and I'm in my 40s. So when I say aging, I always look at things as age grouping and anyone that is listening to this that lives in the end. We celebrate birthdays based on what age group we're now racing in. So in your mid 40s and up, we're now considered an aging athlete. That's not a bad thing. I mean to be just a pivot. You usually are peaking 10 years into your sport anyways. So like 40s is like the sweet spot. But regardless of the gender or the age, the common consensus I hear at the end of a big training block and a race is they miss the community, they miss the accountability, they miss the structure. Because what was interesting? Because you're it's interesting the timing of this podcast. We're coming into the fourth quarter. Almost everyone has wrapped up racing for the 2023 calendar year and and it's not like I just like pulled the floor out from these athletes and just said go for it, like, do what you want to do. But I kind of have, like I give them a four week window where I'm like go spend more time with your family, go say hi, pick up your kids at school, do something. That is something you have had to neglect and you've had to because the volume for the sport is so high and so selfish. They are so lost. After those four weeks they're like chomping on the bit for that structure again and it's almost 100 out of 100. And it's fun for me to watch, not because I'm trying to torture these people, but you have to want it internally for yourself and you have to also see what it's like when you are without it. I think it's an important phase of the trading cycle, right, but I also think it's short-lived because they're already like now what?

Parker Condit: 12:04

Yeah, I think it's a very important point. It's to I'm not sure exactly the philosophy this comes from, but it's the idea of embracing the empty space in a room, or it's like the empty space in the room really defines the structure of the room. So it's kind of like finding those empty spaces in your life and learning to sit with those and not always needing to be going, going, going, which, for these types of athletes, tends to be there, you know, from when they're born to when they die. If possible, they're just going to be doing, doing, doing.

Danielle Pellicano: 12:30

But then it's also like what brings you enjoyment outside of your sport, because if I'm doing my job, I want you to obviously eat, sleep, breathe, training when you're doing your big race, I get it. But I think I also do a good job of absolutely encouraging hobbies outside of your sport, like A you ask about them, b you encourage, like I say, I say it and I think because I have kind of a joking side to me it's just to bring down the level of intensity, because I'm extremely intense. I think that was your, your nice way of introducing me. Like I love that you, you're just so sweet. I find myself exhausting to people when they have me like one on one for a very small window of time, which is what Parker endured not too long ago. Because, to your point, I get so excited about life and I love racing and I love what I do, that I also have to be able to remove my own self, actually like walk the walk of what I'm preaching to the others. Hence, I do have a lot of hobbies outside of sport, thank goodness, which is why I just keep moving and decorating new places. Okay, good, I'm glad I got a cackle out of you, but no, in all seriousness, you have to be well balanced, because I call it chasing the dragon. The endurance world is so addictive that it is a constant chase and it's like you are chasing the dragon and it's great, but but is it? What's it really feeding you in return? And what I think my company has done well is you. I'm very good at connecting, so I I leave athletes connected with other athletes, which genuinely become new friends and new training partners and now a new social realm, right. So I think, what I always look to do and my biggest takeaway for example, we just raced this past weekend in Arizona. I brought together different pools of people from different walks of life that I all train, but when they get together and they connect, that is what made the weekend. I already knew they were going to bike and do well, but what is that? Like the chemistry of? Like the downtime, and are you only talking about spandex sports? No, like what else? Like talk about your families and hobbies and other things.

Parker Condit: 14:42

Yeah, so I yeah. That's when we saw each other. You came down here to visit a few days before and after this last event and it's like the event can only take up so much time. Even when it's a long race, like a hundred mile bike ride, it can only take up so much time. So it's it's very much the community aspect. That I think is one of the things you do probably better than anyone is like building the relationships with athletes and then facilitating the community aspect to kind of keep them going so they're not constantly on the wheel of needing your encouragement, which is, you know, like said perfectly counter-intuitive.

Danielle Pellicano: 15:14

No, said perfectly.

Parker Condit: 15:15

It's like the worst business model where you're like. I want people to not be reliant on me long term? Yeah, which is why my book still hasn't been published, but we're getting there All right, I want to go back to like two things that you said and I want to make sure I'm getting that correctly. One, or maybe just get some clarification the process ends up being the ultimate benefit of what anyone who works with you. That's what they get out of it, right, learning to love the process and, I guess, build in that discipline and structure into their life. But it's not really the outcome of the race. Right, people are going to be a little bit happier on the race day if they hit their target time or whatever it might be, but it's really the process. But do you sell that? Like, can you sell the process to somebody who's never been in this world? Or do you have to sell sort of the ambitious goal and then let them sort of understand, be like, oh, it actually wasn't the goal, wasn't the goal, it was actually the process the whole time.

Danielle Pellicano: 16:07

I have two responses. The ambitious goal always has to come first, especially if it's a new athlete, one that has yet to work with you. It's the only thing that loops them, and it should be. And I'm at a point now where I'm establishing of where people are seeking me out already with a goal right, whereas to retain what I have, I then have to throw the race schedule out and get people biting, and that's a two-pronged business model. I also don't want it to seem like we are couched to 5K people and it's just your average Joe racing. What's so incredible? I think about especially my roster this past year. It was a little older than my rosters in the past, meaning the majority of all my athletes were 40 plus, and that's awesome. It's different. I'm aging with my clientele. It makes sense. If anything, that's a good thing. For someone in my position, it means they're sticking with you. But yeah, you're getting older and so are they. So I've had to retrain myself in some of my practices, because it's uncharted water a little bit right, but I never want to undermine the achievement, I just need it to be. We can get so narrow focused in the goal that we are missing out on so much more of what enriches that final race day. But I never bring that down to just laughs in good times and expecting everyone to do well. They're like lining up ready to like rip their legs off, so only a few are out there to be like I'm here to like take in the scene and do my best. I don't totally encourage that behavior, but I also don't like dampen it, if that makes sense, just because I think it's important and I, for those that will be listening, I don't want that to seem like that's just how coach D feels about when people set up for now Like this is big stuff and I think what calms their nerves is actually how calm I am in preparation and in execution on race day. I'm an extremely calm. That has come with years of racing myself, but it also has come with years of just my calm comes from my nerves being dampened by me Just worrying about them doing. Well that I almost forget that I'm racing too. I love that position, I've grown into it and I thoroughly enjoy it.

Parker Condit: 18:29

Yeah, it's got to be a nice mental break for you just to focus very externally. So, all right, I'm glad you clarified that and just understanding that there does have to be that big, ambitious goal first, like what's the? I think one of the things you've always done really well at least from the outside that I've been able to see is getting people kind of from the couch to very ambitious race distances, like marathon, like full marathons, what like? Why are you so successful Like getting people to kind of overcome? These are the people who thought I probably do a 5k, I can never do a 10k right, and then you just leap, leap that by like 20 miles, like. So how do you get people to like kind of mentally commit to something with that that chasm that's probably already existing in their mind?

Danielle Pellicano: 19:14

Not dismissing the smaller distances. I don't think I even attract that anymore. I think my reputation proceeds me now with the go bigger, go home. I don't mind that tagline. To be honest. I think there is something that will owe you will forever be changed if you do something so out of your comfort zone and you have success with it. It's just, it speaks for itself. It has. You can interview anyone that I've coached. That is, without a doubt, will. I'm confident in the fact that that will be their response. It has provided me such purpose for myself personally and professionally to get people to do things that they genuinely felt they would never do. It sounds cliche but it's a fact, because it's hard to get people to trust you to do something like that, because they fully have to trust you. They have to trust you because they're going to be paying you a fair amount, so they're very financially vested in you. They have to trust that everything you're saying, because you have to touch on everything. You have to touch on rest and mindset. You have to touch on nutrition. You have to touch on the, the strength training side of it, then the endurance volume. There's so many pillars to getting these people successful that it's also what has provided me my lifestyle and my career Right. Otherwise, yeah, there's pull. There's so much information out there. You could pull anything you want, you're you? What you're buying into is a community that I've, that I have fostered and I've nurtured, and I that I will not just let anyone into right that you share with others and I. My biggest thing is when I see that these people have, like taken on their own thing and they're training on their own and I'm overseeing that. I'm like this is wonderful, because I know that so much is going to come from that. It just, it just does. And then you watch it and then they're your best seller, right when they start talking about where they started and what coach D has gotten them to do. And then we joke and there's always a good laugh. But then you, when you're just all of a sudden like rambling off races around the country and then you've realized you now got internationally, like there's something so contagious about that energy that I don't even need to speak about it. You can ask anybody.

Parker Condit: 21:26

Right, I mean, it's the oldest adage of the best. Marketing is word of mouth, which is you know, if you, if you build real relationships and you build real community aspect and you kind of get them hooked on these big goals and then get them addicted to the process Like they're not going to, it's impossible not to talk about it.

Danielle Pellicano: 21:43

And I just think we talk about connection and I just realized and I'm going to pivot and you could cut me off whenever you need to but like I look at like the current day and age and how endated we are with technology, which I love and, when used correctly, has been an asset to a coach like myself as well but I think we are at a height of missing human connection again, that I am never feeling like my job is being threatened by technology and I'm you could, I'm unique because a lot of trainers and coaches would definitely speak differently. I feel like my business has been doing the best it's ever done because I haven't changed my model too much about the importance of connection and we we talk about it and it's not that easy. Like you have to be like a pretty solid human to be able to attract people that trust you and continue to train with you. So I'm not just speaking of it from like a sales side, like it is genuinely provided me with purpose my entire career. It's what has kept me entrepreneurial, has kept me from the bad days I've had to being positive and understanding, like look how much you have done for others, truly, and yeah, the vehicle has been sport, but come on, there's so much more that has come from that and and I'm grateful.

Parker Condit: 22:59

Yeah and like from a very self serving perspective, it's like you get to kind of build this community of like minded people.

Danielle Pellicano: 23:04

Oh, it's incredible.

Parker Condit: 23:06

Yeah, I mean it's a it's a fun day job. Yeah, exactly, did somebody teach you how to suffer?

Danielle Pellicano: 23:15

You know, only because my mother said this to me in passing the other day. I have to. I probably will never go on an episode without bringing her up. She's my best friend and she's been like, yeah, it's just what it is, and anyone that knows Monet knows it, and we are thick as thieves close. What makes my mother so special is we are so different as well and she absolutely knows just the thing to say that motivates me but also isn't afraid to hurt my feelings. And when you bring that question up, the reason I say that is I called her last week and I was going on some rant and she just lets me go. She knows much like you, like Parker, you're good like that too. My mind just is on overdrive that sometimes I just need to feel like I've been heard, that I don't even know if I want to be told anything. Right, but my mother, based on the rant, was like Danielle, you have never, even since you were a kid, needed your dad or I to push you or to motivate you. It was always internal. It's not a cop out to your question, but I thought about it and I feel like I've just always been so intense from an athletic perspective and from a personal one. Like personal achievement is important to me, it still is that I'm almost my worst enemy. So I create the suffering for myself and that is very unique and I actually think I reflect on it often, even like when we were talking last night. You and I like I look at like being an entrepreneur as somewhat suffering. I'm being honest, like there are so many avenues that I am constantly being propositioned with or other professional routes I could go. That would be easier, and as soon as it is it becomes boring to me and I equate suffering from an entrepreneurial standpoint is that that tick of just never totally happier content, which is good and bad, and then on a professional level, when you have hit athletic highs that I have hit, there is no normal again. You will continue to crave that. You will reevaluate the perspective of what you can actually still do physically without hurting yourself, because you can't be injured in my position or it's a career killer, professionally speaking, that I'm more mindful of that, but there is something so addicting for me on the suffering side that once I've hit it, I continue to want it and then it parallels my professional life.

Parker Condit: 25:56

So maybe, on the flip side of that, if nobody has taught you how to suffer, it's just been something intrinsically in you forever. But I think that's unique, though I do think so as well. I think a lot of people it's taught, or it's a necessity of a situation, or there's a variety of reasons how this skill or mindset can be facilitated. But for you, I do want to know if, like your ability to endure or suffer has ever kept you in bad situations probably longer than you should have stayed in them.

Danielle Pellicano: 26:30

I remember that one, but I'm going to leave it like this not physically, but emotionally and personally. Yes, and that's interesting and I'm not going to elaborate on that too much, but it will resonate with people because everything about suffering is mindset, right, it just is. Yes, you're physically suffering when we're talking about sport, but I think I have a high threshold for a lot of emotional stuff, if that makes sense and not bad or good. I'm not saying it like that or leaving this in a weird situation, but I realize I'm able to harbor challenging situations because I've had to and, professionally speaking, a thousand percent, because you're always budding up against failure as an entrepreneur. You just are and what it does it ends up hardening you and you hope it doesn't harden you to a point where you then lack the enjoyment or the drive to continue. But trust me, suffering is the word that comes more to me now emotionally than it does physically.

Parker Condit: 27:40

So how do you? Is there any skill transference to your athletes? Because a lot of people are going to come to you. They're going to come to you kind of raw Maybe some of them are going to be, or maybe a lot of A types are self-selecting towards you. But there is a skill of suffering. There's a skill of enduring. Is that something you deliberately try to teach, or do you try to teach it through mindset, or do you not even focus on that? You try to just get them focused on the goal and the process? Can you kind of describe how you almost teach that as a skill, whether directly or indirectly?

Danielle Pellicano: 28:14

You teach it to athletes that are new to the distance world or into a sport that they've hired you for, that is new to them and they haven't, you'll know if they've actually pushed that envelope to a point of real discomfort. That is something you build in volume and in workouts over time, and all you could do is encourage, encourage and explain to them how it's, eliciting a response that you are going to reflect on as you're racing. What I learned more this year, though, is because I mean, with the more aging athlete, it is pulling them back and creating ceilings of suffering, which has been the eye opener for me this year. I've had a few people get injured, and I don't mind talking about it because it's not a perfect science. Like we do what we can, every injury that happened was a client exceeding what was given to them, because they were in a dopamine feeling and they felt great and they're like oh my God, I'm in my runner's hire. Oh my gosh, what's another 10, 10, five miles on this 10 mile run, et cetera, those things. That is that is challenging, because when you're dealing with people that have embraced suffering, crave suffering and enjoy it, they only feel that if they hit that level and most all of their workouts. They're not doing anything at all, and that's a problem.

Parker Condit: 29:30

Very much so. Yeah, so one of the things when I started, when I'm moving down here to Scottsdale and started training, working with professional athletes but like you get a spectrum right, Because some of them were more on like the ball sport athletes and others were like golfers. So not to talk trash about golfers, but like of the two spectrums, generally golfers are not training hard enough. And then on the other side of like most ball sport athletes are over training. So it's this weird work tethering where it's like you kind of kind of pull both ends to the middle, where one group it's like, like you said, it's putting a governor on them. It's like you need to facilitate better recovery techniques and probably just more appropriate volume and more specific volume at the right times. And then on the other side it's like you've never trained hard in your life, Right.

Danielle Pellicano: 30:20

So and you have to be. No, it's your right, because we got down there and we were in the golf market together. And again, it's talk about a sport that I've never seen athletes suffer more mentally on a day to day basis than golfers. Period, period and a story. You can write it down and put my name after it, because I literally have never been with in a sport so immersed for a long period of time to absolutely respect the hell out of it but to watch us a game played at its highest level and it's I'm just prefacing women at this point, because that's who I was around the most their innate ability to be so mentally challenged for five hours of time multiple times in a row is the definition of suffering. Let's be real. Then you bring in someone like me who's yes, you end up becoming somewhat of a mental coach, as we do in all with all of my athletes I don't wear that hat, but you do talk about everything like you end up being a very important role in that person's life. But you take it to the physical side and what was such a hard thing for me to witness was like okay, why are you able to endure such a mental toughness on the course all day, and then we go to the gym and I'm not saying they're all like this or they didn't evolve, but it would like to watch them try to like physically suffer. They're like whoa, hold on right there, right, and for me I was like wait, what's going on here? But it's like that dichotomy a little bit was so interesting where it's like no, the gym is to keep you injury free and make you stronger, but so you could absolutely crush it out on the course, right. And that's another episode of like the golf world is just intense, yeah.

Parker Condit: 32:14

You do wonder if, like they, just they've used up all their mental units for the day, right Cause, like some days at work, I'm sure you have it where you're. Like you just get home and for your personal life, like you don't have any units left, correct, like you can maybe muster up a few, but you've kind of used most of them. Like all your, all your give a shit units were extracted out of you throughout the day.

Danielle Pellicano: 32:33

And one model doesn't fit all Like. I think that's also what you pay for is you need to specify things and you need to draw on your knowledge base. So for me, yeah, it took a, it took a while working with golfers to really understand how they operate. And, to your point, it was me using my best judgment on should this be a mobility recovery session? Should this be where, yeah, you need to push them a little bit more, because the duration of that season is so long that you have such a small window, in my opinion, to really give them the, the mass, I like to say, to kind of carry them through the season, cause, come June and July in the in the professional golf world, you're just hanging on by a thread, emotionally and physically, you're not, you're not still crushing them. Do you know what I mean?

Parker Condit: 33:20

Oh, yeah, yeah, maybe we'll do it all whole specific golf episode at some point, just because, yeah, golf's very unique in that the off season is so short, it's like a 36 to 38 week season, potentially Incredible. So yeah, and it's just so spread out. It's always traveling right, the, the toll, the traveling and time zones takes on you. It's a lot we could dig into. I do have one more question on suffering before I want to kind of dive into coaching. So for, like everyday people here who maybe are not particularly type A or they wouldn't necessarily be self-selected into your type of coaching, what can people do to kind of get better and facilitate, like a stronger mindset or better endurance of just dealing with hard situations, whether it's training, whether it's life, whether it's with family, anything like that?

Danielle Pellicano: 34:07

Near-sided goals and far-sided goals are really important. I think if we push things out too far, it's harder to stay consistent and to therefore be successful, and what I say is success builds on success. So when you're trying to achieve something new, you need to give yourself some grace in what that goal is, whether it's personal or professional or physical, let's put it, those are the three right, I think. When it comes to the training side, I feel the sooner you commit to something in a community setting I know we keep bringing up that, say out care of it's a Wednesday night run club, or if it's a Saturday strength conditioning challenge, which are great and almost all clubs have those at this point you need to commit to something that has a benchmark where you are seeing improvement, whether that's from a strength perspective and endurance perspective, yoga 30-day challenge. I think 30 days is great and I think you layer on from there, but you need to get into a routine. I think if you're coming back from something and you've already been a very fit person that two week window is always just painful for everybody. That two weeks is what I think is like getting over the hump and it seems so small. I actually think it's fair. If you can say yes to a two week anything consistently, you probably will make it to the other side and be on your way, and from there it's a matter of if you don't have accountability, you are not going to be successful. Very few people, very few, are self motivated and that's just because that's how they are. I think it matters to show up for a buddy, it matters to show up for a trainer, it matters to show up for a class. That's why a group runs are awesome. They're usually through local shops, then you meet new people and then it just kind of goes from there. But I've said this all my life Any podcast you pull, I've said that exact sentence, and whether or not people have ever done it I don't know, but it is that easy in my opinion.

Parker Condit: 36:05

So what are the thresholds for the near term and far term goals?

Danielle Pellicano: 36:08

Near term would be what I just discussed, like what I just said, where it's like a 30 day, 90 day type of challenge, are fantastic because they those are near term, meaning you typically have something that you're checking, a box. You see it, it's not overwhelming. Long term, if you go from from zero to only signing up for a marathon that's 20 to 24 weeks out, that could be very overwhelming and you're probably going to spend another four weeks just kind of flopping around trying to figure out where is that structure right? Yep, but those, those are the things that I mean. Whereas you kickstart something, you're already getting that routine going and then it will just naturally progress you into what that long term goal is, and you're starting from a position at, instead of the couch. You're now upright. You know what I mean.

Parker Condit: 36:56

Very much. Yeah, I mean couch to raise can be fun, but it's usually not exactly what you would suggest.

Danielle Pellicano: 37:04

Because anyone, most people are strong enough to just suffer through something, but where's the enjoyment? And my biggest thing is and I don't at least want them on my team, I don't want you crawling across the finish line Like that isn't a testament to my training being like woo. No, I want you to feel I'm not saying you're doing a cartwheel either, but like I want you to feel like holy cow, I did extremely well. I'm injury free and within a 24 hour window I want to do something else. That, to me, is a successful training plan.

Parker Condit: 37:35

I like that. That's not probably one of the metrics that you can really describe, no, but hopefully people can kind of harness that feeling a little bit when they're thinking about their next goals. Yeah, so I want to go on to coaching now. You've already alluded to this in that there's a lot of different hats you can wear, from coach to personal trainer, to friend, to confidant, to therapist. It can get very messy. How do you end up sort of creating boundaries for your athletes, because you need to be there enough to build a relationship, but there still needs to be that those boundaries for a healthy relationship on both sides?

Danielle Pellicano: 38:11

I think a couple of things. As you age in this business, if you've been good to others and they have been good to you, you hope you've built a cohesive team or network around you professionally that you outsource Right. That's a huge one. I have a very solid team that, if it's a body worker, a massage therapist, mental coach, chiropractor, even down to the shoe store, you need to build those relationships as an entity, like myself, so that you are a resource to your person. So resource is a big word. I think I've done a very good job of wearing the hats that I feel really good about wearing and being really honest with my people if it's out of my scope of knowledge, and I think we need to do a better job in general as coaches, understanding that and trusting in the fact that. That is you doing a good job, not trying to monetize every aspect of the wellness wheel.

Parker Condit: 39:14

How can younger coaches, newer to the industry, how can they get more comfortable saying no to certain requests? Because a lot of times you get in the industry a lot of people do it just because they really want to help people and then they get asked questions that's slightly outside their scope, not quite their area of expertise. Do you ever mentor people or do you ever act in that leadership position to be a guiding light for it being okay to say I don't know, this isn't my area of expertise, but I'll be the resource to get you in touch with people.

Danielle Pellicano: 39:53

You want people to get there. But I also empathize with the checkbook right. When you are starting out in this business, it is challenging for it to be your only career. I bet most people that are going to listen to this it is not their only career and we have made it as much as we feel. We have made things in wellness and fitness where we can monetize. That requires a humongous business sense to be able to do that. It requires a network of clientele opportunities because you've grown it over time. It is a business where, if you can stay in it long enough and foster enough relationships and be good at what you do, it comes in time. But when you start out, you have to say yes to a lot of things you don't want to say yes to, even if it's out of your scope, which doesn't make it right. However, I would be lying to you if I said I didn't say yes when I was younger. It actually helped me become a better trainer overall, because you take on things that might be out of your scope. What do you do then? You educate yourself as best you can to service them best and if you just come up blank, then yes, it is in your best interest to pass them off. It's the right thing to do, right, but I do think there's a challenge in working with someone that is out of your scope. I feel like that is stuff that can't be taught in textbooks. It can't be taught running a thousand classes a day. It's a lot of one-on-one and a lot of different demographics. Truly.

Parker Condit: 41:25

So you're basically saying you just have to spend time doing it.

Danielle Pellicano: 41:27

You have to and people hate that, but it's a fact. It makes you great.

Parker Condit: 41:33

And then you can also like then you can more accurately self-select, or, like clients can more accurately self-select, because you're going to be so much more confident in, when you're talking about the services that you offer and the product that you offer, what you're actually good at, because you will have tried a lot of things and you'll be like oh, weight loss is not my thing.

Danielle Pellicano: 41:54

You need to identify that right away. Though I didn't waste any time. I knew I was athletic minded, I came from an athletic background. I went right into the athletic world. I had to pivot from there and I picked endurance because it was an untapped market. So it was a business move on my behalf that I also started to dabble in after playing professional soccer where I was like, okay, I'm having success in this, it keeps me fit, but I didn't love it. What I loved about it was that I became good at coaching it and then it became something that was a challenge because no one was doing it. Those are the hook and line sinker for me. But that was me saying yes to something that was a little out of my comfort zone. But I had to immerse myself in the sport, understand it, and then I had to attract the clientele and then I had to figure out programming in an environment that would entice them to understand like this is a niche sport and it requires that type of facility and that type of training. And then I was all in and I was very tunnel visioned about it. If you didn't want to train like that, you didn't train at my facility.

Parker Condit: 42:59

Yeah, that's very clear expectations on both sides. Did you have a mentor in those early years?

Danielle Pellicano: 43:04

I did. I worked with Aaron Leventhal and I still, whenever I bring his name up, will say he's probably one of the best trainers I have ever met. I haven't seen or worked with him in probably 10 years plus, but he is the one that poached me out of my professional career of soccer and said I don't know what your future plans are, but this is what you should be doing and you should be doing it for me. And so he brought me under his wing. That is a timing thing and that is a lucky thing, and I stayed and just learned, learned, learned and then tackled on like I tacked on different certs along the way, to be fair, and it was. I spent so many hours at the trade though I was working with whoever I could work with whatever team sport kids he'd give me, whatever one-on-one client he would give me, and trust when I say it wasn't always fun, but the volume he and I produced together in the years we were together was unreal. It was unreal and that's like just learning under fire. You know what I mean. Where it was. Just I was younger. I still think I actually have close to the same energy now, which is shocking to me. But I was saying, I was up at four, I was saying yes to everything. My day ended at 6pm and it was constant volume and when you weren't working with a client you were creating programming right. So to enter into like an environment like that, which was again entrepreneurial. It was his business, it was his model, it was probably the edgiest studio setting I'd ever seen and he was already working with the Minnesota Vikings. He was already working with the professional soccer leagues. It was a very cool in for me. So it was very like-minded personalities coming together working with clients how that we really enjoyed. But then you do open up. You have to say yes to some of the other stuff.

Parker Condit: 44:48

So maybe not from a training specific perspective, but were there any principles that really stood out of like? If I hadn't learned this from him, it probably would have slowed me down by five years if I had to learn that. Were there any like sound business principles or training principles that you took away from mentoring under him? Yes, eric 1,000%.

Danielle Pellicano: 45:05

Nothing was off the cuff. Everything was programmed out from start to finish, sessions built out in periodization. So he taught me structure, he taught me how to multitask different athletic sports in a day, and what I mean by that is we would run group trainings in the morning, which were like the clients I work with now. You know, you're the fit, very fit 40 plus crowd, right. So they're coming in, but at the time I'm 24, right, I'm not 40. I'm not the, I'm not the client I am. Now, I am the kid that you walk into. That's like what is this kid know, right? And Aaron isn't much older than me. So at the time we met I'm going to say he was maybe 30, right. And the energy and the volume and the professionalism that he brought is something I completely kept. And it's exactly the cleanliness of the facility to the, the edgy. I use the word edgy because it was cool. It was like that, that feeling. You walked in, you felt like you were part of a club that not many people knew about and it was very elite, and that standard I've always taken with me to other concepts and facilities. He lived the life. He was very routine based. He still worked out like I do now. He's still recovered. Everything he reflected was something I was like this guy this has to be the way. But he also taught me that that is how you have to be. If you want to function at that level running your own facility, running clients, training trainees you have to prioritize sleep. You have to live the life, meaning you have to be very fit. We would never ask of an athlete or the 40 plus aged athlete to do something we physically still couldn't do. That doesn't mean everyone has to be that way, but I took great pride in the fact that I'm like, actually, when we would sit and whiteboard it out and create these incredible programs. That is something where it doesn't happen often. When you meet someone like that, it's pretty special. A lot of people I don't think ever really do.

Parker Condit: 47:16

Yeah, very much so. Do you have any advice? You said it was lucky timing. Is there a way to set yourself up to land one of these internships or mentorships, or is it just luck of the draw With you and I? I was just luck of the draw because you ended up mentoring me. Largely speaking, we just got hired at the gym the same week and we connected because we were East Coast kids.

Danielle Pellicano: 47:40

Okay, because this is going to completely undermine what I said. I get timing. I also think you create things for yourself. I feel I've created almost all of my opportunities. Aaron was the only one that was created for me. It wasn't even created. It was me saying yes to shit pay and long hours. Let's be real. It was him selling me on a vision which it did of hey, this is a unique opportunity, You're my person. It wasn't just like you look talented, come work for me. He's like no, there's something about you that I think you and I together will do great things. And he was right. That's what I mean by that. That is just unique energy and synergy that happens when. I'm going to answer it for the present day situations. Now, you need to be so proactive in what you want to attain. If you see something or there's someone that you feel would be a fantastic mentor for you, you need to go seek that out and you need to be the aggressor. I think, yes, we are all just burning the candle at both ends and trying to create what we can for our own selves. I don't know if the hey, that person, looks talented. I feel they'd make a great addition to my team. Let's grab them. It still happens, but I don't think it happens as much as it used to, because I feel we had a little more bandwidth to allow that to happen, Whereas now I feel you need to take ownership of some of that.

Parker Condit: 49:05

I think luck still very much plays a role in it. I think by putting yourself out there and just putting a lot of energy out there into the world, by creating things, talking to people, being vulnerable, going after what you want, you tend to find yourself in more lucky situations than the person who is sitting back waiting for things to happen.

Danielle Pellicano: 49:25

I think you and I were a very interesting pair. Why I say that is I was the aggressor in creating TAC. I was grateful that someone was open to the idea of me coming in there. But I was the visionary that was like, okay, this could happen here, let's make it happen. But I had to entrust that someone was going to send me some trainers I could groom to make it actually happen. Then you come in. You had to like, even if you didn't love me meaning like you didn't love the, my style or the way I ran things you were so smart in absorbing. When you walk into a room, you see it in your face, you see it in just how you carry yourself. You absorb what's going on. I think what was fun for you and I is you took everything I could throw out there and you took what made sense and you also made it a little better. Do you know what I mean? So I think that's important, that person that might be someone you end up working with or under or for. They don't have to align completely with what you believe in. That is where the growth happens and where you hope you will learn more things, but hopefully then you share and awesome things happen, but I think it's important that you find someone that actually challenges things differently for you, so that there is a learning opportunity.

Parker Condit: 50:42

Yep, very much so. So for anyone listening who doesn't know our backstory and we're going to get to more of this later because Danielle and I are collaborating on something fun that we're definitely looking forward to but when I first got into my, when I first started training Danielle you were largely the first mentor at ATT&CK really helped set me up for success and ended up sort of passing off that department to me at a very early age of my career. So again, it's like these things can sort of, if you find the right person and there is good alignment and you're willing to learn and you're willing to kind of do those long hours and just adopt and but not just adopt blindly, like you said, and just like iterate on it. It is an opportunity to just like jumpstart your career by like three, four, five years at a time. And then you're the one who ended up sort of pulling me down to Scottsdale and then you know, I ended up getting into a very good gym here in Scottsdale and then meeting the investor of the business that I was involved in. So it's like all these things end up happening in a very like nonlinear way that you could describe, but again it's just like putting yourself out there and being willing to just put energy out towards some specific goal that you're looking for, even if it doesn't like. You can't immediately see the linear path to. How are you going to cut that?

Danielle Pellicano: 51:57

And I feel that's another thing. To touch on patients and I laugh because people will be like Daniel, sorry about patients. I actually have a lot of patients. I think my the way I come across I just seem very like excited about things all the time, so whatever. But I have a great deal of patients where I feel that has proven itself is you also have to believe that something you're doing and feel so good about is also opening doors to something else. Or you might just love what you're doing till you just it doesn't. You don't love it anymore. But you have to trust. If you're doing things that you were really passionate about, you just don't know, like, what that next door is. And in our business they open quickly and they shut quickly and that's why it's not for the fair hearted Like it happens fast, it's hard.

Parker Condit: 52:44

Yeah, but it is a fun intro. I love it. I mean, let's be real.

Danielle Pellicano: 52:49

We joke. That's how our nights always end up. We start laughing every time Once we've talked about all the things and we are like what else would we be doing?

Parker Condit: 52:56

Yeah, no, it's exactly right. So one more question on coaching has your motivation changed from the beginning of your career to where you are now? Because we've touched on it a few times it is a grind, it's a huge energy commitment, it's a huge emotional commitment to really go on this journey with athletes, with clients, so there needs to be a strong motivation to keep doing it. Has that changed from when you started to where you are now?

Danielle Pellicano: 53:23

Oh, yes, I would say the idea, the hope that all of this time that I've spent doing and building what I've built will eventually lead me towards the person that wants to collaborate on another thing that's even bigger than what I'm doing. I'm not joking. It keeps me motivated. It keeps me I don't like the word hopeful, like I feel like that's someone without a plan. I don't think that's me. I just the one con which could be a pro. To other coaches. It has been hard solely being by myself. Even known people that will listen will be like wait, what is she talking about? She teaches at this club and runs a class, you know, and it's busy and it's full. Yes, I do that. So I get that engagement right as soon as I leave those environments. It is me and me, and that I feel I thought would have changed by now and again, I have to just believe that it hasn't for a good reason. My motivation has not dwindled even the slightest. If anything, it's been heightened by new avenues that I feel have presented themselves because of my time in the industry, and my interests become more clear. I do feel fortunate that I have really, straight, stayed true to my purpose of why I got in the business to begin with and I feel very lucky that I've been able to do that. You know what I mean. Like not much about my brand has changed. The only thing that it has changed is I've moved around and I've been able to spread that elsewhere, and that has been a gift. It's an absolute gift.

Parker Condit: 55:07

Yeah, I think that segues nicely into kind of talking about the fitness industry as a whole. Are there any like very glaring examples of how the industry has changed since you first got into it? I mean, you've probably seen sort of CrossFit have its peak and sort of dwindle since then. The evolution to much more boutique like boutique gym models popping up Big box gyms have existed kind of throughout the duration of your career. Have they changed at all? Has become much more popular mindfulness, recovery techniques, anything that you can kind of touch on from when you first got into the industry to what you're seeing now.

Danielle Pellicano: 55:48

The word saturated is what becomes the first word that helps me define that. Saturated is the word Everything you're saying. What's funny is that the core of fitness. I don't feel anything has changed, it just hasn't. We have chosen to try to monetize fitness and fancy it up by bringing in exterior factors, which aren't wrong. I mean, as an entrepreneur, you'd be like shooting yourself in the foot to knock that. But everyone's looking for ways to leverage themselves in this business. If you are someone that didn't start out early enough to have the box gym not big box, but I'm talking the studio setting the brick and mortar I feel you really earn your keep. Having experienced that process, it just hardens you in the best way. You learn so much. Hopefully you're profitable, hopefully maybe your doors are even still open, but there's something so organic about learning those business practices that you respect so much more about other areas of fitness, going into them if you possibly have to work for them or anything like that. So I needed to throw that out there. I feel, if it's used correctly, I feel Fitbits and Garmin's and Training Peaks and all the technology have been an asset to making my career have longevity. I love the data. I feel it. If used correctly, you're not losing the personalization of a coach, you're just. You are just arming your coach with just better benchmarks to make you better. So if that's used correctly and you don't just try to automate everything like that because again it's all in how things are utilized right and then administered you can easily automate everything, and good luck on retention is my thoughts. I think what we have done poorly in fitness is we've tried to make everything so attainable, so quickly and easily that there's no personal interaction to what we're giving out, and I think it's short-sighted and most people don't have success and, let's be real, that's just fact. I wish the boutique gyms were given more of a chance and wasn't made so hard to sustain, because I think that has provided so much community that those should be enriched more. I have to touch on those things because it's important.

Parker Condit: 58:12

Yeah, very much. So I think kind of to expand on the idea of the particular technologies possibly being beneficial or detrimental, it's just a tool, right? All these technologies are just a tool for you as an athlete or client and your coach. If you use them properly, it can be wildly advantageous, like hammers are awesome, but not if you only have a pile of screws, then they're kind of useless. Do you think like information? So you've also seen this sort of transition where access to information used to be a barrier for a lot of people as far as learning about exercise, nutrition, recovery, sleep. It was not gate cap, but it just wasn't as ubiquitous as it is today. So have you seen like the ubiquity of information as being a net positive for people or is it almost overwhelming at this point?

Danielle Pellicano: 59:02

I feel for the majority it's overwhelming because it's so attainable. And then, all of a sudden, I mean my favorite is seeing people with like double fit bit watch, like smart things on their wrists. I'm not, I'm not making fun. This is what I'm trying to say. I'm just observing that that I'm like well, which one are you using, right? But they're like well, this one monitors my sleep, but this one tells me my steps, but this one tells me my calories, but this one has my GPS. That's there. You go right there. Do you get what I mean? Again, well, who's dissecting that information for you and giving you what really should be your main focus? Everything I say when I coach is like I love all the information that's being provided. However, if you look at it all from one perspective, like if you're looking at it all at once, it is so overwhelming that you again are losing sight of the small sided goal. That's why, when we talk about step count, you and I those small things, if done every day and as a checklist, are what reap the biggest benefit. So now you take technology and you layer that on. I loved when whoop came out for my golfers, because it was so eye opening for them to see the strain one round on the LPGA did to them and guess what? It immediately made them look more into recovery and how important recovery was. In my opinion, that was worth every partnership in the world, but that is all that they needed to start with. Then you layer on what more information can we give them? And I get that, but then it becomes overwhelming. I think you lose sight of what the initial goal was.

Parker Condit: 1:00:36

Yeah, I think it's very important to always keep the goal of the goal. I think people can get lost in the metrics as thinking that the metrics in their watch are the goal when, like whatever your actual training goal that you're working towards, like that, remember, keep the goal, the goal. Then yeah on the yeah. It's just so easy to get lost on the side of wearables with.

Danielle Pellicano: 1:00:59

I love wearable wearables. Are you kidding me? Like I love them. But I also thought about it. I'm like I never want people to lose sight of the enjoyment of routine and going to the gym or outside for a run or on their bike without anything on their wrist, because God forbid that happens. Are you that conditioned where you feel if this isn't on and this hasn't hit, start? Has that even happened for you today? Right, and I love it. But I also find it to be such a crutch for some people where I'm like use the tool for how the tool is intended, but also find enjoyment in just, if you wake up on a Saturday and that's what you feel like doing, don't wear anything. Like I always challenge people. Can you run without music? Just curious, not always, but it's a good tool to try to actually be in the environment that you are in and only in that, versus trying to always tune out or trying to. How can I maximize this time? What podcast can I listen to? How many miles can I bang out? Oh my gosh, are my calories being counted? I feel like you've undone what is the actual goal of what that run was supposed to do for you? Right, and I know that sounds a little like doodly-doo-doo-doo, like that is how I am, like I. That is like my happy place and my calming place.

Parker Condit: 1:02:17

Yeah, no, and that's such an important thing because, like stress mitigation, if you talk about, like the pillars of health, we've touched on a lot of them Exercise, daily physical activity, healthy relationships or community stress management, sleep, nutrition. I think that was all six. But if so, for like stress mitigation, if like exercise can be one of the best things for that, but not if you are putting so much, there's so much contingent on that workout of like, oh, my headphones charged, is the? Do I have a good playlist that's going to pump me up for this? Is my watch charged? And then you have all these external things where exercise can and should be in a lot of times, especially in the case of running, this very ubiquitous thing that doesn't require much, right, just a pair of running shoes or not even, where you can kind of just do it anywhere and you can just be with yourself in this very enjoyable way.

Danielle Pellicano: 1:03:11

And I want that to be like. I realized this is endurance based, because that's what I do, but I feel like I want people that listen to this and, moving forward to other segments, we do like everything comes back to simplifying a little bit and I look at if you're a, if you're a yogi and yoga is your thing if you hike, if you're a walk, if you walk, I want there to be a part of your day where you carve out whether it's I'm even going back to 20 minutes, because 20 minutes is better than thinking about it and doing it. Nothing right, and it's a fact. Like you and I have talked about this forever. It's like I have such positive self talk for myself, realizing even that little something is something, and I am so grateful when I've decided like, yes, I did it and it was my time, so I don't flood my ears with something I don't you know, distract the activity, and I feel people actually thought about that for a second and I challenge them to maybe do it once a week, even where it's like can you go into that one thing and completely be present.

Parker Condit: 1:04:18

Yeah, that's a great message and it's it's hard right, because you might want to ease the transition for somebody getting into this. Be like, yeah, like, pay attention to your step count for a while and you kind of use that as a bit of a carrot and you can use the technology. I was like, oh you don't, you've never run before. Maybe some music will help you getting into it. But I do think people can end up getting lost, like you said, distracting the activity and not actually enjoying the activity of for for what it is.

Danielle Pellicano: 1:04:45

I would say six out of 10 people consciously choose that and I don't have the magic pill in this podcast to figure out how to fix you, but that is where that saddens me. I'm being honest, like that is where fitness is truly your. It is a it's like you are having to do it. It's a chore. If fitness is a chore, I've never felt it. I don't. It doesn't resonate with me. I don't even know how to respond to that.

Parker Condit: 1:05:10

Right, it is very much a privilege to have like a health, a body that's healthy enough and you're in a position where you have like. This is one of the things you get to do with your time in a given day. It's an incredible incredible. Right. So I don't know, maybe maybe that'll snap some people out of that and just shift their mindset, if even only for a day or two, love it. Within the healthcare industry or maybe not healthcare industry, but health and fitness industry are there gaps that you see, where there's certain areas that are still not getting enough attention even with this really broad access to information.

Danielle Pellicano: 1:05:47

I wish there were more cohesive approaches to talking about all the things. I feel we have really segmented the health and wellness industry and I realize we've done that because well, like I said earlier, we don't want to say we wear all the hats. But I also think, if this has been your life and this is what you've dedicated to, I do think you've earned a few more hats, probably over time, and know a lot more than you think you do and could help people a little more than maybe you choose to, if that makes sense. I think what I've learned and I forget and we talked about this because we are so immersed in this industry and most of what we seek out for information or what floods our Instagram, is all health and wellness. Let's be real, right, a lot of it. I sometimes forget that that's probably not what floods everyone's Instagram or social media channel or Spotify podcast Like for me. I feel like I'm constantly in-dated with information, whereas others I realize, nope, they're still hearing things for the first time and who and what is giving that information. I feel we've done a. I feel we've made information so accessible. I'm not saying it's bad, but I think we've also allowed people to be what they call themselves the masters of something, with absolutely no credibility of saying that. And so we're going to say something and we're going to say it is the best. And now that client comes into me the next day and they're like what's the deal on this creatine? I'm supposed to be taking this every day. I've never even heard it. Those are big statements and those are big supplements and those are big conversations. Right that? It's like how do we best help, service all of this information to these people and touch on everything, but also bring them back to meeting them where they're at, because all of a sudden, I think you get so overwhelmed with how much there is that it shuts everyone down. I can definitely see that, and that's that's it does, though, yeah it does.

Parker Condit: 1:07:45

No, I think that's like the perfect segue into like kind of the final segment of what this show is going to be, which luckily, if you've enjoyed this conversation, is going to be sort of an ongoing continuation Of Danielle and I interacting. So I've worked in the healthcare industry for the past four and a half years so I've been largely disconnected from the day to day of actually like working with people one on one, hearing their requests, hearing their concerns, understand like what's actually happening. So maybe a month or two ago I reached out to you with this idea of I was kind of pivoting the existing podcast that I had into a personal podcast, which is what you're now listening to, and then I got overwhelmed by the idea of having to put out a full episode every single week. It's like 52 episodes in a year. I'm like that's a lot. So I wanted to create some sort of like ongoing segment that's different than my typical like interview style podcast, like this one, for example. So I came to you with the idea of like could we do an on the floor segment where, because you're still working with people in the day to day, not only in your endurance training side of the business, but also in group classes at lifetime and also like cycling classes. And what are the other ones, alpha, that you teach?

Danielle Pellicano: 1:09:02

Oh, I got more requests today, by the way.

Parker Condit: 1:09:04

Okay, so there's a whole variety of classes and. I'm like I thought it'd be an awesome idea to just video. Well, you came up with the video idea of just videoing people's questions on the floor and then we'll take those video segments and we'll put them up on screen and we'll spend as long as we can answering those questions for that specific person. So largely, if you're in the Minneapolis area, that's like the demographic we're going to be speaking to. But eventually we'll get to open this up to sort of the rest of the country just sending in their video requests. But is that like a good enough explanation of what we're planning?

Danielle Pellicano: 1:09:37

on doing. I'm very excited.

Parker Condit: 1:09:39

So am I, because ever since we started working together got eight years ago Is that when it was, yeah, and we started doing some sort of media just down in the windowless basement of TAC, where it all began. I've always just had this idea that we should do something from a media perspective, and I never really knew what it was and we sort of like pump faked on a few ideas. But I'm very excited about this one. So far, the feedback that you've gotten just by putting the idea out to people in your classes has been very positive and I think it's serving a need where there is that ubiquity of information. And it's just getting to the point now where it's like what should I actually believe? Or not only that, but like how can I get a specific answer for the thing, the question that I'm asking? So hopefully that's what we are setting out to do of if people have specific questions. If it's appropriate for us to answer, we will. If it's inappropriate or outside of our scope, I'll try to find an expert in the country and bring them on and we can do it. We can answer questions that way.

Danielle Pellicano: 1:10:43

Oh no, this could be great.

Parker Condit: 1:10:44

Do you have any? Can you just throw out some sample questions that people have thrown your way so far?

Danielle Pellicano: 1:10:49

I'm going to give you one from today and because this is how there is no bad question and what's going to be great about this platform is it doesn't have to be this crazy thought out concept of like. Can you give us the reasons to this? My question today was from my guy, steve, and he came up to me and he goes. I have one that I want you and Parker to talk about. And he goes I'm sure you could answer it right now, but I think would be cool to hear and he goes. When you become a distance runner and you're training in a winter element and you're doing a lot of your miles on the treadmill, as someone in my 40s, I'm starting to feel like my knees breaking down. Then, all of a sudden, I hop on like a YouTube channel and I'm told that all my knees are supposed to be over my toes at all times and now I see people walking backwards on the treadmill. Why, that was great. Like there is so much I could answer. Do you know what I mean? I'm not. I'm not dumbing this down or making it seem like that. That was. He was dead serious, and rightfully so, because I see it, he's a big runner and he goes. Am I only now going to be stuck running on the tread? Do you know what I mean? And if I can't endure the pounding of that treadmill, is my running career over? Is pretty much more the question, in my opinion. I have so many ways of combating that. You know what I mean. But then he was so darling like mentioning the walking backwards. I'm just like I'm just kidding and I see it everywhere now, in the gym right now, because someone threw something out on whatever social media channel you want and now everyone is drinking that Kool-Aid. It's not wrong, but why are they walking backwards? We will answer this at a later time, but there is an answer to it. Do you know what I mean? And I'm not making fun of the concept. It serves a purpose when utilized correctly, like all things.

Parker Condit: 1:12:28

Yep, yeah. No, I'm a huge fan of walking backwards, but it's so funny that it's the perfect example of something that you see and it looks good on the internet because it's unique. It sort of catches your eye Like that's different, but why? Right? If you can't apply the why to your goals and your life and your training, then it ends up becoming irrelevant. But that's usually not explained. It's just like here's this new thing, maybe with a two or three sentence explanation and the caption of an Instagram post as to why somebody's doing something. So those are largely the things that we're going to be tackling, and we'll try to make it as contextual to the person that's asking the question as well.

Danielle Pellicano: 1:13:06

Oh, it's going to be fantastic.

Parker Condit: 1:13:07

Yep, like so good, yeah, no, I'm really excited for it. So is there anything else you want to add to kind of wrap up this episode? We covered a lot.

Danielle Pellicano: 1:13:17

No, I'm always grateful when I have the opportunity to talk to you and to reach a different audience and to discuss things, and I think if anything are on the floor segment is going to really personalize us to others and I think when they see that side of us it is going to be magic.

Parker Condit: 1:13:32

Yeah, now I'm really looking forward to it because I haven't had to flex that muscle in such a long time. So this is going to be like a fun challenge to sort of get me thinking in that way again and again. I just love any sort of media slash, work, slash interaction with you. So it's going to be one of those fun things, really fun things, that I get to do for work. That's definitely not going to feel like work, absolutely Okay. Any closing thoughts or just want to wrap this up?

Danielle Pellicano: 1:13:58

No, I'm excited. I think that was fantastic. There is nothing. I think that no stone was left unturned.

Parker Condit: 1:14:05

At least not for now Not for now. Again, we will link to all of your website, your Instagram, anywhere else we want to send. You want to send people who are kind of coming from my side of the audience. That will all be in the show notes and description. It'll also be in the description of the YouTube video as well. So, danielle, thanks so much for being on. I'm really excited to do on the floor, with you going forward.

Danielle Pellicano: 1:14:26

Fantastic.

Parker Condit: 1:14:28

Well, to those of you still here, that's all for today's show. I want to thank you so much for listening. I really hope you enjoyed today's conversation. If you want to learn more about today's guests, please visit our website exploringhealthpodcastcom. There you can find show notes for today's episode, links to the guests and our full episode archives. If you enjoyed today's show and you want to hear more, make sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. I really appreciate each and every one of you listening Until next time.