Your Past Doesn't Define Your Potential, But Your Choices Do | #648

Our relationship with self-doubt often drives our pursuit of potential, but true growth comes from making conscious choices that challenge our limiting beliefs.

• Childhood experiences created powerful self-limiting beliefs: "I'm not good enough," "I'm weak," "I'm a failure"
• Despite achievements including playing rugby in France, representing Australia, and breaking world records, these negative voices persisted
• Day five of the 58 marathons challenge presented a critical choice between quitting or continuing through excruciating pain
• Making decisions by focusing on consequences rather than comfort provides clarity in difficult moments
• Breaking challenges into small, manageable chunks builds momentum and confidence
• The strategy of run 300m/walk 2km gradually increased to rebuild running capability
• Asking for help isn't weakness - it's essential for achieving extraordinary goals
• "You can go fast by yourself, but you won't go far"
• If you want different results, you must make different choices
• Understanding the consequences of your choices illuminates the path forward

I'm launching a coaching academy for men to help them rebuild from the inside out, along with continuing keynote speaking about potential, resilience, and goal setting.

Chapters

• 0:00 Confronting Self-Doubt and Past Burdens
• 3:20 Day Five: Pain and Critical Choices
• 9:40 Stacking Small Wins for Momentum
• 13:40 Leadership Mistake: Learning to Ask for Help
• 18:10 Make Different Choices, Unlock Your Potential

Transcript

Lachlan Stuart: 0:00

Listen up. If you have been listening to this podcast for so long and you still don't feel like you're reaching your potential, this episode is going to be a ripper for you. Over the last few weeks, I have been thinking more about my life and why I'm so obsessed with pursuing my potential, and actually what does that even mean? I was thinking about it over the weekend. I was working with one of my coaches and we were working through keynotes, and it got to a deep level because there became this resistance to me being able to show any emotion, and what I mean by that is when I'm telling a story. When I am around friends and family, I am so awesome at disassociating from what I'm experiencing, which has served me well for a long period of time. And as I was questioning myself about this, I started thinking back where did this come from? Why am I someone who is so obsessed with pursuing their potential, yet I can't allow myself to express what is going on in my mind. I cannot allow myself to express what I truly feel. This was huge. The reason why it was so huge for me was because I realized that I have been afraid of coming across as a whinger, because for much of my life I have felt like a burden. I have felt like a burden. I have felt like I could be weak. I have felt like a failure and most I guess the loudest one to me is, I haven't felt good enough. These came from when I was younger. There's so many memories and experiences that have validated that, and while there are so many amazing ones that have proved the complete opposite, for some reason they were the loudest. They were the ones that I listened to. They were the ones that I gave power to. When my parents would tell me I'm amazing, when my parents would tell me they love me, when my parents would tell me that I'm doing well, I would still find moments where I didn't finish a race. I had an asthma attack and I would just remember watching run passes. I sat on the side with the medics and I just remember thinking you're a failure, you're weak, how could you not push through that? And you're just not good enough. There were other moments throughout my teenage years where I wouldn't make the team.

Lachlan Stuart: 2:18

I started rugby in the 13th season. I didn't make an A team, the top team, until I was in my 15s. When I say 15s, I was in year 10. Up until that point, you're not good enough, you're weak and you're a failure. And that followed me all through other representative teams when I wouldn't make the team. You're weak, you're a failure and you're not good enough. And that just continued to follow me. And up until last weekend, I hadn't wanted to admit that to myself because I didn't want to whinge, I didn't want to be a burden to anyone and I have always thought if that's the position you're in, you just got to get on with it.

Lachlan Stuart: 3:00

And I think there's some merit in that. I do believe that it's helped me get to where I am today, but it has made me so hungry to chase my potential. Are you listening to this today Because you want to chase yours? You want to know what it really takes, because that is what I want to give you today. I have done some pretty awesome things. I was reviewing things that I've achieved over the last decade. I played rugby in France, I represented Australia in obstacle course racing, I broke a Guinness World Record for 30 marathons in 30 days on the rower and, most recently, the 58 marathons and they're just sporting achievements, not to mention marriage, having run my own business for nearly a decade, some pretty cool achievements, and I'm sure you've got a whole heap of yours and I would highly encourage you to think about what those look like for you.

Lachlan Stuart: 3:50

But as I was finding myself on day five in West Wendover, nevada, during the 58 marathons, I had plenty of time to think. Right, it is day five when my feet hit the floor. I just remember the instant pain just shooting up my legs, from the balls of my feet all the way up to my hips. I remember feeling it on both legs and thinking to myself this is not good. I have to go outside again today to run my fifth consecutive marathon and I still have another 53 to go after this one, and the pain is unlike anything I've ever felt.

Lachlan Stuart: 4:29

I looked down at my ankles. My ankles were the size of baseballs. The swelling was ridiculous. My left toe had gone completely black. I had pierced it the day before and I'm thinking how on earth am I going to do this? I toddled over to the when I say toddled, for those who don't know what that means. I walked over to the toilet block. We were staying in a caravan park. I thought to myself how much hot water can I soak my feet in before they're going to start feeling good, the pain's going to move.

Lachlan Stuart: 4:57

20 minutes later, the pain's still there. So I start walking back to the van. As I'm looking around, I'm seeing there's a bit of incline, but not too much else, and I just really thought to myself I can't run today. I'm in so much pain and it is freezing cold. As I got in the van I said to Liam it is minus 12, dude, it's so fucking cold. Man, it's going to be a tough one, but I cannot run. I can't run today. So I'm going to head over to the baseball field. There's a baseball field just across the road. I'm going to start there, and so I put on two layers of shirts, two long sleeve shirts. I put on a beanie, put on a long Legionnaires hat, two thermal pants and tracksuit pants and then a jacket, and I headed over to this field and I was still cold. I started walking laps this field and the pain was excruciating and I had just made this goal, or this, I guess this rule to myself, that I wasn't going to take painkillers. And so, as I started walking along, I'm looking down at my watch and at one point my watch was saying 14 minutes per kilometers and at one point my watch was saying 14 minutes per kilometers. That's nearly 10 hours walking laps around this baseball field, 250 meters a lap Mind-numbing, absolutely mind-numbing.

Lachlan Stuart: 6:14

I started beating myself up on those thoughts that I mentioned earlier and it came back. You're not good enough, you're weak and you're a failure. Who are you to think you could try and raise $100,000 for mental health? Who are you to think you could do something that no one in history has ever done before? You're not good enough. Give up, quit. You're pathetic. And my mind just continued to battle on that.

Lachlan Stuart: 6:41

But I kept putting one foot in front of the other, trying to work out how I was going to navigate this, and at one point I had this just wave come over me, and the wave was insane because it made me remember and it reminded me that I chose to do this. No one was forcing me outside to chase these goals. No one was forcing me to try and raise the funds and be the first person in history to run 58 marathons in 58 days across 58 states. No one was forcing that. I chose that and in that moment I reminded myself that I have choices and I want you to think about the choices in your life. Because choice number one for me was I quit. I get to get back in the van where it's nice and warm. I probably get a pizza pocket yummy and I get to put my feet up how good.

Lachlan Stuart: 7:29

But I thought about the consequence of doing that. The consequence of doing that means there was no way in hell I am going to raise $100,000 for the Mental Awareness Foundation. There is no way in hell I'm going to raise $100,000 for the Mental Awareness Foundation. There is no way in hell I'm going to finish it. And therefore I didn't do what I said I was going to do. So when I put my head on the pillow that night, I'm going to know that I quit. I'm going to know that I didn't give it my best shot. So I didn't like that consequence. So I looked at the other choice and the other choice still sucked, like it really did.

Lachlan Stuart: 8:02

But choice number two was I continue pushing on. Every step is excruciating pain, but I continue putting one foot in front of the other and just tip away at the marathon. It's going to continue to freeze. I don't know whether I'm going to get stress fractures. I don't know what the outcome is, and I hated that. However, the consequence, or the ripple effect of that, meant that I could have the opportunity to raise $100,000 for mental health. I could have the opportunity to become the first person in history to do the 58 to 58.

Lachlan Stuart: 8:37

And, most importantly, that choice. If I were to make that, when I put my head on the pillow at night, I could be proud of who I was. I did what I said I would do and I pushed myself beyond what I thought I was capable of. And, man, when I thought about that, I was like that is the choice that I want. And so, when I thought about choices, I want you to think about the choices that you have in your life. We all have choices and they're not always easy. But the way that I went through to start thinking about it is I knew I needed to make a decision. The longer I left, it meant my mind was going to continue racing and, I guess, becoming overwhelming, and that's not fun, that's fucking chaos. I didn't want any more of that. So the moment that I knew I was committing to it, I just took quitting off the table. But the way that I was able to process and make a decision faster was thinking about the consequences. So where in your life is that showing up for you right now? Because it does for all of us and that one. I guess.

Lachlan Stuart: 9:42

The consequence of that and that decision and that choice led me to be able to finish that marathon on that day, which led me to the following day where one of my best mates rocked up. He rocked up from France. I was still run, walking, I was in a lot of pain still, but I'd started taking painkillers, etienne said to me that morning. He said Lockie I don't want to butcher the French accent, so I'm not going to butcher it but he said Lockie, how far do you think you can run today? I thought about that for a moment, measured the pain I was like well, these painkillers are quite nice, but still in a world of hurt. I could probably run 300 meters today. And he said perfect, because today our strategy is going to be run 300 meters and we're going to walk two kilometers. And I thought, far out, why didn't I think of that? I was either like I'm running the whole way or I'm walking the whole way. There was never any strategy or there was no way to stack small wins.

Lachlan Stuart: 10:39

And we did that that day and the momentum and the small amounts of confidence I was building. I remember when we started the first one we were just shuffling along and we were able to look around and guess, get used to the pain again, but just talk and it took my mind off it. But as soon as we got to the 300 meters I knew that there was some relief. We were going to walk for a bit, we're going to have a talk, and it was moving faster than yesterday. So that was a massive win and we did that for the entire thing. Then the next day we increased it. We went from 300-meter run to 400-meter run to 1,900-meter walk. The next day we went 500-meter run, 1,800-meter walk and we just increased until I felt comfortable running larger chunks again. And that was the power stacking small wins.

Lachlan Stuart: 11:25

And if you want to think about how you can do that, it's really looking about a couple of things Setting yourself some milestones, but chunking the efforts together, so the small wins. So where in your life could you chunk some small wins? If it's in your career, one thing you could do is chunk time, meaning you might get your sales calls all done at once rather than sporadically throughout the time. You might get emails done or chunks of work to tick those off, because then you might have a bit of free time at the end. There's a real cool.

Lachlan Stuart: 11:54

I'm not going to say the Pareto principle, it is the Puro Damo. Sorry I'm butchering the word, but there's a timer where it's essentially 20 minutes on 5 minutes rest or 45 minutes on 5 minutes rest, but it does that same thing where you stack small wins. You have chunks of effort and chunks of reward or downtime or recovery, and that worked really well because it helped me build momentum. It helped me get back in the swing of things for that day and I cannot begin to tell you to go from the day before where I thought we're screwed I really we are screwed to the next day where I'm chipping away and putting some runs on the board and I'm thinking, wow, if I can get back to running in the next couple of weeks, this is where we're back on. It's not going to fall apart here, and that was very big for confidence building. And so that continued on for a number of days and we were definitely building momentum. But the challenge with building momentum without taking rest momentum. But the challenge with building momentum without taking rest. You got to remember.

Lachlan Stuart: 12:54

I was running after marathon, with plenty of travel in between, being in the cold, and I was battered, my mind was fatigued, my body was extremely fatigued and I was starting to forget things. I think it was around day 17. We were in a place that was super icy, even the grass. There's footage of me slipping over on the grass because it was so icy and all the driveways were black ice and I was getting pissed off. And so, as I'm looking around like I don't know where I'm gonna run, so I just started once again walking, continued to walk until I found this swamp looking thing and for some reason you would assume that it would be icy or buggery as well, but it was not.

Lachlan Stuart: 13:35

So I found this little trail and it was roughly eight kilometers away from where our hotel was and where the team was. But I started running around there and I was doing laps and after a while I got into a rhythm and I said to the lads hey, can you come down, and I just want to refuel my water bottles, get a quick pizza pocket, because they were just the game changers to heat me up. And they came down and did that. But as I got in the van to heat up, I was like, oh, this is so good, took my gloves off, put my water bottles down and I, up until this point, had been the one fueling or refueling the drink bottles and getting my bars and my gels and all that sort of stuff. But in this moment, because I was warming up and I was just so in the moment that I got out to get outside, I just continued going. I forgot my gloves, I didn't take my waters or my gels, and I was just back on the road and the lads headed back home.

Lachlan Stuart: 14:26

I got maybe another 6k in and I was like feeling like I was going to pass out. My head was super spacey, I was trying, my eyes were freezing, my hands were freezing, I was thirsty, I was just felt. When you feel like you have no energy, I was there. I remember just getting frustrated. I was like how did I forget all of this? How could the team allow me to take off without all of this? And I started getting really frustrated. But I also was feeling like this could be a really severe error. I felt for the first time in a long time that I might have made an error that could cost me my life. Everything was going wrong and my head was making things 10 times worse. The guys were roughly 8 kilometers away. Back at the hotel, I was thirsty.

Lachlan Stuart: 15:18

I didn't know what to do because I was pissed off at them, but I was also annoyed at myself. I ended up picking up the phone calling their TN and be like man, can you come down and bring water? I've got nothing. How did this happen? And when he came, he's like we'll be there in about whatever 10 minutes. So I started making my way back to where they were going to meet me and I had enough time to think.

Lachlan Stuart: 15:38

As I said, I was pissed off in the beginning, but I was reminded that these guys had left their families, left their work to support me. They had given up their time to support me and support this crazy idea. The thing that I wasn't doing well was I wasn't allowing them to help. I was making shit super difficult for them. I was supposed to be the leader, but I was also the one burying myself every day and I wasn't allowing them to help me.

Lachlan Stuart: 16:03

I was like I need to do that and the reason why, even though we were all out here to pursue our potential. I was definitely chasing mine when I thought about asking them for help. What do you think came up? I thought about myself again. I was like you'll be a failure if you ask for help. You'll be weak if you ask for help and you won't be good enough if you ask for help. But what I realized? I'm going to be battling that for the rest of my life. But I am going to continue and I'm committed to pursuing my potential, which means I need to do things well. And sometimes, when you go in for these massive things like 58 marathons, you can go fast by yourself, and I had been up until that point. But we wouldn't go far if I didn't allow the team to help me.

Lachlan Stuart: 16:50

And so we had a meeting that night. I sat down with the guys and said look, the only thing I can do that no one else can do is run, so I just need to focus on doing that as well as I can. Can you guys please help me with everything else? And as I was saying this, I was nervous that they were going to be like dude, no, we're already doing enough. But there was not one bit of hesitation from the team. They were more than happy to help. They were probably actually fucking relieved that now this idiot who was trying to do everything himself and making things harder than it needed to be had finally gone. You boys take over, and that was a huge lesson there. So I think it's really important to set the expectation. I set the expectation with the team hey, can you guys? Firstly, could you help? Yes, they're keen to help. Well, the expectation is this this is what I'm focused on. Everything else, if you guys can do this. This is what it looks like. And once I got the buy-in, I just knew every day that those things were going to be taken care of, and that, for me, was the biggest sigh of relief.

Lachlan Stuart: 17:53

And I do believe that if you want to chase your potential, if you want to do greater than you've ever done, you have to make a choice. And, as I said at the beginning of this, your life hasn't changed since you've been listening to this. It's probably time to do something different, which means you've got to take or make a different choice. You've got to make a different decision. You've got to understand the consequences of what happens if you keep doing what you're currently doing. What will your life look like and then think about, if I make a different choice, one of those other choices that are available to me right now, what could my life look like?

Lachlan Stuart: 18:30

Because I'm only just getting started. I am so fucking fired up. I've got so much happening and I want to continue inspiring you, and we are doing that through coaching, and I'm going to be launching a coaching academy for men. Again, we're going to help them rebuild from the inside out, and I'm so fucking pumped for that. Along with keynote speaking, I've got so many gigs booked and I'm super grateful every time I get to get on the stage to talk about potential, to talk about resilience, to talk about goal setting, to name a few. But we're just getting started. What are you getting started with?