Life-Changing Challengers
Dive into the heart of transformation with "Life-Changing Challengers," a podcast that inspires listeners to turn their challenges into opportunities for growth. Hosted by Brad Minus, a seasoned endurance coach with over 13 years of experience, this show brings you compelling stories of resilience, ambition, and personal triumph.
Brad and his guests share their journeys of overcoming obstacles through endurance sports, personal development, and pursuing passions. From completing Ironman triathlons to conquering personal and professional hurdles, "Life-Changing Challengers" is your guide to breaking barriers and achieving your dreams.
Whether you're looking to incinerate your limits, find inspiration to chase your big passion or enjoy motivational stories of people who've transformed their lives, this podcast is for you. Join us to explore how embracing challenges can lead to a happier, more fulfilled life.
Subscribe, review, and share to be part of a community dedicated to making every challenge a stepping stone to success. Follow "Life-Changing Challengers" to ignite your desire, push your boundaries, and embark on your journey to the extraordinary.
Life-Changing Challengers
Navigating Life’s Obstacle Course with Resilience and Triumph with Kelly Majdan
Welcome to a heartwarming episode in which we delve into Kelly Majdan’s inspiring journey from her book Lessons from the Obstacle Course. Join us as we uncover stories of perseverance, resilience, and the power of family.
Kelly’s story is a beautiful testament to the strength found in overcoming life’s hurdles. It showcases resilience from her self-reliant childhood to a long-lasting, independent marriage.
Key Highlights:
- Early Life: Growing up in Colorado, Kelly learned self-reliance as a latchkey kid, building strong friendships that supported her throughout life.
- Career Journey: From studying architecture to finding a passion for accounting, Kelly thrived in financial services, inspired by her father’s real estate work.
- Family Challenges: Kelly and her Marine husband overcame fertility challenges, eventually welcoming two children.
- Health Battles: Kelly’s role as caregiver for her husband, diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder, highlights the profound strength of their family.
- Obstacle Course Racing: Kelly’s family found joy and resilience in obstacle course racing, a tradition that built confidence and perseverance.
- Youth Sports: The book emphasizes the importance of resilience in youth sports and the impacts of overprotective parenting.
- Community Support: Kelly’s growth through racing illustrates the power of a supportive community and the importance of resilience in today’s culture.
Key Takeaways:
- Embrace self-reliance and build strong relationships to support you through life’s journey.
- Finding your passion can lead to a fulfilling career and personal growth.
- Overcoming family and health challenges can strengthen your bonds and reveal your inner strength.
- Engaging in activities like obstacle course racing can build confidence and teach valuable life lessons.
- Encourage resilience in youth by allowing them to face challenges and grow from them.
- Surround yourself with a supportive community to foster personal growth and resilience.
“Lessons from the Obstacle Course” guides embracing challenges with grace and tenacity. Tune in to be inspired by Kelly’s journey and find strength in adversity within your own life.
Don’t miss this touching episode! Share your stories of resilience with us, and let’s support each other through life’s obstacles. Subscribe for more inspiring tales!
Kelly's Book - Lessons from the Obstacle Course
Contact Kelly
Instagram: @kelly.majdan
Facebook: @kelly.majdan.9
LinkedIn: @kellymajdan
KellyMajdan.com
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Contact Brad @ Life Changing Challengers
Instagram: @bradaminus
Facebook: @bradaminus
X(Twitter): @bradaminus
YouTube: @lifechangingchallengers
LifeChangingChallengers.com
And we're back to another episode of Life-Changing Challengers. My name is Brad Min, I'll be your host, and I am so honored to have author and health and wellness coach, kelly Majdan, with us today. How are you doing, kelly?
Kelly:I am fantastic. How are you doing?
Brad:Excellent. So Kelly is the author of Lessons from the Obstacle Course: Five Strategies to Conquer the Muddy Fields of Life, and it's all about what she learned as she started a journey with her and her family on the obstacle course. But before we get there, Kelly, as I ask everybody, will you tell us a little bit about your childhood, the complement of your family and the environment you kind of grew up in?
Kelly:Sure, yeah, I was kind of like thinking about this going okay. So grew up in Colorado and I always like to say that I grew up swinging from trees in Colorado. We lived out in the mountains foothills of Colorado, just outside of Boulder, and when I was eight years old I was in the 70s my parents were one of the first ones, or you know, in that group of folks that started, that went through the divorce process, right, so eight years old, not a lot of I would like. I kind of always like to say my parents weren't really meant to be parents, so just kind of like they just, you know, weren't a lot of watching over kids. And my sister was four years older than me, so I was eight years old and I was kind of left to raise myself in a way, because mom was always gone. Dad was just not interested. He's a great dad but just like didn't know what to do with kids.
Kelly:So pretty much start from a very early time in my upbringing was just actually just kind of making sure I looked out and took care of myself and did kind of my own thing all the time and it kind of led to an interesting I think it was fourth grade year where I didn't really show up to school. They passed me and it was just an independent type of upbringing. An independent type of upbringing Typical, I think, for a lot of kids in the 70s when, if you go through any generational theory, they called our generation, generation X, the nomads or latchkey kids. I was definitely one of those latchkey kids, so I always joked around. My dad ended up it was kind of like I said a lot of people were getting divorced at the time and he had another buddy of his who he just got a divorce and so they ended up going to building houses kind of around and I think they purposely scheduled the kid weekend together so that we would entertain ourselves which is fun.
Kelly:I grew up with a lot of really, you know they're like my brothers and they would pick on me like they were my brothers, so but it was. You know, that was really pretty much my formative years, was just really being on my own and making my own decisions and kind of just working very independently. Independently. We ended up going to college in a little town called Durango, colorado, which is just a great little place called Fort Lewis College down in the mountains, met my future husband there towards the end of my schooling and he was going off to the Marine Corps. He was about two years ahead of me. I stayed back, finished my school because I was like, well, I'm not going to follow any guy around, right, but we stayed in contact and continued to blossom our relationship.
Kelly:Bring break of my senior year of college, I flew out to San Diego, which is where he was stationed, because he went through the OCS and was now out at Camp Pendleton and he was at some school and he basically engaged, you know, asked me to marry him.
Kelly:So once I finished college I moved out to California, just kind of came home, packed up my stuff and they did our home of record move and we moved out to California. We've been together now this June we'll be 30 years married and so we've had a lot of very independent living, very much pulling on our own bootstraps, which is good and bad. I think you need to be able to pull on your own bootstraps and do your own thing, but I do think that I could have had a lot of if it had been a thing and I don't think it really was a thing in the early 90s with a lot of us. I think one thing is really wonderful benefit now is a lot of mentorship that a lot of people get, and it wasn't really something that I think we were really I don't know people didn't really talk about when we were going through our early careers and I know I could have benefited from that. But I also benefited from being able to just always rely on myself, which is pretty much how I grew up.
Brad:Yeah, I grew up as a last key kid, only child, and yeah, it literally was, and I'd wake up in the morning. Maybe one of my two parents were home, and it was. You know. Get yourself up, get yourself dressed, make yourself breakfast, get yourself to the bus stop, get to school, come back home Nobody was there Make yourself a snack, do your homework, homework and wait for someone to come home. I know exactly how that felt and, yeah, there was no, it was only like mentorship. You know, you had your teachers and your family and that was pretty much it.
Brad:What was your field of study in college?
Kelly:So, ironically enough kind of funny my father was a general contractor, so a lot of the houses we lived in he built, and so I grew up in that kind of environment, thinking, oh, I want to be an architect because my dad would always talk about these ladies that he really enjoyed working with, because they were great, phenomenal architects. So I went to school thinking, okay, I'm going to go be an architect because I thought that would be fun. I always loved the fact that we always kind of were in the process of building a home. And I sat through my first art classes and went this sucks, that's just not for me. So I of course did what every college student does who says, ok, I really chose poorly. I went to speak to my counselor and she's like well, you can go into business. I'm like, ok, I'll take a few business classes. Well, I got into my accounting class and absolutely loved it.
Kelly:I mean, one of the unique things about Fort Lewis, where I went to school, was at the time and maybe it's still that way, I don't know, but at the time because it was just this little mountain college and it was like in the middle of nowhere and it was just a really neat place to be.
Kelly:We had a lot of all of our teachers in the accounting department were all from the big five accounting firms and they had just, you know, they had run the course of working their corporate careers and this was kind of like their second life. That they went and said I just want to go out in the mountains and go teach, said I just want to go out in the mountains and go teach, and so we really had some phenomenal, phenomenal teachers there. And I remember my teacher who did cost accounting and the way he just explained cost accounting I was like, oh my God, I get this. And I set the curve in the classes and went, all right, I'll be an accounting major. Then a few years later I got into tax accounting and all the other and I went what did?
Kelly:I do. But I finished with my accounting degree but I never went forward to go after CPA or anything like that because auditing absolutely was like that was not my thing. So I ended up falling into financial services and working in the wholesaling and selling space and fell into working with corporate 401k plans.
Brad:Wow. So this is going to seem like surreal, you ready. So I grew up. My dad was in real estate, started as an agent Well, no, actually I should take that back when I was really young, up to the like to my age of seven, I think. My dad was an accountant for international harvester. Then he went into real estate instead and started being an agent and then went into appraisal a real estate appraisal and then started his own appraisal firm and then retired from that not too long ago. So yeah, so I'm right there with you and I lived through all of the real estate. Matter of fact, I got my spending money for college and books and rent by doing appraisals.
Kelly:Oh, wow.
Brad:Yeah, because he taught me how to do them and it's something that you can do on your own time. You make the appointment, you go look at the house, then you do the forms and you send them in, and that's it, and it's pretty lucrative. So at the time it was pretty lucrative. So I'm right there with you. I got it all.
Kelly:Yeah, as far as recovering accounting majors, I can't say I was ever an accountant just because I never followed through with that path.
Brad:And there's another story in there, but I'll just tell you that for about three or four years I was a series seven, series 63, series 24. That's for a whole different. Well, we got to move on, but that's for a whole different conversation. So you got married and you're in San Diego, right? We?
Kelly:were in San Diego.
Brad:Okay, so how did you enjoy San Diego? How long were you there?
Kelly:Loved it. It was absolutely beautiful and it was like in the mid-90s. And so we were. My husband was stationed there for three years. He actually had a little bit of a longer station than most Marines do, just because he changed from different units while at Camp Pendleton. And we actually put in for Okinawa because it was just the two of us and a cat.
Kelly:And you know, like let's go right. This would be really cool, but unfortunately they didn't need his MOS and Okinawa, but they did in Pensacola Florida. So we ended up next three years in Pensacola Florida, which was a great duty station as well too. It was a beautiful area and I remember going out and looking and going to visit Floribama, and that was that far and it was literally in the middle of nowhere and, like I know, you go there now and there's high rises all over it, but literally at that time it was like literally just middle of nowhere out on Orange Beach.
Kelly:So anyway, so we were there for three years and we decided we were, I like to say, we're young and dumb. We decided that it was time, for we didn't want to continue moving around a lot and we were thinking about having a family and all that kind of good stuff, and so we said, well, let's go ahead and give up his commission because he was an officer and head home to Colorado. So we did that in 1999 and ended up going back home to Colorado and then it took us another three years to get pregnant because we had fertility issues. It was really more on my side that I had the issue, and so which was kind of it was some entertaining stories with figuring all of that out as well too.
Brad:I've got stories too, yeah.
Kelly:In 2003,. The Lord blessed us with our son and then two years later, we had our daughter. So it was really worked out pretty well. I kind of felt I always kept praying. I'm like I just want to have replaced me and my husband. Two is good. I didn't need to fill a van or anything like that. I figured man on man offense defense. That's just the perfect way to go. It worked out really well. We got the son first and then the girl. How perfect could this be right? And they are probably the most planned children you could probably have. Because we had to follow a certain fertility schedule and a certain shot schedule. So we had to tell my body you need to keep this egg. So there were certain things that we had to do in order to be able to make that happen. But yeah, and now my youngest is graduating from high school this week. I thought like where did time go?
Brad:Exactly you get older and time just seems to go faster.
Kelly:Oh, it does. It does and especially, you know, I thought you know it took us we were married nine years before we had children, so we were in our thirties by the time we had kids, which is that then that was kind of a little unusual. A lot of people were having kids earlier, but that now for so many folks that's normal. So you, a lot of people are having kids in their 30s and and I think that's where now our story will really resonate a little bit more, because we are that older parent- so what were you doing at this point?
Brad:So, as far as not being, I mean, I know you're trying to get pregnant. That makes one thing, you're trying to get home, but what were you doing for a living at this point?
Kelly:So at that time I was working for a mutual fund company when my son was born, as an internal wholesaler manager. So I was managing a sales desk and I was one of the supervisors on the sales desk, actually. And then when my daughter came along, I was working at a 401k internal sales desk and I was managing that desk and building out those internal wholesaling platforms.
Brad:Nice. And what was your husband doing? Oh, he was doing construction.
Kelly:No, he was actually no. He got out of the pre-tour so and he followed. He ended up getting his program management professional. So he was a supply officer, which he's always kind of like, oh, that's not the sexy thing in the core right. But like you know what you believe me, people want to make sure that they love and they take care of their supply officer, because where do you get your stuff from? And so it was natural for him to go into a program management professional. So he was. I always like to say he's the guy that gets people, gets the folks, the business in business users who are using the programs to communicate to the IT folks that are building the programs, because there's not a good communication line here. They don't speak the same language. Yes, I don't know.
Brad:The thing is is that when my professional life I'm also a designated PMP and PGMP as well, so you know very well what. I'm saying, yeah, I know that and it's just being surreal now, the things that are very comparable to both of our lives. It's like uncanny what is going on here, but yeah, that's kind of what pays the bills around here, at least a little bit. But OK, so fast forward a little bit. And there was a big obstacle that happened in your life.
Kelly:Yes. So we're really kind of worried. I think we're all just kind of going along with this. And where this? If I were to go back and say where this obstacle stemmed from, it would stem from my husband being a Marine when everything was happening, if we remember early 2000, right 9-11. And then we go. I mean, we literally got a call in 2002 or 2001,. Actually, when it happened, the Marine Corps was keeping tabs on where all of their people were, and so you know. So we're really heightened in that respect.
Kelly:But as everything was going on over there, in 2005, our daughter was born and at that point, two weeks after our daughter was born, my husband went to Iraq to help with what is called a Z-backscatter x-ray man program which was able to scan vehicles going into Marine Corps checkpoints. And he was actually, you know, they sought him out for this job because of the fact that he was a Marine, he was a supply officer, he's a PMP, so he spoke Marine because the Marines kept breaking everything which go figure right, and they really needed to get these vans up and running in country. So the first year of our daughter's life he was actually a contractor out in Iraq and went through all sorts of things and there's all sorts of stories with that respect. The reason why I tell that is because I think there were some things that happened at that point in time because when he came back his health started changing and there was a lot that was going on with his health. That we really going back and putting the pieces together is where I've connected the dots, but didn't really understand it when things started kind of falling apart early around 2012, 13 ish, and my husband ended up turning to me one day because we were living at the time then in Arkansas is a big company picked up my husband and he was working for that company and living in Northwest Arkansas and his parents had followed us out, lived in Bella Vista. There's very windy roads there and as we were leaving or getting ready to leave his parents' house, he's like honey, I think you need to drive and we hadn't been drinking. So I'm kind of like, okay, well, what's going on here? This is kind of strange because normally you know he doesn't ask that question. Well, when we get home, I asked him I'm like what's going on here? Because I did notice a lot of things were going on. I did notice my husband was quite grumpy. He was complaining of headaches a lot more. He was getting dizzy.
Kelly:Now, as a family, we really all enjoy especially my daughter and I love amusement, park rides going on, and of course it kind of runs your head around and I was kind of thinking all of this was going on and we were also both trying to build our careers at the companies that we were at and we had young kids, so I just thought maybe he's just getting tired and that's just life going on. Well, when we got home I asked him what's going on? Because you're off, there's just things going on, not straight, and he goes I'm seeing double. I'm like, well, what do you mean? You're seeing double? Because I see two of you stacked on top of each other. It's kind of can't. I'm like, okay, well, babe, how long has this been happening? He said pretty much since we moved five years earlier. I'm like you're just now telling me this. Five years, five years, five years he'd been dealing with this.
Kelly:I remember I have a Marine and Marines are stubborn, and he's also a New Yorker, he's a Pole. I mean I'm like he's got everything. He is the most stubborn man out there and I'm like, babe, this is not right, like you need to go get this. So I annoyed him for him to finally go see an eye doctor. And when he goes to see an eye doctor, this one eye doctor says, oh well, you just need prison glasses. And I'm going, okay. And he's like fine, put the prism glasses on me. I'm good, just call it good.
Kelly:So you know, I do what every wife does and every good caretaker who loves somebody does. I'm like okay, well, why do you need the prism glasses? What's going on? Did he tell you that? He's like no, we just need prism glasses. I'm like okay, that's not enough. Like that's not the answer, that's not enough, that's not the answer. Anyway, we would banter back and forth like this for a while until my son, chasing after our daughter with a bow and section, cut bow and arrow. He ends up running into it and cuts, thankfully, just the white in his eye, because it hit my daughter's door and she slammed the door and he kept going. Yes, we're not bad parents, it's just kids.
Kelly:They just do things. But I also do think God works in mysterious ways. And the eye doctor that my son saw I said I asked my husband and again bothered him enough, Please don't see him Get a second opinion, because prison classes aren't going to work. So this eye doctor does go a little bit further. My husband not only a Marine, jumped out a perfectly good airplane, did all that kind of good stuff, but he was also he's a career lacrosse player well, not career, but like, played lacrosse all through junior, high and high school and even into his college years and stuff. So he's thinking, well, maybe there's a concussion or something going on there. So he sends them off to a neurologist. The neurologist sends them off to get an MRI. And literally on January 24th my husband, we went in to see the doctor and found out he had a pineal gland cystic mass sitting in the middle of his brain and basically it was sitting between the four lobes and it was cutting off his circulation. And I joke with my husband now that I'm like you are alive because of me hounding you, because it literally would have caused a brain aneurysm, Like he was probably a year or two away from just dropping dead. So that sent us into a really great neurologist at UAMS in Little Rock. I can't say enough about Dr Day. He was phenomenal.
Kelly:And after five minutes of sitting down with us, Dr Day turns to his assistant and says schedule him for brain surgery immediately. I'm going, wait a minute. What Brain surgery? What? So I'm like, okay, I know my husband's not going to ask, so I ask so again caretakers out there, you ask the questions. If they're not going to ask, you ask the questions because you have to. I'm like, stop, Tell me why. And he pulled up a perfectly good x-ray of a brain and my husband's and he said see that blob right there. And I'm like, yes, he goes, that should not be there, that needs to come out because that's going to kill your husband, basically. So I'm like, okay, let's get it done.
Kelly:I just went into okay, let's you know operation mode. Let's get it done. Let's take care of the kids, because the kids were little, so I had to make sure they were taken care of. We had just gotten two puppies that were going to be ginormous dogs. So I got my aunt and uncle, who absolutely love animals, and got them scheduled to come up to take care of the dogs, because we were going to be down at the hospital for about a week or so and just basically made sure everybody knew what was going on, made sure the kids' school knew what was going on, was taking care of FMLA paperwork. You know just everything that you just have to do to ensure that he is going to have a good recovery and didn't have to worry about. I even bought like a new mattress because I knew he was going to be in bed for four months. So it's not just operation, you have to have this handled. So you get it. You just do it. You get it done.
Kelly:He had a surgery in March of 2014, and the doctor came out and found out that they also were worried it could be cancerous. Thankfully, we dodged that bullet. It was just this big protein blob sitting in the middle of his brain Weirdest thing ever and I don't know really where it came from. And that's the thing that they don't understand. That leads us to a couple of years ago.
Kelly:We found out that that wasn't the only cause of his double vision, because we continued having issues with his double vision and it never really corrected itself as it should have corrected itself by getting that thing out and then we went to a doctor when we moved here we found another really great doctor who operated on what they call a fourth nerve palsy. Anyway, because of the surgeries weren't fixing it completely, he sent him off to get blood work and we now know that my husband's been battling Lambert-Eaton-Myasthenic syndrome, which is called LEMS, and it's a neuromuscular autoimmune issue, which is called LEMS, and it's a neuromuscular autoimmune issue. So that was also part of what was going on and I have a feeling, if I connect the dots, knowing what I know now that I've done a big deep dive into health is, I think something when he went off to Iraq might have triggered this. I have no proof, but if I were to kind of go back and see, it does seem like there's, because everything was fine before then.
Brad:Right. Yeah, I can always see that when there's a certain point in your life right where things start to change, you're always going to go back and check that out. Now did the? I didn't. I know nothing about LEMS. Did the doctor say anything about it being? It could be genetic, it could be just something that was passed down, or is it something that can actually be acquired?
Kelly:It's typically acquired by small cell cancer 60% of the time. But my husband's never smoked and I mean he's about as clean as you can get except for alcohol. But anyway, when he was sent off to have chest x-rays done and all that kind of stuff to try to figure out why he has limbs, I knew that there was no small cell cancer that was going to be found, because there's no reason for it. There's nothing in his history that would have brought that up. So of course nothing was found there and there's really all of the typical things that would bring up limbs he doesn't. He didn't have before. Like, we have no idea. It's just something that has just happened and it's a very, very rare neuromuscular autoimmune issue. You might have heard of myosinic gravis, which is MG. These two are on opposite camps.
Kelly:This is also kind of where the whole obstacle course stuff comes in and why we continue doing this. We didn't realize it at the time, but now we have an even more reason why we continue with obstacle courses. So if you think of you work out, a lot of your viewers work out, so think of you're going out a lot of your viewers work out, so think of you're going to do three sets of bicep curls and you're going to pick a pretty challenging weight because you know you want to really build that bicep up. So your first set to 10, you're like, okay, that's not a big deal. I got this Second set, 10, you're like, okay, this is getting a little bit harder. And then your third set, if you picked a good weight, you're going to be like I can barely get out that. You know last two reps are like killing you right. Well, for my husband, reverse that.
Kelly:So what limbs does the first set? He does. It's like he can barely complete the first 10. The second 10 is getting easier. And then the third 10, he's like I can do this all day. And it's with a challenging weight Because what it does is interrupts the acetylcholine through your calcium channels to get your muscles to fire. So we all need that channel that goes into your muscles and that is what tells your muscles to, tells your brain, tells your muscle to constrict. So that's how limbs affects people. Now, myocytic gravis is the opposite the more you use your muscle, the more tired it gets. Now my husband needs to use his muscle or he'll end up not being able to have his muscles. So that's really important for us for him to continue to be active, and that's going to be frustrating.
Brad:be active, that's going to be frustrating. The acetylcholine is basically. It just takes his muscles a lot longer to fire than the rest of us. Rest of us, we can probably do a dynamic warm-up and our muscles will fire right at that point where it's going to take him. It sounds like it's going to take him a. It's a specific. Whatever muscle he's going to be using, he's got to warm up and do several longer sets of things in order for him to be primed for it to fire.
Kelly:Pretty much Once he gets going. He gets going, which is good, and there is a medication right now that he is able to take. That is helping as well too, and so he knows that it starts to wear off, he needs to take it, but it's just a really, really expensive medication. So thankfully, we've discovered the problem. The only thing is there's not a cure for it Right. So now you manage it.
Brad:Right. How did you move that into this obstacle course racing that you're so famous for?
Kelly:I don't think I would say famous for.
Brad:It's the book, it's Essence from the Obstacle Course, so it's an obstacle course. So when did that all start?
Kelly:Oh yeah, that all started the year my husband had his brain surgery in 2014. During the time that he was recovering, we had a few issues that sent him back to the hospital, like his brain swelled and he had blood clots and a few other things that we were managing and my back went out on me, like with what happens with a lot of caregivers like I had poured everything into taking care of my husband and the family and making sure our whole ship stayed afloat that I was not taking care of myself, and when I was in my third trimester with my daughter, my back had gone out on me as well, and so it went out on me again and I'm like I couldn't even I had to sit on the floor to bring my legs up to tie my shoes, because if I tried to bend over, I wouldn't be able to get myself back up. So I was in the process of healing myself along with my husband. I had some really great friends from work who were like, okay, kelly, you need to come do this thing called the Warrior Dash with us, and they were all excited and like really bubbly about it and I'm like, yeah, let's go. Do you know? Like, okay, I'll jump in. And then I took a stop. I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute. What's a Warrior Dash? Like what did I just? So it was five miles and some obstacles. You go through a little bit of mud and all that kind of stuff.
Kelly:And that was when obstacle horses were kind of starting to get their thing. Tough Mudder was starting to get there and Spartan was coming along and I'm like, oh, this feels like fun. Yeah, let's go do this. Okay, they did not tell me how muddy it was. I don't know if you've ever done a warrior dash, but the last thing to get your medal is you have to swim through a mud pit. I'm like, seriously, swim through a mud pit. I'm going, okay, what I had the best time, I ate it up. I loved it. I've been a runner. I've done a lot of races. I did one marathon. I'm like, okay, check the box, I'm good, not going to do that again.
Kelly:Training sucked, but I did it and I'm like, this is fun and my husband and the kids had gone along with us out to this you know dusty field in Tulsa, oklahoma, and standing on the sidelines they were excited about it. They're like, oh my God, we want to do one of these. This is great and that's the biggest thing, because it lit that spark in my husband because he was starting to kind of, because we had some of those setbacks, you're not going to be able to do the things you used to be able to do, all that BS that people say and the excuses that people make. He really wanted to get back in Pelé Lacrosse again. He wanted to go and do the things that he wanted to do and he was starting to get this feeling that I'm not going to be able to do this. And so, seeing the course and we were talked about it on the way home he's like I really want to do one of those things. I'm like, okay, let's find one. So we ended up finding Conquer the Gauntlet and it was I picked a race in September 2015. He had his surgery in 14 because I really want to make sure he had enough time to recover and it had to be far enough out but close enough to home because we couldn't go too far away from the kids, because we only get a couple of night passes because his parents would watch the kids. But we ended up doing Conquer the Gauntlet in September of 2015 out in Little Rock, arkansas, and we just had a blast. It was so much fun and so that really just started our journey.
Kelly:And then our kids as they got older, they were like we want to do this, and so we did them. We took them on a couple of warrior dashes and they absolutely loved it. And I've got some wonderful stories of the kids, you know, first going through the mud pit, going, oh this sucks. And then the next year we encourage them to bring some friends along, and then they become the cheerleader for their friends going, oh, you can do this. This is going to be so much fun.
Kelly:Seeing that transformation in them was just really cool and seeing how they've grown and my daughter is not afraid of anything and she's also a fantastic lacrosse player and so she's like closes everybody down on the defense line. So you know, just it's just seeing them not be afraid to get in there and get dirty, because they've done a lot of these obstacle courses with us and we try to do at least I don't know, we try about three to five a year if we can, because it's always been challenging with the kids' sports schedules. So in fact, we've got a trifecta to do this year and we'll be doing Conquer the Gauntlet one more time because they're going to be closing the race Like anybody going out there. Go do Conquer the Gauntlet one last time. It was just a thing. I can't. My hats are off to Mayor Price and their whole family because they've done just a phenomenal, phenomenal thing with Conquer the Gauntlet.
Brad:Yeah, it's unfortunate. Yeah, it's unfortunate. You know, as much as I love to have these races available for people, it seems like the days of the grassroots event planners that want to do this is kind of gone.
Kelly:Yeah.
Brad:You got to have. Well, it's more, because it's just your finances.
Kelly:Oh it is, it's got to be expensive.
Brad:Well, I mean to rent whatever area you're going to rent. That's first. So I helped to start a series out here called Best Damn Race. So we've got Best Damn Race out here. I just kind of was helped. Best Damn Race, tampa, which is Safety Harbor, new Orleans, savannah, orlando and Jacksonville. So there's this series and it's always a 5K, 10k and a half marathon. But I understand what it costs. Like the biggest thing is police, right Security for over there. It's one thing is to rent the area, but out here I mean, the biggest expense is the police department, because you're not paying the marshals, which is what they're doing is they're marshalling the course. You're not paying their regular fee, you're paying their overtime.
Kelly:Yeah, it's true.
Brad:But because of that being just so expensive and inflation and the whole bit, they're just taking these grassroots and they're lucky if they can sell the race to Spartan or a big conglomerate like that, otherwise the grassroots one just go bye-bye. You know it's unfortunate.
Kelly:It is unfortunate because of the cost of Spartan, and not a dick who gives him, but because he put on a great event.
Brad:Yes.
Kelly:But I think a lot of these like I was sad when the Warrior Dash went away because that was such a great entry-level race. And then this year Rugged Maniac went away, and I was such a great entry level race and then this year rugged maniac went away and I would be I hadn't gotten a chance to do one of those. I was really looking forward because they were going to have one here in dallas. I'm like, oh, let's go do this because it's close to home, it's in our backyard yeah okay.
Kelly:So it's sad because you do. You see a lot of those just kind of full shop and and I don't know I'd be curious and so I'll put this out to the world. I'm like, is it the group that were really doing a lot of these races just now, moving off and having kids and not participating anymore? Like, are they seeing a lot of participation drop off? I don't know what the case is from that perspective, but I would love to see a lot more people get out there because there's so much. That's what I wrote the book about.
Kelly:It wasn't about how to complete the obstacles. It's really about the mindset of what you mentally go through and physically go through and how you relate that to what you mentally go through and physically go through in real life, because a lot of the challenges are very similar from a perspective, because a lot of the challenges are very similar from a perspective and there's so much growth that you can get from doing these courses and doing things that challenge you, because we don't do enough that challenges us anymore. We have got very sedentary lives. We don't go out and really push ourselves to do hard things. I think we really, truly miss out on that rewarding part of pushing your limits to know what you can do.
Kelly:I am not a podium person. I always joke around like I'm going to be a podium person just because I'm going to outlast everybody in my age group. Then I'll finally get up there. I don't go through these very fast, but I go through them. Every time I take on a course I finally get through another obstacle. That's been challenging me. So it's that resilience to not give up and to keep trying and kind of facing your fears and all sorts of other things that we see in life that you find on the course.
Brad:Oh, and I agree wholeheartedly. I believe that the generations coming in behind us no-transcript. Part of that is training theory, but those are exceptions, you know, and it just doesn't seem like we're doing anything hard. I coach a cross country team out of a private school. That's got 800 kids and I have a problem fulfilling a team.
Brad:When I was a kid, everybody wanted to be on a team and a lot of them would gravitate towards cross country, especially if they played baseball. If they played soccer, they would race cross country because it would get them in shape for their sport. And that's not happening anymore. You know, people are just going there and they're doing their thing and they're relying on their talent, and which is fine, but it's not giving people that evolution of the human spirit. That's why I do what I do. You know, I am constantly trying to push, push the boundaries. I'm not I might be slightly older than you, but other than that, I'm still trying to push, trying to keep going, and that's what my whole roster of people that I coach are of that mindset. It just doesn't seem to be coming in behind us as far as the generations go.
Kelly:Yeah, I don't know where the change was. Was it really? Was it COVID? Was it the fact that we've, you know, and we've not had to push? We've not had a lot of adversity, which, thankfully. I'm not asking for adversity, I don't want it in that respect like a big adversity but I don't know whether we're not pushing people like we used to. We're patting people on the head and saying it's okay and we're not encouraging people to really face the things that, oh, you know what. Actually, I didn't do this right and I need to go back and work harder to overcome this or to be better.
Kelly:I'm sure there's probably a big rabbit hole. We could go down on that one philosophy standpoint, yeah, but I think it's going to hurt us as a society. It's going to hurt us as our children are being raised Like I am. Really, I feel very fortunate that we have taken the kids on this journey with us and they're not afraid to get out there and push it. They're not afraid to get hurt, they're not afraid to fail, and I think that's the biggest part of it. I think we can all just be responsible for our own little world that we live in, and I know at least I've done that with our kids and I'm very thankful to have the opportunity to be able to do that. I hope that more people will, because we have to.
Kelly:It hurts to fall, like I had. This is a good example. So I had a neighbor who her kids. Every time they went out they were padded up like oh my gosh, like helmet, elbow pads, shoulder pads, wrist guards, knee pads, like everything on their bike and they would go out on their bike and just kind of, and they were nervous.
Kelly:My kids maybe it's just because I come from that generation, I'm like you just go do it and you know, tell me bad parent or whatever, I don't care but my kids knew that it hurt when you fall, so it made them stronger and better at what they did. It made them stronger and better bike riders. It made them stronger and better in their sports. It made them stronger and better in everything that they. My neighbor unfortunately her daughter went out one day without the stuff on her safety gear on and when she fell she actually broke her arm because she didn't know how to fall. One of these races we were on and we had just gotten over this thing and I was so excited like, oh my gosh, I got over this and we started running and my foot caught a limb because, of course, these are cross you know, stuff like that.
Kelly:They're trail races and my foot caught a limb and I went down. But I went down, I knew how to fall. I went down on my side, rolled over and jumped back up. My husband just looked at me like what? And the volunteer person was over there like, are you okay? I'm like, yeah, just fine, just fine. Later on, when I pulled everything off, I had a massive bruise all over my side and everything. But that's.
Kelly:The whole point is that you have to learn how to fall.
Kelly:And if you don't learn how to fall to catch yourself in a way that you don't hurt yourself physically in life as well as mentally in life then you're going to be hurt more.
Kelly:Now it takes that first hurt, but you have to learn from that and then move forward with it and be like, okay, I'm going to learn how to do this better, I'm going to learn how to roll with the punches and get myself back up. That's that resilience part of people that we really have to learn in order to be able to continue pushing forward. Because if you don't, and you stay stuck in this and afraid to fall and hurt yourself, you won't build. There's literally you build new neurons every time you push yourself through a wall. It's like scientifically proven now that they've said every time you push yourself through a wall, it's like scientifically proven now that they've said every time you do something hard, you're actually building and growing new neurons. So it's still happening and you have to continue to push yourself and continue those challenges. And that's part of the reason why I think these things are so great and the obstacle courses are so fun because you're putting yourself in a position where you have to push yourself.
Brad:Right, right. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And again, I think that's one of the things that I can't remember. The name is the guy that started Spartan Race, but that was one of the things that he was always thinking about when he first started. Warrior Dash was the OG of off-sail courses. I think they were the very first one and Spartan came on top of that. But yeah, it's so true. Learning how to fall, I remember learning how to ride a bike. You and I didn't grow up in the age where you put a helmet on. Oh, that was when our parents running behind us with holding onto the back and you're like this, and then it lets you go and fall and you can back up, and then you call but it was the first fall and you might have fall, you might have skinned something, and then my dad was probably like your husband. He's like ah, it's fine, get back up on there, you know we could do this.
Brad:Yeah, walk it off and get back on there. And you know, and after a couple of days of doing this, all of a sudden you would go through and you you'd get a few cycles and before you're like, oh my God, I don't know how to break now. So you'd fall on purpose because it's the only way. If you get it, then then dad would teach you how to break and then you try again. You know, and that was the way it was. But now it's like a lot of times it's like, oh, I'll try this. Oh, that didn't work, let me go on to something else. Oh, I didn't like that, that didn't work. Oh, I failed. There aren't daring to fail anymore. It's like failure is the end-all, be-all, which what it is is actually an experience to teach you to then succeed, and succeed without failure you can't succeed without failure, and I think that's what you know.
Kelly:You're asking like what is this generation lost? They lost that ability to work through their failures because there's been a propensity to not allow them to fail.
Brad:Right.
Kelly:Or to make it okay or almost kind of like placate.
Brad:The first time that I was with a friend who had a four-year-old or five-year-old playing soccer and he's like, hey, we're going to watch the soccer game and I'm like what's the score? And they're like, oh, they don't keep score, it's got to be, we're just for fun here. And I was like what's the score? And they're like, oh, they don't keep score, it's got to be, we're just for fun here. And I was like what? But the funny part was all the moms were like, yay, good job, johnny, blah, blah, blah. And the guys were like somebody would score and it was like blah, blah, blah. And at the end of the game, okay, great, but all the guys would Like, literally, they are.
Kelly:They are keeping score. So I know it's, you know it's kind of sad and that's why I hope, and that's why I think that it's sad that I see some of these races folding as they are and it's Joe DeSana who does the big smart, tough letter and now tough letter because he taught a tough letter as well. But I hope that they don't and I hope that we can spur some, and I love that you've got one that goes on in your area. Is it still going on?
Brad:We have a Spartan that goes right down the street. He does the stadium. They use Raymond James Stadium one, the inner city one, then we've got one in Orlando. That is also a city but not inside of a stadium, and we've got like we've got, so you can do a trifecta out here in the tampa orlando area.
Kelly:I think I need to do that, but you had mentioned another race that you said that you were you would help start best damn race, but that's a road race yes, oh, it's a road race okay race 5k, 10k, half marathon.
Brad:Yeah, those are road races, but we've got a lot of trail races out here as well. But, yeah, covid was definitely an instigator. Where you got to go, they went two years without being able to put on a race, you know. So what, depending on what their finances were, that could pretty much deter any. You know, it's a lot, of a lot of companies that went out of business because of covid Too many If you can't put on events. They weren't allowed to put on events, yeah, which made sense for that environment. So what would you say is your hardest obstacle in a race? What was the hardest obstacle that you can think of?
Kelly:So in Conquer the Gauntlet there was this race. It's called the Continental Divide. The gauntlet, there was this race. It's called the Continental Divide, and it's almost a 14 foot tall wall that you have to grab a rope and climb over. And when we came to this wall unfortunately was that my husband's very first race after surgery and you actually have to scale a six foot wall to get into the starting pin of concrete outlet. And when he scaled that wall and he found out a few years later that he ended up tearing a part of his bicep. So by the time we got to this wall he couldn't grab the rope to climb up because he had hurt it. He'd done further damage on another obstacle right after.
Kelly:So he's like, well, you give it a try, honey. And I'm like, okay, I'll try it. And I got about halfway up and I'm hanging from this rope and I'm going I can't make it up. Like I had not trained, like I had not done. I really hadn't known what a big obstacle course race was, like the ones that were in warrior dash. They had slats across so I could kind of climb up it with the rope and the rope had knots in it, so it was a lot easier to do this one. You were really relying on brute strength, your upper body strength, and just technique to be able to get up and over it. And so, because he couldn't get over it and this is kind of one of the lessons I used his excuse Him was my excuse to not try again, because I knew I couldn't do it and I'm like, oh well, you can't go up there. So I then, you know, I couldn't get my butt over that thing thing. So we walked around it. But that wall was really. It really bothered me, because when we got back to the house I was kind of looking at the obstacles, kind of reliving the day, and I'm like, oh my gosh, 80% of the people can get over this wall. What is my problem? I can't get over this thing. So we did the race again the next year and my husband had healed his arm we hadn't had surgery yet, but he had healed his arm through just rehab and he got over it and was waiting at the top for me. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to get over this wall. So I got up and I got stuck again and had to slide back down. So I'm like, all right, I'm going to do this again. So I get, I climb up the rope again, I get up to him and I just barely get myself onto this chicken wing position and I'm like literally holding onto the top of the wall, like with it my armpits and my arms at the top, and I'm just looking at him going, I don't know what to do, I can't get over this thing. And he's like, well, what do you want me to do? Like, literally, I was so pissed at that time. I'm like, just pull me the bleep over, get me over this thing. And so he got me over it. But I was still mad because I'm like why can't I get over this stupid wall?
Kelly:So we, the next year, our kids were old enough. Our daughter was, she had to be 12. So, you know, my son was, our son was 15. So we were able to now go participate in the race, or he was 14. Anyway, they were right around that age.
Kelly:And we get to this wall again and my husband and son decided to go to the other side. We have to run and go grab the rope. I'm like, yeah, no, I'm good, I'm going to start with a rope right down here and touch the ground so I don't have to run. I'm like, no, don't need to go run and do that thing. I'm like I can't do it anyway. And my daughter tries first, gets halfway up, she can't do it. So she comes back to me. She's like okay, mom, you try. So I go up and I get stuck again and have to slide back down. I was like this is pissing me to try it again. So I get myself up. I get myself up to that chicken wing position. I'm going are you kidding me? Like I cannot like in this time my husband's not there to pull me over, like it's all by myself.
Kelly:And I was getting so frustrated, I was so pissed and then I started going well, why do I even want to get over this thing?
Kelly:What is my problem? Like this is that growth moment. You know that thing where you're going. Nobody cares if I get over this stupid wall. Like what am I doing? And then I hear from right below me my daughter, you got this mom. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I have to get over this wall now. Like that was that thing that finally made me go. Okay, kelly, figure it out, you know how to do this.
Kelly:Like that resilience piece that pulled into me. Like I can do this. It's not going to be pretty, but I can get my butt over this wall because I have to, because she's going to get over this wall, I have to be up there for her, because if I'm not up there for her, she's going to struggle to get over this wall. So don't know how I did it I think I probably kicked the guy next to me. I like literally threw my leg up and over. I somehow, like I think I pulled a muscle in my side. I don't know how I did it, but I literally rolled myself over the top of that wall. Like it was not pretty at all but I got over and I was up there to help my daughter and I think the guy that I probably almost kicked he stayed up there to help me pull Tori over as well. So that wall solidified to me why these challenges for me were so important, because by the time I got that wall, I think it was 48 years old.
Kelly:Am I going to give up on myself and let this thing of age stop me from trying the hard things in life?
Kelly:What example am I setting for my daughter and my son if I don't continue to push and do the hard things in life.
Kelly:We've got a lot of life to live, and if we don't be that role model for our kids, then they're going to find a role model somewhere else or they're going to role model something that we don't want them to. I know there's plenty of things that I have screwed up and they're going to go to therapy for something that I've done. You don't get through life as a parent not doing something that you screw up, but for the most part, though, I'm hoping that the majority of what we role model is that path of resilience, that path that you can do it, that path that you know what. You just have to keep going and keep trying. That was a lot of that. What I learned on that wall over these years is we've kept, and I've conquered it a few more times, but that's also I mean, that was probably the biggest thing that I took away and the biggest memory I have from some of these the obstacles that we've gone over.
Brad:I see that it's kind of where everything just kind of came to fruition for you it sounds like. Is there a memory of that? I have to say something about obstacle courses. It's really amazing, and it's the same way in triathlon is that you're really not battling anybody else. It's not really a competition with other people. I mean, there's definitely there are some competitive leagues and things. I mean, like Spartan, you can get money for winning and all this stuff, but the majority of people you're battling the obstacle, you're battling yourself.
Kelly:Yes.
Brad:You know it's always just doing a little bit better than you did the day before, and everybody knows that. And because everybody knows that the competition level is like next to nothing as far as the neighbor next door, the person at the top, like you said, the person that you actually almost kicked or did kick, we don't know yet he was like stayed up there because he saw your daughter down there and wanted to help, and that is the environment in these obstacle courses yes this I remember the first time I did tough mudder and I didn't know what to think.
Brad:The first few obstacles were pretty much individual. You had to go under stuff, under and over and blah, blah, blah. There was really nothing high, nothing low. And then we get to this vertical gate, wire gate. You had to go up and over and back back down. You really had to go up and over and back down.
Brad:You really had to go up and it's so high that you had to call and then crawl back down right and I didn't understand why there was people on the ground on the bottom rung and they're all sitting down and pulling and I didn't understand what they were doing. Until I got up and over they were, everybody was in there and they were keeping it taught. So it made it easy for the next person. And then when you jumped down, you took somebody's spot and you waited for another person to come over and that person came over. Then you went on with the obstacle course. It was amazing. I mean I was enthralled. I just was enthralled. I was like, wow, like it. I had more confidence in a human being than ever at that point.
Kelly:And it's about the fact that when you get out on that course, it doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, what you look like, we are all out there battling together. I mean, people jump in strangers who had never met before Like this. We did the trifecta weekend in Dallas last October and there was a kind of a straight wall that you had to go up. My husband actually got up to the top, but you had to climb up like kind of like those rock climbing things, and I couldn't get my foot to the first one to get my leverage up, and this man just walked right by. He was walking by me, just stopped. He looked, he said do you need a hand? I'm like, yes, please, and he gave me a little foothold. I got up there and as I was climbing up I looked over and noticed he was doing his penalty rep and then he took off. If he was going for time and trying to do like a PR, he paused long enough to give me a hand and he didn't have to.
Kelly:And you see stories like this and you see just human nature all the time on these courses.
Kelly:I never go through one where we haven't had a group of people coming together to help others over an obstacle and where people have stopped to help us. It's really it's just that giving nature of human that we naturally give, and it's a place where people can just do it and feel good about it and not think about it that. I just wish that was something that we can embody a little bit more off the course, as I say, in the muddy field of life, little things like giving a smile to someone at the grocery store, holding a door open for somebody who's coming in behind you and not letting it slam shut on them, little know, little things like that that really truly mean something, like what it says is that you see that person, you're not just walking through life in your own little bubble, that you see that there are other people around you and having just being that little extra courteousness so they feel seen, and that can mean so much for somebody in one day that you never know what impact you can make.
Brad:I agree. Into a crowded line of cars 13 different cars knowing that the people in back of you are trying to get home too Exactly. Let one or two in people, not the 13. Go on your way. Okay, you've got people. Remember the people behind you Exactly.
Kelly:I will tell you I love being back in Texas. I was actually born in Texas. I love being in Texas because people here know how to merge one at a time, Just kind of go like epimeth. It's just flip it. It's awesome. My hands are down to Texas drivers. Y'all don't have to drive.
Brad:Yeah, and making a left-hand turn and blocking out those front lanes so that the people behind you can follow you through. Yeah, come on people. That's my little quibble that I have for some people, because Florida's got some really bad drivers Not as bad as DC, but it's getting close.
Kelly:Yeah Well, you got a lot of the northerners coming down, don't you?
Brad:You have a lot of snowbirds. Yeah, the driving gets worse in the winter, so that's what you want to call it, but that's yeah, that's amazing. So you have a plan of action in your book. You want to just kind of go over those few different attributes and then we can wrap up.
Kelly:Sure. So after I wanted the book to not just be like a story about our escapades and what I learned from them, I really wanted folks to be able to just kind of hear the lesson, take the information, but then have some questions to really kind of go through and ponder what's going on in their life. My goal is that it will help people can build on their resilience, you know, build their inner strength and just really feel like they can actually move through life the way they want to move through life. So basically take their control and their power back in their life. So I go through five different strategies it's recovery, discovery, persistency, creativity and collaboration and then I break it down into three chapters each. But from each one from the lesson, there's like little bullet points that this is what we went over in this chapter and here are some questions like here's a scenario, think about this kind of scenario. And then here are some questions that you can ponder that will help you work through a problem. She's like she goes.
Kelly:I keep going back to the book to kind of work through my problems Warms my heart.
Brad:Oh, my God.
Kelly:So that was my hope. I just hope that people will take the kind of self-coaching questions. You know, becoming a health coach. How can I help people kind of self-coach? Because we do a lot. Of us like to try to take things on and take care of ourselves and I think that's wonderful. Maybe, that'll help you do that a little bit better.
Brad:So it's recovery, persistence, creativity and collaboration. All right people. So there you go. That's exactly the way to get through obstacles. And to find out more about that, don't forget, we'll have some links for you it's Lessons from the Obstacle Course and we'll have some links directly to the book as Long and also to her website, kellymajdancom, so you can do that. And where else could people get in contact with?
Kelly:you Instagram and Facebook. Power Through Wellness it's the name of our company and your power comes from within. It truly does and also on LinkedIn, so you can find Kelly Meston on LinkedIn and also Power Through Wellness on all three.
Brad:We don't TikTok. Oh no, I know, it's just because you don't want to be brainwashed.
Kelly:I'm like I can't. I'm like, okay, there are some limitations as you're getting older. You're like, okay, do I really have to learn another social media platform?
Brad:Yeah, we could talk about that forever, but yeah, so I'll put all the links into the show notes so that all of you can get in touch with Kelly. But definitely take a look at the book, because it's something else, let me tell you. So you got to give it a good read, so all right. So thank you so much, kelly. This has been a lot of fun and a lot of good comparables between our lives. Yeah, absolutely Crazy. Yeah, like really crazy, like surreal, which has been amazing. Thank you so much for sharing.
Kelly:Oh, thank you. I appreciate this. I'm glad that we were able to connect. This has been fun.
Brad:All right, everybody. Thank you, we will see you in the next one.
