#1 Running Coach on the Daily Habits That Create Elite Performers | Sean Brosnan - EP 799

Today, John sits down with legendary running coach Sean Brosnan, author of Beyond Fast. Sean built one of the greatest high school distance running programs in history, producing Olympians, national champions, and American record holders—not by finding extraordinary athletes, but by helping ordinary people discover what they were truly capable of.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01John R. Miles?

  Hey friends, what if your biggest problem isn't that you're not doing enough, but that you've spent too long proving that you are enough? You can be successful, needed, and surrounded by people and still feel completely unseen. That's the problem I explore in my new book, The Mattering Effect. I show you how we become hyper-visible for what we produce while quietly becoming invisible to ourselves and introduce the matter framework to help you reclaim meaning, autonomy, trust, time, energy, and reciprocity. Stop auditioning for your worth, start living from it. The Mattering Effect is available for preorder now at matteringeffect.com. Coming up next on Passion Struck.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  I think everyone has their own individual reasons of why they're going to run, or flourish, or do well. I think there's some people that are super competitive and they hate losing, and that's an attribute, and it sometimes it can hinder you too. I just think there's all different reasons of why. As a coach, it's like your job to find that individualism. The biggest thing I always say in my coaching and I think in coaching in general is, it's all individualized and people are like, "Yeah, I do that," but they don't. Everybody's different and everyone's going to react to different things.

• 1:09John R. Miles?

  Welcome to Passion Struck. I'm your host, John Miles. This is the show where we explore the art of human flourishing and what it truly means to live like it matters. Each week, I sit down with changemakers, creators, scientists, and everyday heroes to decode the human experience and uncover the tools that help us lead with meaning, heal what hurts, and pursue the fullest expression of who we're capable of becoming. Whether you're designing your future, developing as a leader, or seeking deeper alignment in your life, this show is your invitation to grow with purpose and act with intention. Because the secret to a life of deep purpose, connection, and impact is choosing to live like you matter.

• 1:57John R. Miles?

  Hey, it's your friend, John. Welcome back to episode 799 of the Passion Struck Podcast. Have you ever wondered whether the biggest thing standing between you and the life you want isn't your talent, it's your belief? Because I think all of us carry invisible ceilings. We tell ourselves we're being realistic, that this is probably as far as we can go, that someone else is naturally more gifted, more connected, more capable. So, we quietly lower the standard for our own lives before we've ever discovered what we're actually capable of. Today's conversation completely challenged that way of thinking. By the end of this episode, you'll understand why belief isn't motivational thinking.

• 2:41John R. Miles?

  It's one of the most powerful performance tools we possess. You'll learn why extraordinary teams aren't built by collecting extraordinary people. They're built by creating extraordinary cultures. You'll discover why goals matter far less than the daily habits that support them, why confidence follows evidence instead of wishful thinking, and why the limits we accept often become the limits we live. Our guide today is Shawn Brosnan. Shawn is one of the most accomplished running coaches in America and the author of Beyond Fast. At Newberry Park High School, he built one of the greatest distance running programs in history, producing national champions, Olympians, American record holders,

• 3:24John R. Miles?

  and teams that completely rewrote what people thought high school athletes were capable of accomplishing. But here's what stayed with me after our conversation. Shawn wasn't really talking about running. He was talking about human potential, about the stories we tell ourselves, about why most people dramatically underestimate what they're capable of becoming, and how great coaches don't simply teach people new skills. They help them see possibilities they couldn't yet see for themselves. I think that's a lesson every one of us needs to hear. So, let's get right into my conversation with Shawn Brosnan. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life that matters. Now, let that journey begin.

• 4:11John R. Miles?

  I am thrilled today to welcome Shawn Brosnan to Passion Struck. Shawn, so nice to see you.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  It's nice being here.

• 4:19John R. Miles?

  You and I have a few things in common. I wanted to put this out here in case the audience didn't know my backstory, but I ran competitively in high school, cross-country, and track, which we're going to be talking a lot about today, as well as Division One. So, if the listeners didn't know that, I just wanted to ground you in that fact as I'm asking Shawn questions from probably more than a casual interviewer stance. But I want to start with your backstory, because I often think, people think they find their calling, become passion-struck overnight. And what I like about your journey, especially where you started in college,

• 5:03John R. Miles?

  is that it didn't really have a linear path. And I think it's important to share that. Can you take us back to Shawn in college? And I know you got injured your senior year running. And I think that kind of impacted you at first, and then you found your grounding.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Well, obviously, I ran in college and when I got injured, and which was multiple times leading up to it, but I think it just opened my eyes to a lot. It made me aware of not just being an athlete, like looking at a lot of the other aspects of training, something that I was very interested in. Growing up, I always wanted to know the why factor of, okay, why are people fast? What can I do to get myself faster? My high school program, and then when I went on to college, I think having those injuries just kind of put me a step back and being like, okay, I really, I don't know, I just wanted to know more about the sport and know every little detail that I can do to be a better athlete or a better runner. And then fast forwarding to when I became a coach, it was like, I wanted to create

• 6:03Speaker 01

  that atmosphere for the athletes that I never had, or the advantages from coaching, or all the little things that I never had. So, that's kind of, kind of what brought me to where I was as a coach and even where I'm going right now as a coach and so forth.

• 6:16John R. Miles?

  Yeah, I'm just interested because you went from going to school in Carolina, Nassau Community College, Queens University, also in Charlotte, eventually to Adam, Adam State. I went to a very structured environment at the Naval Academy. My coach, Coach Al, I think ended up coaching there for over four decades. And it was very regimented. He made us do something that I know that you kind of despise, and that is, he wanted us to constantly put in a base foundation. So, we were constantly logging the miles.

• 6:58John R. Miles?

  But I'm curious, was there a moment that drove you to search for a perfect training system, or were you already starting to realize the traditional collegiate structures, high school structures, weren't designed for the renegade mindset you eventually brought to coaching?

• 7:15Speaker 01

  No, I think I was always aware. In high school, I tore my ACL, I got injured doing a non-running activity, I guess you could say. Like, it caused me to cross-train a lot and do some things unorthodox that a runner wouldn't do. And then I had a really good senior year off of this unorthodox cross-training type of stuff. So, I think I, it just opened my eyes to it a lot more. My journey and my path was different, so I ended up going to a junior college for a year. It wasn't what I wanted once I was there. So, then I ended up going to basically school out in Colorado. It was a powerhouse for Division Two. But I, I don't know, I think I just, for some reason, I was always wanting to know why. Okay, I see different training programs with different coaches.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  I would read Track and Field Magazine from cover to back. I would read any running book that I could get my hands on. And not everybody was the same, so it kind of fascinated me. It was, okay, there's no best way, but I wonder if there is a way that you could design a program individually for someone to be the best for them. So, I was obsessed with that. And then I hurt myself as an athlete because I questioned too much as an athlete, what I should do. But then I think as a coach, I was able to, stuff that I did as an athlete and I forced myself to do, I would never do to my athletes. I just overtrained and did crazy things and tried some crazy stuff, but I think it made me who I was as a coach, or am as a coach today. And yeah, I just, for some reason, I was just fascinated with that end of it.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  And I just was like, okay, if we can do all these little things in training, and maybe even outside of training, if you can get that little percent more, that's a huge thing in running, or any type of endurance sport, I think so. I just had that obsession ever since high school, when I first got injured my senior year, and then the same thing happened into college and stuff. So, it just, oh, I just, yeah, I was always open to wanting to know more.

• 9:09John R. Miles?

  One of the things I think a lot of people fall for is they think that it's all going to just fall in their lap and that they're not going to have to make sacrifice. And one of the things that I found really interesting is that you spent around two years in Beaverton, Oregon, and much of it sleeping on an air mattress, trying to chase a dream that didn't end up materializing at first exactly how you planned. Can you take us back to that part of your journey?

• 9:40Speaker 01

  When I was trying to still give running a shot, for me, I had run some decent times as a post-collegiate or outside of college, even after all these injuries and different avenues that I took in life. I was like on the bubble of breaking four minutes, ran 344 for a 1500, which some people know, so if you know what that is as a runner, it's a fairly good time. Today, it's getting slower and slower because people are running so fast. But I remember I went over to Europe and I was racing in Europe that summer and I was sitting there and I go, well, where can I move? Where can I go to just basically embrace myself or just surround myself by some of the best coaches and athletes in the world? And it struck, it was either, I already lived in Eugene, Oregon, that was

• 10:23Speaker 01

  a big hotspot for running. And I was like, I'm gonna go to Portland, Beaverton, that area, and I'm gonna just show up there and just start training. And I finished my season, I ran some race in New York, Fifth Avenue Mile, it's a big pro race. And then after that, I moved to Beaverton and that's where I met some of the best coaches in the world and some of the best athletes. And I think it really started my journey to, I was already, I coached a little bit of Division II school before that. And I think at that point, it just really opened my eyes to a lot what's possible. And I just was like, well, I guess I'm going by that old saying, if whatever, whoever you surround yourself by, you become, right? And that's what I tried to do. And I was like, I don't care about a job. I don't

• 11:04Speaker 01

  care about whatever. I'll figure it out once I get there. I remember just flying a one-way ticket, getting out to Beaverton, Oregon, having my car shipped out there and was like, here I go. And I just ended up staying there for a while and meeting some great people that I'm still friends with today that helped me with my coaching career. And just, yeah, like I said earlier, just opened my eyes to a lot of what was possible.

• 11:26John R. Miles?

  When you went to Beaverton, was that before or after you did the corporate detour?

• 11:32Speaker 01

  It was after. So I did, straight out of college, I really didn't know what I was gonna do. And I worked in sales for a little bit. And again, I think it helped my coaching in a lot of ways. I talk about it in my book, but I just remember sitting in a cubicle, I had an inside sales job, which means basically make phone calls all day. And I was working for a good, it was like a sporting company and the biking, it was like a Fox Racing, which was like, I sold bike and board apparel stuff to bike shops and surf shops. And I found out quickly that, I think I talk about this, the best part of the day was when the food truck pulled up, not to me, but the other people. And I felt like most people in the office didn't work hard. I would make 150 calls or whatever it was, and they'd make 30 calls and just talk about the weekend. And I was like, man, this is like a metaphor

• 12:16Speaker 01

  for everything in life. I'm just gonna do, and then I moved up quickly and got a job as an outside sales rep, over a lot of people that were there for years. And to me, it just made me realize, same thing in running, it's, man, if you want to do something, you can do it. You just gotta, you just, it's like, that's the half the battle right there. More than half the battle is people just, they don't dive in headfirst. There's a saying in my book, full throttle. And that's something that it's like, if you can just get into sports or even the business world, and you just go in full throttle, it's like, you're gonna fail a lot, but you only need to succeed once, really, to become a successful person, as they say. So it was interesting, but I learned a lot from the corporate world. And I jumped around from different sales jobs and made pretty good money and was happy

• 12:58Speaker 01

  with that end of it. But I wasn't satisfied because I always knew that there was something bigger and better for me out there with running and coaching.

• 13:07John R. Miles?

  And listeners, the book that Sean is bringing up is titled Beyond Fast: How A Renegade Coach And His Unlikely High School Team Revolutionized Distance Running. And I wanted to give a little bit of that backstory for the listeners before we start talking about your coaching, because I always think it's important for people to see some of the struggles that eventually lead to building the foundation, which leads to success. So Sean, I understand that you learned from Jack Hegarty that running is learning to run with pain. And that is

• 13:48John R. Miles?

  something I can tell you, I learned myself because I experienced a ton of pain, especially when you're running 100 miles plus a week. I really learned that suffering is a requirement. But how do you sell that to a 15-year-old?

• 14:06Speaker 01

  The high school is a very interesting end of it. I worked with a lot of great coaches and there was a, one of the coaches I worked with, Scott Simmons, who ended up coaching Olympic medalists, and he coaches world-class people today. I was at a small Division II school with him and he used to tell me, he used to be like, it's just a learned skill to run with that pain. And there's some great athletes out there. One recently, she just did an interview and she's, we all signed up for this. If you don't think, it doesn't, it's not like no pain, no gain every day, because there are days where obviously it's gonna be more fun and relaxing and recovery and so forth. But I think it's the benefits you get from it, because I, it's so cliche, and I understand it, but it is a metaphor for life. That was my biggest sell to the high school parents. It's like, listen, when

• 14:48Speaker 01

  you can commit to this 100%, it's gonna echo what you do later in life. And that's 100% true. And it's at all levels. You take a high school kid, it's, listen, you put this, you give me four years and we build this. It's just gonna give you more opportunity in life. Maybe you're not gonna run in college, maybe it's not your entry into college, but that work ethic is huge. Same thing in college. I was a collegiate coach for a little bit and at different levels of the NCAA. And it's like, give me four or five years and let's give you a chance to do something great. And then that's it. And then when you go pro, it's like, I'm starting to work with professionals right now. And it's, listen, give me eight years. Because I always say, you graduate college, you're like 22, 23 roughly, some older, some younger. And it's, if you give me eight years, two Olympic cycles, this

• 15:32Speaker 01

  is it. By the time you're in your early 30s, then you can go do the real job, they say, or whatever. And you could always start in a career at any point in your life. I truly believe that. And you can switch at any point in your life. But I think going back to a 15-year-old or a 14-year-old, you come in, it's, you have to make it fun and you have to make it appealing. But I think at Newbury Park, where we broke all these national records, the number one team year after year, it was like, it was cool to work hard. The kid who didn't go home and get eight, nine hours sleep, didn't come to practice hydrated, didn't take it serious, he was the outcast on the team. And when you start building that culture, that's when it's becomes, that's when you get the success you get. And national championships become normal. And it's, that's the atmosphere you want to create. I'm pretty sure if I

• 16:16Speaker 01

  went to some of the best football programs in the country, they'd have that same mentality. That's what I believe, because I saw it at the pro level, the collegiate level, and then I feel like I did it at the high school level.

• 16:28John R. Miles?

  So I want to go back to the start of that high school journey, because you walk into a program and you mentioned that you told the parents they would win a state championship in under four years, but you walk into a program that hadn't qualified for a state championship, as I understand it, in 25 years.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:49John R. Miles?

  As you began to talk to those parents, I know that belief is a finite resource. Did you see a spark in them? Or were you intentionally using an audacious goal to filter out those who weren't ready for total commitment?

• 17:07Speaker 01

  It's interesting, because I think I went in and I knew there wasn't a lot of talent. So if you want to call it that, it was just from seeing what the guys had run the year previous and the kids coming into the program. We had some decent kids. We ended up having, my first day of practice in cross country was one of my athletes, his name is Nico Young, who's now a professional runner, an American record holder, an Olympian, and all this great stuff. And he came in as a 5'1" freshman, not great credentials, decent for an eighth grade kid, but you wouldn't think he would go on to do what he's done today, or even in high school, national record holder, national champ. I think when I came in, it was like, maybe, it's like, sometimes when you're so naive, or you just, I used to go to this running camp and speak at it every year in upstate New York called The Running School.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  And I know the owners well. And every year, I would watch these kids, and this is before I coached high school and I coached at a different level. I was like, why aren't they running faster? They're just not guided correctly. And it was maybe me being overconfident. So I always said, give me a high school program and we're gonna dominate. Because I feel like at that level, it's easy to be good. And good makes you national level, but great makes you national champs. So I just, I looked at the results from California and I studied them. And I was like, there's no way I can't get a team in three. And it was maybe, again, me being overconfident, I believed it. And I think there's a difference, and I talk about this in my book, of saying you're gonna do something and really believing it. But when I told those parents, we will win a state title in four years if you do everything

• 18:37Speaker 01

  I say. Not everyone liked I said that. But we ended up winning one in three years. And then we won a national title in four and became the most dominant team in high school from then on. And it was like, so I think I just really believed it. And I think that's the difference. I had instances where kids would give me, hey, I want to run this time. I know they didn't believe it. It was just something that they put out there. And that's one thing, but you have to start believing it. Once you believe in something, I just think it's, you're on a whole nother level mentally and physically. And I came in there with that crazy attitude. I remember after the meeting, my wife was in the back of the room and I was like, was that too crazy? And she's, no, she's absolutely not. And like, I don't know, half the parents were psyched, half of them were like, this guy, he's just

• 19:20Speaker 01

  talking. But I had an athlete, years later, come up to me, he was like a junior on the team when I started. And then he graduated and he was like halfway through college, he came back to visit when I was at Newbury Park, teaching and coaching still. And we had won our first national championship. And he came up to me and he's like, Coach, remember that meeting? And I'm like, what meeting? And he's, the first meeting we had before summer practice. He's, you said we were gonna win a state title. You did it. We, Newbury Park did it. And they were not supposed to. I was like, it's pretty crazy to think about that. Everyone thought I was nuts at first. And we went to beyond what we, to become the greatest team ever in high school. So.

• 19:58John R. Miles?

  I want to thank all of you who continue to make Passion Struck one of the world's leading podcasts on human flourishing. If these conversations help you think differently about your life, one of the simplest ways you can support the show is by following Passion Struck on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and leaving a rating or review. It helps more people discover these conversations than you might realize. If you'd rather watch the full interview, every episode is available on the Passion Struck YouTube channels where you can see the complete conversations exactly as it happened. And if you'd like to go deeper, every episode in our flourishing series includes a companion workbook and weekly reflections inside the ignited life on Substack. Those resources are designed to help you move

• 20:40John R. Miles?

  from listening to actually applying these ideas in your own life. You'll find links to everything, including my upcoming book, The Mattering Effect, which explores why so many successful people still struggle to believe that they truly matter in today's show notes. Now, a quick break for our sponsors. Thank you for supporting those who support the show.

• 21:12John R. Miles?

  You're listening to Passion Struck right here on the Passion Struck network. Now, let's get back to my conversation with Sean Brosnan.

• 21:20John R. Miles?

  Sean, one of the things you wrote is that every run has a purpose. And I've seen so many runners, it's happened to myself, where they get lost in the junk miles. How do you convince a 15 or 16-year-old that a dog-slow recovery run was just as mathematically significant to a national title as running a 420 interval?

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Convincing anyone of anything is interesting. There's a line in the book that I say, you have two comedians, they both, comedian A, comedian B, they both tell the same joke. One of them is funny, one of them is not. I do think there's a delivery in that. I think there's a way, a connection with the athletes. And I think, once they start trusting you, the thing is, we had pretty good success right away from just training my first year, not at the national level, but at the local, and then that we made the state meet the first time ever, in a long time, anyway. We won a league title in the first time in 21 years. And I think, once you get that belief, it's like, they really start believing in what you say. The one thing I also say in the book is, I will never tell an athlete

• 22:31Speaker 01

  they can do something that I don't believe they can do, because I don't want to give them a mit- but then there's other people that say, oh, I think too highly of my athletes. I always think they could run faster. But the thing is, we rewrote the history books. Like, when I say an athlete could run, and when I was like, I'm gonna have this guy break four minutes in the mile in high school, he did it. And we always backed it up. And that's where I think, once they get the confidence from actually doing it, and I think they just had a belief early on, because when I said, hey, we're gonna qualify for the state meet for the first time, and we did it, they were like, oh, shoot, maybe we should listen to this guy. And I think it just kind of snowballed, and all the parents, most of the parents accepted it, and most of the kids. You always have the outliers, and you can only do what you can do. But I think, we weeded a lot of those people out, and

• 23:16Speaker 01

  the people that wanted to be a part of the program really did. And yeah, they believed in what we said.

• 23:22John R. Miles?

  I interviewed Nick Thompson. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Nick. He's the CEO of The Atlantic, but he's an avid runner. You know who Nick is?

• 23:30Speaker 01

  I'm familiar. I don't know a whole lot about him, but yeah.

• 23:33John R. Miles?

  Yeah, I think he owns the record for long-distance runs for his age group. But when he was younger, he was trying to break the three-hour barrier in the marathon, and just could not do it. He had a mental block that he couldn't get through. And there's a moment in Beyond Fast where you described the liar's mile, and you end up measuring a distance, but telling the boys it was slightly longer, which, to me, if I were them, it would be infuriating, but it's a brilliant move. Was this kind of psychological trickery necessary to dismantle a mental glass ceiling that they had built for themselves?

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was one of our last big workouts before the national championship, with the way our season was like structured. It was like, okay, this is gonna be one of those workouts where I want them to go to the well a little bit. And it's not often we do this. So it was a basic workout. I think it was four times a mile. It was on pretty good soft grass, which was good, because it was similar to the national championship course. And I think I wanted them to average, I don't know the exact time off the top of my head, but it was somewhere under 430 for a mile, per mile. And that's pretty hard on grass with the little hills. Again, these are the best guys in the country. That was kind of hard for them, considering where we were running. And I could see they couldn't wrap their head around it. So I always measure it with a wheel. I have a wheel, and I put the cones out when we do our workout. And I measured it a little, a little long, on

• 24:58Speaker 01

  purpose. And I've done the opposite to give them confidence with short. And I've said, listen, we started the workout, we did it. And the first one, they were a little short. And I was like, I got on the guys. I'm like, damn it, guys, you have to start, you gotta get your head around this. So I basically made them run the rest of the workout way faster than they thought they could. It could have backfired on me. I said that to my assistant, Steve. I was like, Steve, this might backfire. But we ended up averaging exactly what I wanted, but it was still long, three seconds or something like that. So the point is, I told them afterwards, I'm like, guys, this is what I mean. The old classic story of the first time someone broke four minutes in the mile, Roger Bannister in 1954. It's like, there was a whole bunch of guys that did it the same year. It's, once somebody

• 25:43Speaker 01

  breaks that barrier and does something, it's a mental block. And I just wanted these guys to really think and be like, okay, this is, this is all in your head. You just, you're physically capable. I knew what they were capable of. And then I feel like, even though that was a really hard workout, and some like, why would you do a hard workout that two weeks out from some big race? But I was like, no, I just, it was perfect timing. And I wanted them to believe. And then it worked, because I think they were like, oh, shoot, we really can do this. And then, we ended up, the national record before we had it for the, a national cross-country team, for a high school cross-country team, for a 5K average was like 15 flat. We averaged 1414 for a 5K. And I had three guys break

• 26:25Speaker 01

  the national individual record in the same race, 1403, 1405, 1405, on a cross-country course. That's the type of stuff where I was like, we're gonna rewrite the record books. And I think those type of moments helped us do it. And I think those are important at all different levels.

• 26:42John R. Miles?

  Yeah, those times are just remarkable. And I can't believe how much they've come down over time.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:49John R. Miles?

  Because that, when I was running 30 years ago, that would have been unheard of.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:56John R. Miles?

  One of the interesting things that I found, and I call it the compound mindset, is, I'm a big fan of rugby. And I love what the New Zealand teams do before they even play, how they do that deliberate practice and ritual, where they're trying to show this presence to the other team before they even compete. And I understand, you did something in a similar type of way. When you would come to these meets, you wanted to have the most obnoxious presence, the biggest, etc. How much of your dominance do you think was won in the parking lot before the race even started?

• 27:36Speaker 01

  There's two things to that. There are high school kids, and you want them to have fun, and you want to, you want to create an atmosphere. Like, I wanted an atmosphere that I never had. I always wanted that. When I first started at Newbury Park, we showed up to a meet, and I was the coach. And from the old program, we had mismatched, like, warm-up uniforms. We had a tarp we threw on the ground. We had no team tent. It was awful. It was embarrassing. We had a guy show up with a Duke running sweatshirt. I'm like, what are we doing? You have, we're gold and black, and you're wearing blue. And even though it's a warm-up, it just didn't sit well with me. So I was like, you know what? I'm gonna go the complete opposite. I'm just gonna have the best atmosphere for

• 28:17Speaker 01

  these kids. So even as we got better, it just, it blew up. Our tent was like a fortress. We'd have to go sometimes a few days ahead of time with parents and volunteers, and set up this huge tent. We had a courtyard in it. I just wanted an atmosphere. And then when we showed up to races, like, our uniforms were like, right on. Everyone was matching our warm-ups to like, top of the line. We were doing stuff through Nike at the time, and it was all Nike stuff, head to toe. And it was just like, that's the image we wanted. Because the best team in the country, and the best team in the state, when I started, was Temecula, Great Oak High School. They were the dominant school. And when they showed up, everyone stared at them. And I knew that with the pro groups, when the top pro groups

• 29:00Speaker 01

  showed up at track meets, everyone, I was like, you know what? That's what we're doing. And then obviously, the respect is gained, once you start running fast. Everyone looks because you're fast. But I wanted to create that atmosphere, and that's what we did. And the kids would show up, everything was set up for them. These were pretty extravagant warm-up areas that we set up with our tents and displays and stuff. Just the uniforms the kids wore, and everything head to toe. I wanted it to be perfect, because like, when you feel good, you run good. And it doesn't mean you're gonna run fast, because you're wearing the best stuff. But like, it was all part of the image. And I think, it just blew up. And it just, it helped just feel good about themselves. And people wanted to be a part of it. People wanted to be at the meet. Even when kids didn't qualify to run certain meets, they were showing up to hang out with the team. They wanted to be a part of it. And that's what we wanted to do.

• 29:47John R. Miles?

  I want to talk about group dynamics for a second because I think there's an important lesson here that can apply whether you're coaching a high school team or you're in a work environment. You had Nico, then Lex and Leo. And as I think about this dynamic, how do you ensure that Lex and Leo were building their own legacy rather than just trying to live in the shadow of Nico?

• 30:14Speaker 01

  Lex and Leo are really good about that. The ironic thing is Lex and Leo ran faster than Nico did in high school. Not in the one 3K indoors because in every other event, but they technically ran faster. I think they're a very close family and I think they looked at their brother as, okay, he's a role model. He's the, that's where we want to be. Or we want to do what Nico did. And they ended up running, like I said, they ended up running faster. Nico's has progressed in college insane. And I think he went to the right program for him. He went to Northern Arizona University and one of the best coaches in the country, who's actually no longer there, but he was, it was the perfect fit for him. It was the perfect storm. And that's why I think he ran so well beyond. And Lex and Leo are in their junior year at Stanford right now, running well. They're both the top sophomores in

• 30:59Speaker 01

  the country last year in the NCAA. They're running extremely well. I don't know. I think that like, the crazy thing about Newberry Park, like even not Lex and Leo, our top seven, we'll have a guy that runs, I don't know, 418, 416 in the mile. That wasn't fast enough to be varsity for us. Like you just weren't, and that's hard because any other team in the country, you were a part of the varsity team. But like, I think just wanting to be a part of something at Newberry Park, even the JV, it's like, I just think it created that image. And Lex and Leo were the same. They were like, I don't know, maybe they didn't have some of the accolades Nico had. They ran faster though. And I think they just set that far high. We had another athlete, Colin Solomon, who was a national record holder. And he was running with Lex and Leo every day. And his brother was, Aaron was

• 31:44Speaker 01

  national champ. And it was like, we had insane, like, it just was snowballing. And then I had some girls break national records. And it was just like, it just kept snowballing because everyone looked at like Nico and they're like, that's where I want to be. And I don't think there was ever any like hesitation or, oh no, I can't live up to what he's done. It was like, well, I'm going to do everything I can to get there. I always say, I hate goals. I want to run this time. I always want the work you're going to put in. We would go to camp, we'd have goal setting. And the year that they all set, none of them gave me an overall goal of this time, this national championship. I think they might have said national championship in 2019 when we won the first time, but they all gave me a list of what they were going to do to get there. And I was like, that's it. They

• 32:29Speaker 01

  finally get it. They want to put in, they want to be a practice every, we had double practices, three days a week. We had to be at school at 5:45 a.m. And then we had school practice again at 2:30. They were like, we'll never miss a practice. We're going to get eight hours of sleep. We're going to make sure our iron levels are high. I was like, okay, you guys get it. Now you, now the results will take care of themselves. And that's where I think Lex and Leo were with their brother. They just looked at him as, hey, he set the goal. Now let's go after it and let's do the work to get there.

• 33:01John R. Miles?

  So for some of the listeners, they might not be familiar with cross country and how it's scored. But it's really critical to understand the role of the fifth runner. When we won our state championship and when I was a sophomore in high school, we began to realize how important that fifth person was. We had four of us who ended up going to division one schools to run, but there was a lag between our fourth best runner and the fifth. How do you make the runner who finishes, probably wasn't this low in

• 33:40John R. Miles?

  your case, but maybe 40th or 50th in the state meet, feel that their contribution daily is the structural integrity of the entire program?

• 33:51Speaker 01

  Now, it's interesting. Our fifth guy, we almost perfect scored. We scored 16 points at our California state meet. So it was like the love, you know. And the national meet, we were very high too. At the national meet, we went 1, 2, 3, 6. My fourth guy was sixth place the national meet. And then there was a guy in the 30s or something after that at the national championship, or maybe in the 40s. But that guy at the national level, or even my JV guy that's not contributing, or my seventh guy, it's like, you're still displacing other people. And that's what I mean about the culture. Our thing was like, listen, like Lex and Leo are busting their butts up there to go 1, 2 with Colin and Aaron and the top guys, where Daniel's goal is to be in the top five, six of the whole race,

• 34:32Speaker 01

  maybe. And then my sixth guy was like, let's get in the top 15. It's like, they all knew that everyone was killing themselves out there. My thing was like, you know, I was like, I had a guy, Dave, Dev, some people call it a D E V. I was like, Dave Doshi. I'm like, Dave, when you're out there and you're like, trying to get like, top 50 at nationals, like, you know that Lex and Leo are dying just as bad as you are. So everybody, like every person counts. So I don't know. We had a real good dynamic that way, that everyone knew their role and they, they just wanted to be a part of it. And then, like I said, we had JV kids that couldn't race varsity, that they gave everything they had to be the top in JV and place in the top five in a JV race or whatever, or the junior

• 35:13Speaker 01

  varsity and then whatever other races we had. So I don't know. I think we just, the culture was really, we shifted it to obviously everyone has their role and it's just doing the best you can do in that role.

• 35:25John R. Miles?

  I want to talk a little bit, Sean, about nervousness and using it as fuel. So my freshman and sophomore years in high school, there were some meets where I was so nervous, I was puking my guts out before I hit the starting line. And Nico mentioned being abnormally nervous before his big records. When you're coaching athletes, do you view anxiety as something to be calmed? Or do you think it's a signal that the athlete finally understands the magnitude of their own potential?

• 35:57Speaker 01

  Nervousness is interesting. We worked, here's another little thing I did. I, we used a sports psychologist, a friend of mine that was a like runner up at the NCA's a long time ago, works with some of the best athletes in the world. So we would have sessions with him. There's a warm up routine of mentally, I think, that we really got good at. But there was always a lot, sometimes, yeah, I could sense, the great thing about Nico is once the gun went off, that guy was like, he's so calm and he's so, I don't say monotone, but just not a super loud, crazy person. But then he is an insane warrior when he races. And he will just, it's insane the way he is, his competitiveness, which I've never seen from any athlete ever. But I think, I always was like, listen, I don't know, we never

• 36:40Speaker 01

  really had a problem too much with it. I think some people get a little bit of anxiety, but I'm just not a believer in fighting it. It's like, everyone's going to get it. There's little things we do. I, this is stuff that I've heard years back and recently just heard an interview of a sports psychologist almost say the same thing. It's like, you got to focus on one thing. Sometimes you could like, warm up and there could be like, a fence on the side of the road. And you just, all I want them to think about is that fence and like, all the different colors that fence can be. Because then what it does is it just focuses on something totally different than your race and what you're supposed to do. And even the color of the track, that's been something. It's like the track is gray or blue or orange is all different colors for tracks. It's like, just think about the color

• 37:22Speaker 01

  of that track. Because then it stops you from doing all the BS and the stuff. We do a lot of little things like that. I think we hype up certain workouts to be similar to races on purpose at the high school level, not at the pro level. But I think it gets them used to it. And it's like, we always had pretty good performances. We didn't have too many people really die from anxiety or anything like, I mean, die in the race or not perform well because of that. And I think we just, again, it's the atmosphere. Because at the end of the day, I remember talking to the girls once when they were like ranked top 10 in the country and they won their first day title. I was like, girls, listen to me. At the end of the day, your parents, your family loves you, you have friends,

• 38:02Speaker 01

  like so cliche. It's just a race. Just relax. I know it's easier said than done. But at the end of the day, we make these things bigger than they really are. And I think if you can wrap your head around that, we've always been good about conveying that message when I was there. And man, we never had too much of a problem, I think. And we just had people really going for it.

• 38:21John R. Miles?

  I think a good recent example of this is in the Winter Olympics, Quad God didn't perform as well as expected when he did the team competition. And I heard him talk after he did his solo program for the individual. And he said that he let the atmosphere and the magnitude of the Olympics get to him during those performances. So this nervousness happens to all elite athletes. And I think there's a lot to be learned here.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think when you get to that national level too, it's like, we talked about it all the time. In cross country, and like you would know, being a cross country runner, like at any level, like, we're used to dominating the race. So like, being in the front at the local level. And for us, it was like a national level. But our first national championship, we had guys back in the 70s, like almost scoring for us, like in the national championship. So I'm like, listen, like, you got to be used to all these bodies around you. And we just kept embedding that in their head. If you keep creating that environment and getting, so they know what to expect. I'm not a big believer in you think you're going to feel great in the race. The truth is, you're going to feel terrible at a mile, 2K into the race. But you got to be like, this is normal. Because if you don't think it's normal and you convince yourself you're not going to feel bad, then you're going to feel bad and you're going

• 39:36Speaker 01

  to just be like, oh my gosh, what's going on? Everyone's different. So you have to feel that out. But that's something we've always talked about.

• 39:43John R. Miles?

  Yeah, I wanted to, speaking of Olympics, ask you about the Summer Olympics. Was it surprising to you that Cole Hocker ended up winning that mile?

• 39:55Speaker 01

  Actually, it's a funny story with that. I was at the Olympics, ended up in the press box during that race, because I don't know how, but it's a long story how I ended up in the press box with all the media, because I was in a seat that was terrible, and I was at the Olympics watching it. So I saw an open area. I'm like, I'm going over there. And I just walked by security by accident, and then I ended up seeing people in the press. I ended up watching it from the press box, which is crazy, the Olympics. But I was sitting there, and this guy from Norway was next to me in media, and he was like, asking me, he's like, who do you think is gonna win? I was like, honestly, I think Cole Hocker is gonna win, because Inglebritson and Josh Kerr, they're so caught up in each other. I think someone weird is gonna win, and they're gonna come out. And I was probably

• 40:39Speaker 01

  lucky with that guess, because it was like, no money on it or anything. But at the end of the day, I just think that Hocker's got a lethal kick, and he's been so dominant. It's like, the 1500 is the one race where I think you can't fake it. It's just, I don't know, where I think sometimes you could sneak in there. It's the opposite. It's like a 10K is hard to fake if it's if they start running early on fast. But 1500, they're all the people that make the finals, I say half of them have a shot to win. Because if it goes out slow, it's positioning, getting yourself in the right place. And I don't know. Now, he proved he's one of the best ever. He won the 5K last year at the World Championships. He's breaking records, and he's running amazing indoors. He's running a mile this weekend in North Carolina. I'll be down there. So we'll

• 41:24Speaker 01

  see how he does. But he, yeah, he's just, I don't know. I actually predicted it, but it was kind of half kidding, and it ended up being true. So it was crazy.

• 41:33John R. Miles?

  I just remember watching it, and for much of the race, if people don't remember, he never lost contact, but he wasn't really anywhere near the front of the pack either. And sometimes, for me, mentally, when I'm that far back, given how fast these guys can kick, it would be nerve wracking. But it's like, he just timed it perfectly.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  He did. One of the greatest milers in history, Steve Scott, ran 136 sub four-minute miles. He had the American record for 25 years. I worked with him a little bit in San Diego. He was coaching me, and this whole thing in San Marcos, California. And I remember he was giving me race advice once, and we were talking about the mile, 1500, the metric mile, I guess you can call it. He told me, he goes, Sean, in the 15 and the mile, the races won in the last 150 meters. And it's probably true. He said, usually, the guy who leads the first lap isn't winning that race. There is exceptions to every rule. But like, he's right. And like, it's who has that third gear? Like, who? Because they're all flying at that point. If I actually looked at the championships, and

• 42:36Speaker 01

  for all the running people out there, every major championship has gone out in 158 to 201. It's not that fast for pros through the first 800. But they all close in like, a 151 800 now. And it's so, it's who, it's who can close. And if you could, if you have that third gear down the last 100 meters, it's like, you're gonna win a championship mile. And that's kind of what happened with Hocker. He has that gear. And sometimes, you can't teach that. That's just an amazing thing to have, an amazing ability. You can't teach it. But sometimes, like in him, he's just amazing at it.

• 43:08John R. Miles?

  So I want to talk about the pandemic for a few moments. So during COVID, I live in a state here, Florida, where it was pretty much business as usual. Not a lot was shut down, thank goodness for us. But you lived in a state that was the exact opposite.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:25John R. Miles?

  Rumor has it that you went to Home Depot, and you bought some tools to allow your kids to practice on some non-sanctioned tracks during COVID.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  During COVID, we had to practice as a club, and the school was kind of letting it like, hey, because we were still able to meet in really small groups at one point. When that started opening up again, which was pretty soon, it wasn't too much. Nico and Jace, my two top runners at the time, two All-Americans, I had really good runners. Jace went on in Colorado, Nico NAU, and I was able to, they basically gave up their eligibility. Once they told the high school, we're not running for you anymore, we're not a part of the, I was allowed to meet with them, because it was technically my own club or camp. So I was able to find some ways around the rule where I had a camp that I did every summer. And then if I started holding meetings or practices

• 44:18Speaker 01

  through my camp, the county that I lived in, Ventura, they basically deemed camps essential. So we never were not allowed to meet as a camp. They were considered essential. So we would meet in groups of 10 and different things. But facilities were hard. They were all locked down. There was one school that was pretty close to us, that wasn't Newbury Park, obviously, that people just went on the track, and nobody cared. And no one said anything. And tons of people came by, there were people playing soccer. There were people in the pool, which was crazy, because I wouldn't jump in the pool when you're not supposed to. People using the baseball fields. I think people just needed to do stuff. And for whatever reason, this school district just turned the other way. So instead of making it difficult and causing problems of jumping a fence, I was

• 45:01Speaker 01

  like, I don't want to, what do I do? So some people agreed, some people didn't. I took a lock cutter. I didn't cut the lock. I cut chain link off the lock, and I replaced it with a carabiner, like, one of those little screw-on things that looked like a link. So I would just unscrew it every time we went and open up the gate. And we would just like, so our issue was like, because I just didn't want kids getting hurt. And so we had a place to practice. And we didn't meet with big groups, only a very few at a time. And no one cared in the area. So we just did it. And it was awesome. I just, there was a lot of great things that came from COVID. Ironically, I think as far as training, it taught my athletes, putting in great training blocks, and not have to race all the time, and really focusing on working hard, and that that aspect. And you do,

• 45:46Speaker 01

  they were in school online, so they were taking naps, they were resting, they were hydrated. There were so many good things from it. But obviously, there were more bad things that came from COVID. But that whole era of what happened. So yeah, I just made sure it was like, hey, I'm gonna do whatever I can. If this has nothing to do with the school, I'm gonna do it. And then, yeah, I just made sure I did it. So it was pretty cool.

• 46:07John R. Miles?

  One of the things I've found in my own career, and talking to a lot of successful people, they have found as well, is that success often breeds resentment. And many critics were trying to credit a shoe for your team's success. And as a student of the sport, how do you respond to the idea that technology, rather than the uncompromising methods that you developed, were the primary driver?

• 46:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, technology has changed a lot. In Nico's day, with all his national records, there would no, there was no super shoe or plated, I don't know, whatever they call it, the, I don't know. There was, that technology wasn't there yet. So he definitely broke some national records without it. And we did some great things. Shoe technology doesn't really affect cross country on the grass. It's not really gonna do anything, or not much of it, unless you're in hard-packed dirt. A lot of California courses are like that. But all of our records are not California courses. They were all out of state national championships. So I just look at it like that. It's fair game. Everybody's wearing the same stuff. A lot of people also said, oh, it's only from two families. I'm like, two families? I was like, I have guys that are running national level times that aren't part of those families. I have girls breaking

• 47:16Speaker 01

  national records. They're always, the critics are always gonna find something that it's Phil Knight in the book Shoe Dog, they talk about, once you get success, you're gonna be a huge target. People would do whatever they could. And like, when I was out practicing with my guys during COVID, people taking pictures of us, sending it to the school district. And it was just crazy. At one point, I thought that somebody was tracking my car. I looked under my car for a tracking device. I'm like, why, how do they know where I'm going? There was one time that I went, I went for a run with my wife, and they took a picture. And they were like, I was like, she's in her 30s. I was like, she's not, that's not a high school girl. Like, they were saying I was practicing with the high school girls. You guys are crazy. It's not normal to be the best

• 47:57Speaker 01

  at something, or to dominate, and people don't like it. And what I found is, the other coaches that are very successful, they're the ones that are good. They're the ones that aren't jealous, because they know what it takes to be good. The ones that are, the ones that always talk and say the negative things, it's like, they're the ones that are never gonna be at the top. And they're the ones that just, unfortunately for them, it's, I don't, for whatever reason, that makes people feel better to say those things. And I don't know, we've always just brushed those things off. It's if they're talking about you, I guess it's a good thing, good or bad.

• 48:26John R. Miles?

  Sean, I want to bring this full circle. So it's Huntsville, Alabama. You're in an Airbnb. It's the night before the national championship.

• 48:36John R. Miles?

  At that moment, do you feel the weight of the promise you made back to those parents? Or did it feel like the result was already a certainty?

• 48:43Speaker 01

  In Huntsville, I feel like it was pretty certain. We knew we were going to win a national championship. It was just by how much, unless something catastrophic happened. But the pressure was, I wanted to go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 at the national championship. And for people that don't know cross country, there's seven guys in a race. You're racing the best people in the country and I want my five guys to be in front of the rest of the country. That was a very hard task. We ended up going, we went 1, 2, 3, 6. So we came pretty close. And then, like I said, I forgot what our final score was, 20 something points. We just dominated. We won. We could have run, if you were to score, you only run seven guys. But if you would have scored my 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, we would have won by a bunch of points too.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  So it wouldn't have even been close no matter what. But I think the pressure there was, I wanted four guys to break an individual national record. And I knew that they had to do it on their own. And I think we just put ourselves, we put the pressure on that way. So it was like, you know, you could be very excited about winning a national title, but not happy with the results at the same time. So, but we were happy with those results. I think everybody ran pretty well and we lived up to the hype. And I think with COVID and not racing a national championship the year before in 2020, we ran like a Sudu one, but not an official one that they had in Indiana. But really wanted to prove and they wanted to prove, hey, you can do this and screw COVID and we're the best ever.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  And that was what, and people have said that was like one of the best high school sports teams in history. It was unbelievable, the amount of records and domination that they had that year.

• 50:18John R. Miles?

  Yeah, it is truly, to just think about that caliber of a meet. Cause I ran Kenny's and I ran the Manhattan Mile. Just to think of the caliber of people that you're running against and to finish 1, 2, 3, 6. That's, it's an incredible feat. So I believe people flourish, or what I like to call, become passion struck when they feel their actions are materially consequential. Do you think a runner runs faster because they want to win? Or because they feel they're an irreplaceable part of a mission?

• 50:52Speaker 01

  Maybe both. I think everyone has their own individual reasons of why they're going to run or flourish or do well. I think there's some people that are super competitive and they hate losing and that's an attribute. And it's sometimes it can hinder you too. But I just think there's all different reasons of why. And it's as a coach, it's like your job to find that individualism. The biggest thing I always say in my coaching and I think in coaching in general is it's all individualized. And people are like, yeah, yeah, I do that. But they don't. Everybody's different and everyone's going to react to different things. Newbury Park was a different program. We were known for doing different programs for individual people that a lot of schools wouldn't do because they don't think it's team oriented. But we really try. Most of our stuff in cross was pretty similar for our top guys.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  But there were some things that were different that I just thought everybody reacted different. I think mentally and physically, that question, I think everyone has a little different, if that makes any sense. I just think everyone, you have to find that reason why that person wants to do it or why they want to do well.

• 51:49John R. Miles?

  Yeah, I'm a big fan of Jim Quick, the author, and he has a book called Limitless. And in your book, you write that the only limits that matter are the ones you set for yourself. For the reader who has gone through this and isn't a runner, or the listener who isn't a runner, how does the Newbury Parkway translate to the boardroom or a classroom?

• 52:11Speaker 01

  I think it's everything. I think there's a fine line. This may sound a little nuts, but I think there's a fine line between being a little bit crazy and being confident in what you want to do. Because I think when you really believe you're going to do something, you're going to do it. And everyone's, well, not everyone can do it. Not everyone can be an astronaut. I'm like, okay, I get what you're saying, but now that you said that, you're definitely not going to do it. It's, I just think, my grandfather used to tell me, he's like, listen, just keep pushing that rock. Eventually it's going to move. And it's like, I just think people need to do that, no matter what it is. I don't care if it's, whatever your passion is, if it's in the arts, if it's business.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Cause there are people that are very passionate about making money in a business. And then there's also in athletics. It's, I just think, I'm really big into manifesting and different things. And not just being like, oh, I'm just going to tell myself I do something. There's an energy that you could really believe, I don't think I know that that's how things happen. There was a line that I said in an interview once and it picked up and it became huge. And I talk about in my book where I said, 420 is not fast for a high school mile. It's just not fast. My point was like, you gotta think beyond that. And it's like, when I have coaches that are like, how dare you say that? Because I have a guy that can't run 420 in the mile. That's what I meant by it. Like a high school boy running 420 and it's, but you're saying it is fast. So, because the thing is, once you don't believe it's fast, and I don't say it, but really believe it,

• 53:38Speaker 01

  you're probably going to run faster than it. There's exceptions to everything, but I don't know. I just think that positive, it, no matter what you do in life, I think that's what it comes down to. Because sometimes the most successful people are the craziest. You're like, man, what in the world? This guy is just off the meter or this woman's a little nuts. But it's like, because they don't stop. They're just like, they just keep going and they believe it. And it's like, you're going to be successful that way. So.

• 54:03John R. Miles?

  You mentioned astronauts, et cetera. I have a lot of friends who happen to be astronauts and I interviewed one of them, Kayla Barron, probably 18 months ago. And Kayla is one of the younger astronauts, part of the Artemis program. But she was the aide to the superintendent of the Naval Academy when she was pondering becoming an astronaut. And she was afraid to turn her paperwork in. And at the time, Vice Admiral Ted Carter, who's now the president of the Ohio State University, she went to him for advice and she said, how in the world do I become an athlete? And he said, Kayla, you have to apply. If you don't apply, nothing else is ever going to happen. And this is a woman who doubted herself, who was the valedictorian of her class at the Naval Academy,

• 54:49John R. Miles?

  was a Rhodes Scholar, had a master's degree in nuclear propulsion technology, was one of the first three females ever to serve on submarines, et cetera. So you look at her pedigree and you think, why would a person like that even have doubts? So I just bring that up because what you said is exactly the right advice.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  Just what I've been around and people I've been around my whole life in success. I think it's, people could read books about this all day long, but if you really start believing it, it does happen.

• 55:20John R. Miles?

  I'm just curious, Sean, when you see your former athletes now on the Olympic stage, do you still see kids who were trying to qualify for states and excel? Or do you see a new breed of athlete that you helped invent?

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Well, maybe both. I, a lot of them I'm still really close with, like Nico. I still talk to Nico all the time. I talked to Lex and Leo. And a lot of my other athletes, Colin, Erin, and yeah, a bunch of them, like Daniel, like all these different athletes. And Samantha, a girl who was a really good runner that I ran, she's up at Oregon now. But I've always been about development. I love when my athletes continue to do the athletic end of it and go run in college and stuff. And like, I just, yeah, I think a little thing of both. I think it's awesome. Like when I see Nico, it is funny to think about when I met him as a freshman. He's like 6'1", 6'2" now. He was, he's tall actually for a distance runner. He was 5'1" when I met him his freshman year. And like his uniform didn't even fit. It would fall off his shoulder.

• 56:16Speaker 01

  And now he's this US record, he's one of the fastest all time ever in the 5,000. He ran a 12:45 5,000. He's an American record holder. He's one of the best in the world. He was fifth at the world championships. He almost got a medal. He's going to medal one day. I believe it. He's going to win a medal at world championships and Olympic games. I really believe it. And it's like, that's, it's pretty cool to see. But then there's other guys too. I have a girl who I coached who was like, she could barely break 30 minutes for three miles. And she went on to run for a college club team, stayed in contact with me. And she's running now 5Ks for fun and she has a great corporate job. So that's cool too, because there's an end of it that she's not, she couldn't even make a division three college team,

• 57:00Speaker 01

  but she's still running and it's still part of her life. And that's cool to see them grow into that too. And I, she was just this girl who just wanted to be on the team and not be cut. So it's cool.

• 57:12John R. Miles?

  And if you could go back to that day in 2016 and give that renegade coach one piece of advice, specifically about the human heart, what would it be?

• 57:23Speaker 01

  And if I can give one advice, I don't to myself, you mean?

• 57:25John R. Miles?

  To yourself.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  I don't know. I guess I'm hard on myself sometimes. Sometimes I think I would have, I don't know. May- maybe just, I don't know. There's so many things I just, I try not to look back too much. And it's like, I really don't. And it's, I don't know. May- yeah, I don't know. That's a hard one. I don't even know if I have an answer for that because like sometimes I just like, hey, I did what I did. I don't like to think I would do something differently and I don't have any regrets. It's like you make mistakes sometimes as a coach, as an athlete, as a person. And you just try not to mimic those. And I don't know, I wouldn't trade it. Honestly, I wouldn't trade anything I did. And I think I made the decisions I did and was happy with them and everything. And yeah, I don't think I would, I don't think I would change anything. I really wouldn't.

• 58:06John R. Miles?

  Okay. My last question, what does it mean for you to be passion struck?

• 58:11Speaker 01

  To be passion struck? I think passion is a huge thing. It's like having purpose in a way. I think to be passion struck, you have to have purpose, to wake up every day, to be passionate about something. If you could pick the one thing in life that you're passionate about, make that what you do. I think that's huge because I think that's what's going to get you to wake up every day, to have purpose. Kind of what I'm trying to say, I'm forgetting the quote, but like, I think that's the main thing. It's what can you do to be passionate? Because I think that, I think that correlates with having purpose. And I think when you have passion and purpose, you're unstoppable and like money will come, different things will come. You don't need to think about those exterior things. And I just think that's a huge thing for me.

• 58:53John R. Miles?

  Awesome. Sean, for people who want to learn more about you, what you're doing now, the book, where's the best place for them to go?

• 58:59Speaker 01

  The book Beyond Fast, you can buy it anywhere where books are sold. It's online. If you want to listen to it, it's my voice. You have to hear me for the, for a certain amount of hours. But no, it's a book that was written that I, it was beyond running. Like if we wanted it to not just be about a book about running, I think any type of athlete or motivational person that wants to just see a story and see, starting from the ground up, would want to read this book. You know, me, you can find me online, Brosnan, that's my Instagram handle. I'm always posting stuff, my new ventures in life and everything else I'm doing with coaching. And that's where you could find anything with me.

• 59:35John R. Miles?

  Awesome. Sean, such an honor to have you. Thank you for joining us.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 59:40John R. Miles?

  Thank you for listening to today's conversation. One thing stayed with me long after this conversation ended. Sean built one of the greatest high school running programs in history. He coached Olympians, national champions and athletes who shattered records people once believed were impossible. But the lesson I keep coming back to has nothing to do with running. It's that extraordinary performance almost always begins with an ordinary decision. The decision to believe that today's limitations don't have to become tomorrow's identity. Sean reminded us that confidence isn't something you're born with, it's something you build. One practice, one choice, one repeated act of discipline at a time. And over time, those small acts begin to change what you believe is possible.

• 1:00:24John R. Miles?

  If today's conversation challenged the limits you've been placing on yourself, I hope you'll share this episode with someone who needs that reminder. Those personal recommendations are still the best way these conversations reach new listeners. And if you'd like to continue exploring these ideas, be sure to follow Passion Struck on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Subscribe to the Passion Struck YouTube channels and download this week's companion workbook through the Ignited Life on Substack. On Thursday, we're taking this conversation one level deeper. Because sometimes the greatest obstacle isn't the limits we've accepted. It's the story we've learned to tell ourselves about who we are. I'm joined by executive coach, neuroscientist and bestselling author, Dr. D. Yvonne Young,

• 1:01:06John R. Miles?

  for a conversation about self-compassion, resilience, and why the relationship you have with yourself shapes every relationship you'll ever have with someone else. We'll explore why so many high achievers continue to live in survival mode, how trauma quietly influences the decisions we make, and why leading others always begins by learning how to lead yourself. It's one of the most honest conversations I've had about what it truly means to flourish from the inside out.

• 1:01:33Speaker 02

  These biases and stereotypes only have strength until we question them. And once we decide that we're going to establish our own identity, our own set of core values and our own beliefs, now the filters shift. And as we, if we come to the table with objectivity, thank God for neuroscience, because mirror neurons work. And if I come to you with a smile and I come to you open with compassion and earnest, if you're a sane person, you're not some crazy extremophile, at some point in our interactions, you're going to give back to me what I'm giving to you.

• 1:02:14John R. Miles?

  Until then, remember, the only limits that ultimately matter are the ones you continue to believe. Go out there and live life passion struck.

• 1:02:35Speaker 03

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