Episode 3: Write Your Own Scorecard
Evren Gunduz on Choice, Accountability, and Finding Joy in the Process
About This Episode
Today in the lab we’ve got Evren Gunduz (@evrenenjoylife). Evren is an award winning educator, coach, and entrepreneur whose mission is to empower teens to succeed in life. He is the Co-Founder & CEO of Enjoy Life Education Inc. through which he helps young athletes to strengthen their mindset, become empowering leaders, and develop a high achieving team culture. Evren received a Master of Education from Harvard University concentrating in developmental psychology and leadership studies.
Evren is also an ultramarathoner and TB12 Peak Performer Athlete. He has completed multiple ultra distance events including a 100 miler - and here’s what you’re going to notice in our conversation - he uses each of these endurance adventures as a laboratory to test and create the leadership and mindset systems that he teaches to his clients.
In this episode we dive deep into the power of owning your own experience, why stopping to smell the flowers is worth blowing up your tempo run for, and how shifting into a process focused perspective can make all the difference.
Links and Resources
Full Catastrophe Living - Jon Kabat-Zinn
Episode Transcript
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
run, coach, gratitude, life, scorecard, evolution, training, habits, mindset
Evren Gunduz 00:00
I start with "now, I am" that's my default. What I need to get my head focused back on the present moment. I go, "now I am". I identify all the things I'm doing, looking at feeling right now. And then it leads to the I get to Wow, I get to I get to have this experience. That's that's super cool.
Pete Kadushin 00:32
Welcome to the mental training lab. I'm Pete Kadushin, your host and my job is to have fun conversations that leave you with actionable tools, little experiments that will help you improve your mindset and mental skills so that you can do the things you love at a higher level. Today in the lab, we've got evren goondas. Everyone is an award winning educator, coach and entrepreneur whose mission is to empower teens to succeed in life. He's the co founder and CEO of enjoyed life education, through which he helps young athletes to strengthen their mindset, become empowering leaders and develop a high achieving team culture. Everyone received a master's in education from Harvard University concentrating in developmental psychology, and Leadership Studies. eV is also a ultra marathoner in a TV 12 Peak performer athlete, he's completed multiple ultra distance events, including 100 miler. And here's what you're going to notice in our conversation. He uses each of these endurance adventures as a laboratory to test and create the leadership and mindset systems that he then teaches to his clients. In this episode, we deep dive into the power of owning your own experience, why stopping and smell the flowers actually worth blowing up your tempo run for, and how shifting into a process focused perspective can make all the difference? Okay, enough is enough, though. It's your time. Everyone, thank you so much for being on the show. So excited to have you here. And to really get a chance to just be in conversation with you, man. Thank you. It is such a pleasure to be on your show. Dr. Pete, I want to thank you for giving me this chance. So to kick things off softball coming your way. And I want to point out that you are a man of many talents, right? So in addition to being a coach, an educator, you teach leadership, you're also an ultra runner, and self serving the I want to know more about ultra running, because I love the community, I love the idea of one day, I'm going to be an ultra runner myself. And so to start, if you could only take one lesson from the experience you've had training and then competing, what would that one lesson be?
Evren Gunduz 02:39
I would say that the one lesson that I've taken from training and competing is that the good days that you have will eventually be in the past. And so will the bad days. And that the most important thing is the is that you have an opportunity to get back out there each day and keep going.
Pete Kadushin 03:01
There's no place to get to it's just you show up every day with your running shoes on. Yes, yes. And and I I've had a lot of experience with trying to run towards something or reach a certain destination or a goal.
Evren Gunduz 03:16
And what's most important is that even if you get there, those go into the past immediately, and you got to just run for the next opportunity.
Pete Kadushin 03:28
And I'm thinking from my own experience, and then some of the listeners, I'm sure have had this experience of you know, hearing someone say let's be in the moment, or be where your feet are, and going like nodding my head saying Yeah, that makes tons of sense. And not always being able to actually do it. Particularly when there's a really great day, or a really terrible day, you want to hold on to one you want to run away from the other. And so in practice, how do you sort of have that light of awareness go off for you? And then how do you get yourself back to right now, whatever right now is,
Evren Gunduz 04:02
For me, the tool I use all the time for that is gratitude. And I just have the the statement I get to loaded up at the front of my head and I pull that one out constantly. I think that I truly am very fortunate to be able to be an ultra runner. It takes money to do this. It takes resources, it takes health. It takes working legs and it takes a little bit of youth on my side. Not that I'm terribly young, but I'm not terribly not young either. So I just I think I do have a ton to be grateful for but as you are probably well aware and everyone that's out there listening, even when we are grateful we have a very tough, challenging moments where we just feel inadequate, or we're out there, and we've chosen to do our tempo run right into a headwind, and we have no idea if we're even making strides forward. So there's bad days out there that just get in our own head. And we, I tend to put myself down a lot. And I tend to have bad races that make me never want to lace up the shoes again. And that I just don't feel like I'm worthy enough to do this, or I'm never going to be good enough to do this in either either other people's eyes, which might be a whole other topic of external expectations, but mostly in my own eyes, and where I could get to. And so I use the gratitude a ton, I get to do this. And I'll tell you, I've used it, even on days that I'm, I'm having a great run. And I'll give you an example. I was out running the other day, and I was crushing my times, I was looking at my watch, and I'm like, Wow, I can't believe I'm running at that pace right now. It feels like I'm doing practically nothing. And then I saw a bed of little green, early springtime plant shoots coming out of the ground in someone's garden bed, on the side of the road. And I stopped immediately. And so even in that moment, where I was feeling awesome. And I was I should have just wanted to keep it going. What was more important to me was to feel the gratitude for the warmth of spring coming and the new plants coming out of the ground and that excitement of of the new season. And I stopped to admire the crocus's and and totally ruined all my my actual data on that run. But it was just good to get that little bit of gratitude and feel good about spring.
Pete Kadushin 06:53
Somewhere a long distance runner is cringing because you blew up your pace. Watch just to stop and look at flowers.
Evren Gunduz 07:01
Yes, exactly. Right.
Pete Kadushin 07:04
What's interesting to me is that the younger Evren would not have necessarily done that Boy, you must have known younger Evren! And what's interesting is that this is always a challenge for me is thinking about how mindsets change, particularly around gratitude. When we think about first getting into the experience of offering gratitude, it can feel uncomfortable foreign, like you're faking it, like I'm not really having a great day. But now of these, I've got to go hunt for things that I feel grateful for. And instead, what you're telling me is that it, it's really become a part of your mindset. So spontaneously, in the middle of a run where you're cruising, right, your momentum is moving directly forward, you were able to peel your eyes off of your watch, and then go Oh, my goodness, life is pretty beautiful. And then to hear that voice and then go, you know what it's worth stopping my feet and then just soaking that up. That that's not just, hey, my watch buzz, and it reminded me that I have to do my scheduled gratitude. And it was it's a different shift. Is that is that tracking for you?
Evren Gunduz 08:12
That's very much tracking for me. And you're absolutely right, that younger, everyone would not have done that.
Pete Kadushin 08:21
Evren had places to go? Right, there was a finish line for that workout. Then there's a finish line for the next workout, and so on.
Evren Gunduz 08:30
Yep, all the way leading up to a race with a with an end goal and an aspiration. And there was it was always about finishing for me in those early years.
Pete Kadushin 08:44
I will be curious to come back to this and and see if we can dive into how that has shifted for you. And I'd like to loop back around. And maybe this will actually come out in this question. So I'm always really curious about the arc of experience. And so if we were writing your performance story, what would be a couple of the key chapter titles or if you were thinking about it in sections, what would you title the sections that stand out to you most as you've evolved?
Evren Gunduz 09:12
The chapters of my book on performance? I would say do you want me to bring them to you in order?
Pete Kadushin 09:22
The beauty of this question is it's as open ended and as freeform as you want. So however it makes sense for you to share it, I'm ready for time bending, whatever it whatever is required.
Evren Gunduz 09:34
I'm going to start with the current chapter then because that's the one that's resonating the most with me. The current chapter is "a life of movement is far better than a life of non movement". There is a chapter at some point in my life where it was "If you don't do well everyone's gonna hate you". There was a chapter at some point in my arc of experience of "if you fail out here, you fail everywhere." And I would say those are the big three right now. Although there was definitely a chapter at some point of this, you don't need running to define who you are. That was an interesting chapter in my life. Yeah, I'd say those are the big four.
Pete Kadushin 10:38
So these track over your, your running experience, would you expand those out to include other aspects of performance? And I asked, because, as I was doing a little bit of research for the show, you've won all sorts of awards. Right? You've had a business now for a decade and a half. And before that you were an educator. I mean, you're still an educator, you know what I mean? And so, right, you've had a lot of different performance domains, do you think that those themes run across the all the performance domains or is that central to running.
Evren Gunduz 11:11
They run across all of them, they run across my coaching, I think as a as a coach, in my early years of coaching, I was doing a lot of things in for others, in the eyes of others, trying to perform in my career, through the lens of how other people were perceiving me in my career, which even saying, that blows my mind. Right now. As a teacher, as a coach, I was fortunate to, to get started in my career with with a great school with some great students, I've always had, I've always been very fortunate to have awesome opportunities, and have a lot of people that support me. I also think that in a lot of those early years of performance, both as a, as a coach, in my career as an educator, even in starting this business, so much of my motivation was to make other people happy, and get other people to believe in me, and use that as a central force in then believing in myself. comparing myself to others was always a big piece of my performance. scorecard. How did I do compared to person ABC, coach, A, B, C, another educator, another runner, that was big. And then over time, it became, it just started to change everything change changes with with experience, and I've experienced that both in my job as a runner, where you start to I start to compare myself to myself, and then it's arced all the way to now I'm going to even stop comparing myself to myself. Now I'm just gonna do this because it's meaningful to me, it adds joy to my life.
Pete Kadushin 13:26
That's quite the journey. Man, you're very human, is what I'll start with. right in that these are the thoughts and feelings and perspectives that come up time and time again, with the clients that I work with, with friends and family in between my own ears, and and the tension around. And let's focus on the mental gymnastics first. So you were projecting yourself out of your own mind into somebody else's mind, and then considering how they were seeing you as you were performing, and then trying to anticipate their scorecard on how you did so that you could incorporate their metrics into your scorecard.
Evren Gunduz 14:10
Yes, and when you put it that way, it makes me sound like a crazy person. But I absolutely can't deny that that's how it was.
Pete Kadushin 14:17
This is happening all the time. This is one of the central things that I really start unpacking with a lot of athletes early on, is recognizing where where's the scorecard coming from? Is it your choices in terms of what it looks like and what you're measuring what success is defined as? Is it coaches as parents? Is it teammates, friends, significant others, etc? And none of those are necessarily a wrong choice. Right? It's really a matter of did you choose or did you let somebody or something choose for you? And so the undercurrent that I hear is really that you're now choosing for yourself, which is a very different feeling.
Evren Gunduz 14:58
I would agree with that. And it is a very different feeling.
Pete Kadushin 15:04
So you you spend time performing at a high level. Again, I want to point out stacks of awards. And you're, you're very humble while you're here, and you're still got stacks of awards. And so you've been very successful. And there was this tension of performing for others, or comparing yourself to others. There was the generalization, if I don't do well, today, it's not just that all of my running is screwed, right, or all of my teaching, or all my coaching is screwed, but then you sometimes generalize that out. And then that current kind of clashes with what you just described to us around gratitude, around goalless experience, right that you can go out for a run now without a specific goal. Even though you're still out there with you're going to run this far or this long, that it's not the same sort of tight grasping to a goal that you once had. There's a lot of movement there!
Evren Gunduz 16:03
A lot of movement!
Pete Kadushin 16:05
And I guess you're zooming in on what allowed you to be successful up until this point?What do you think from a mental skills or a mindset standpoint, was that key strength that's allowed you to be successful in a number of different disciplines, whether it be running or otherwise?
Evren Gunduz 16:28
I think habits is a big one for me. I think that I've, I was fortunate to, to grow up under circumstances where I had two incredible parents, incredible coaches, and teachers in my upbringing, I really, I attribute so much of any success I'm I'm able to have today with just growing up with a with an incredible support system of family members, friends, coaches, parents, especially teachers, who instilled in me early on that there are certain there are certain ways to do things. And there are certain ways to not do things, there's, there's a right way, there's a wrong way. And it's and there's habits that you can develop that are that are really strong. I think a lot of what I've been able to achieve in my life has been achievable because of I have some mental habits of, of work ethic that I just won't quit, like I'll persevere through tough times through challenges, I'll, if there's a problem, I'll find a way to solve it. And especially in education, I grew up with educators as parents teaching me the value of education there a lot of the reason why I got into education, and I had a lot of great coaches as a young athlete getting me into coaching. And they all just instilled in me the idea that you just got to keep going, you got to you got to figure it out when times are tough. Leaders are at their best when times are at their worst. And I think this has helped me in everything I've done, especially ultra running, where I've faced a lot of challenges. I'm not, I wasn't a runner. by trade, I wasn't a runner in high school, I went to such a small high school that we didn't even have a track team. If we add a track team, I probably would have joined it would have been awesome. But I didn't have that opportunity. And then I didn't run as competitive runner in college, I got into running really in my early 30s, early to mid 30s. And and that's when it just I caught the bug. So it's been a challenge to figure out what this world of running is and to become an ultra runner without any formal background. But I would start there I would just say a lot of good habits, mental habits around work ethic around perseverance, and around problem solving. That's been the first key to me being able to find any success that I've been able to have.
Pete Kadushin 19:17
Would you describe one of those three as your superpower, the thing that you do at a high enough level that it's allowed you to be successful the way you have been?
Evren Gunduz 19:31
I would I'm going to I'm going to use... you know, and maybe you're going to help me figure out this term. It's something I work with our athletes in at the high school I coach soccer at we have an incredibly high performing soccer team. And I'm so lucky to be able to be at the helm of this program and lead these young women, but we talk all the time about it's, there's, we're gonna have challenges in the season, we're going to lose games, we're going to have bad days, we're going to disagree, we're going to play poorly. We're going to face injuries, we're going to have to come back from those injuries, all of it all the challenges that we have all the problem solving we're going to do, the most important thing is that it's an opportunity, I would say that my biggest superpower is my ability to see difficulties as an opportunity for growth, not as a roadblock or an impediment to my actions. I kind of I think that if I had to tie in those things I was talking about with like a mindset of just strong work ethic, keep going, perseverance, keep pushing through. I think it all really comes down to the fact that when times get really hard, I tend to dig in a lot deeper and get better.
Pete Kadushin 21:01
This is something that I think often athletes or performers look back and say, well, that person has it, I don't, or that... right? So there's that fixed mindset that can get cooked into it. And you pointed right away when you started sharing your strengths, right, the skills that you really lean on, in saying that it was parents, it was coaches, it was teachers, that you were able to absorb those lessons from early on, and then those continue to get reinforced over time. But it really is something that you've grown into and cultivated as opposed to something that you just like, you know, springboarded out of the womb with?
Evren Gunduz 21:44
Yeah, I'll add something to that. I think that I think that I've always really been great at recognizing greatness in others. Or Not that I've been great at it, I don't want to say I'm great at it. I've always valued greatness in others, because I think I'm constantly needing to get better at pulling out the good in life and the good in others and things like that. But I think I've always valued and so when I had that amazing basketball coach in high school, Tony cordani, and he's leading me and trying to get the best out of me, I'm I was not just being allowing myself to be led by him. But I was picking apart how he was doing his job, and loving how he was making me feel and thinking, Okay, I want to someday give student athletes the feel that this coach is giving me. And so I got to figure out what it is that he's doing. Right. And so and same with my parents, like I wanted to figure out my parents are just such good parents, what how can I What are they doing that I want to do for others, when I'm a teacher and educator, maybe someday, if I'm fortunate enough a parent, things like that, I just love looking at people doing living their life to the fullest. Creating a lot of good for others, and then trying to pull out those those skills they have and try and add them to my toolkit.
Pete Kadushin 23:12
I mean, I knew you were my type of weird, most height most most high school student athletes are not pausing to go. That was a really elegant leadership move right there that coach made. And instead, they're just in the flow of experience. And for you to be able to pause and have that awareness. Not only am I feeling this way, whether it was motivated, empowered, confident, not only my feeling this way, but I can also see some of the moves being made by -- a shout out to Tony -- right that Tony was doing. And then you said how do I incorporate those into my experience? How can I continue to grow from the people around me? Which is, again, I want to point out, not normal. Evren, you are not normal!
Evren Gunduz 24:01
Oh, thank you. That's the biggest compliment I've gotten in weeks. Thank you, Pete.
Pete Kadushin 24:05
Happy to do it. Yeah. Now I want to flip the this idea on its head. We've talked about superpowers, and you pointed out work ethic, perseverance, willingness to say, I don't know the answer, but I can figure it out. And then this extra bonus piece around the genius glasses. I often think about being able to flip down glasses and being able to then have an X ray that sees where somebody is their genius. And it sounds like you've been cultivating those shades since Well, well back. I think it's true, though, that our superpowers live right next to our greatest weaknesses. And so I'm curious how the that landscape that you've just sketched out for us, all of those things you do really, really well. How are those related to the area or areas where you feel like you might hold yourself back?
Evren Gunduz 24:58
One of my favorite quotes is "we teach best what we most need to learn." I remember that came from a book and I don't want to try and figure out which book it was I have it on my shelf somewhere. I, boy, let's, if we want to dive into my weaknesses, we're going to need another session just on that, but I'll take you through some of them, because I think we will probably identify that they're closely related.
Pete Kadushin 25:28
Well, before you get into it, I'm going to pause you and I'm going to give you a bounded limit, you can only beat yourself up for the next like, minute and a half. Right? Because otherwise, otherwise, you're just going to run with this. And that's not the point of the question. And so I believe that you can be precise here without kicking the crap out of yourself, okay?
Evren Gunduz 25:52
biggest weaknesses. This is going to be interesting. And I don't know what this one means. But I have a tendency to play the victim card at times. I will look at something that's not going well for me. And my first instinct, and it's, it's interesting, cuz it's true in some areas and not in others. I remember in my first DNF of 100 miler that I did, after the fact, I remember looking at all the things that went wrong around me, and not what went wrong within me. And using that to justify my DNF. I remember. And in one of my coaching gigs I've had where didn't go well. And I didn't have a great... it wasn't a good fit between me in the in the team and and that's the culture of that particular athletic environment. And I remember pointing a lot of fingers and saying the problems not within me, it's outside of me. So I think that that's been a weakness of mine, is that I play the victim card at times when things don't go well. It's not in everything, but it is in certain areas. And then I would go for Well, I just want to hold you to the the the timeline that we have, because otherwise I will I'll roll.
Pete Kadushin 27:21
Let's connect a few of the dots then. Right. So you talked about this external focus, paying attention to others and how they see you and incorporating their values in your scorecard. Yes. And then comparing yourself to others to decide whether or not you would kind of cleared the bar. And then we match that up with this feeling of gratitude, the ability to rest in the present, your relentless work ethic, the habits that you've developed that said, If I didn't get it yesterday, I can show up and try again today. Your ability to see other people's genius. And now this added piece of when things aren't going well. It can be easy to then focus on how other people or the environment might have helped trigger this outcome. How Are any of those related?
Evren Gunduz 28:11
You're gonna have me sketch out my put all the pieces together and this connect the dots. This is a great question. You're really making me dig deep here, aren't you? I like it.
Pete Kadushin 28:29
It wouldn't be any fun. If we just hung out on the surface right now.
Evren Gunduz 28:31
It wouldn't be any fun.
Pete Kadushin 28:33
Thank you for being willing to play games!
Evren Gunduz 28:35
Oh, I love you know me, I'll play a game. This is fun. I would say that. I'll start by saying I think that I something you said that resonated with me a lot early, earlier in this piece of it was this idea that I definitely used to look through other people's lens for my own for building my own identity, my own values, how I'm doing things for the scorecard. I'm like, I'm looking I'm putting myself in someone else's eyes looking at myself and trying to perceive their own perceptions of me and the scorecard, which is totally nuts. And I believe that the victim card I think probably stems from that a little bit to where when something doesn't go well for me or I faced a challenge early on. And I would point fingers versus pointing thumbs. I think a lot of that came from the fact that I was just looking at myself through a lot of people's lenses and and never and just because of that. I don't know if I've if I was really ever I think my score I wasn't scoring myself. This is a tough one to put into words, but because it's very like three dimensional, and it really goes super deep for me.
Pete Kadushin 30:11
Well, I can see the heavy lifting happening. Yeah. And I and I appreciate this right? Because I these are the types of conversations I love that tell me if I can help frame this up with the idea that when you're using somebody else's values for your own scorecard, and you haven't made that conscious choice, "yes, that's how I'd like to evaluate myself" as in terms of success, that there's a certain depersonalization. And so if you're not achieving success, right, it feels like somebody else's definition anyway, which makes it potentially easy to look outside of yourself, then, for the reasons why I didn't go well, because it already wasn't really inside. It wasn't something you would fully owned, leading up to that. But again, I don't mind read. And so if that's close, let me know. If
Evren Gunduz 31:02
No, it's very close. It's because I didn't, that's it, it's the ownership piece, I didn't have the ownership of my experiences early on to begin with. And so when it didn't go, Well, well, I didn't own the experience, I was looking at my experience through the lens of other people. So if something didn't go, Well, it must be put on those people as well. And I think that that's absolutely something that's hitting hard for me right now, in my realization, which makes sense also, to where I am today, where a lot of my experiences, even the challenging ones, even the difficult ones, I've I don't tend to play that victim card today, like I used to when I was younger. And the thing that's changed the most in my life is that my experiences are much more my own, I've gone away from that lens of other people scoring how I'm doing. And, and therefore when something doesn't go, Well, I look at myself first and foremost. And then I tend to not beat myself up as much. Because I take that ownership, it's gone a lot smoother. I think I also Pete have always had very high expectations of myself.
Pete Kadushin 32:24
That's an understatement. I know you and go on!
Evren Gunduz 32:30
And so I would say another huge weakness of mine is, is putting a lot of pressure on myself a lot of expectations on myself to perform in my jobs, in my career in my curricular extracurricular activities in my running, I want to be great. I want to excel I want to succeed. And I think a lot of that came early on in my life from wanting to do the steps to want to achieve for others. And that sort of stuck with me for a lot of my formidable years.
Pete Kadushin 33:07
This is really interesting, because this is a challenge that some of the athletes I've worked with run into, when they start to consider making their own choice as opposed to adopting the values or the the scorecard of others. They're worried that some of that, that dark fuel the dark matter, right, that they're using for motivation. The that wasn't good enough, that person won't believe in me won't love me, if I'm not doing better are trying harder. They're worried that that's going to suddenly create a power outage, if I shift to I'm making my own choices. "Can I still be relentless? If I shift away from that, putting a lot of pressure on myself, because if I don't do this, if I don't succeed, I'm not standing on the podium people won't love me." And what I'm hearing from you is that that isn't the case. Right? That it transforms. But it doesn't go away in terms of that capacity to still have a work ethic and to commit to doing really exciting stuff. It's just no longer about doing it for others.
Evren Gunduz 34:16
That's the shift.
Pete Kadushin 34:20
You still got your edge.
Evren Gunduz 34:22
Still got my edge. It's, it's just, I have more control over the edge now
Pete Kadushin 34:30
It doesn't necessarily cut both ways as often
Evren Gunduz 34:33
Correct. I can keep the sharp edge away from me... more often.
Pete Kadushin 34:39
We talked about strengths, right? Where's your genius, and I forced you to use your skill on yourself, right? You had to use your own genius glasses. Then we talked about how that lives right next to sources of weakness. And if I'd let you go, you keep coming back around and go another one. So we're we're moving on from the weaknesses!
Evren Gunduz 35:00
I'm cut off!
Pete Kadushin 35:01
You're cut off? I'm curious, though, because your evolution is certainly not done... What is the next frontier? So when you think about particularly within the context of mindset and mental skills, what do you see? Because, well, let me frame it up a little bit better. The skills you use to get here, as successful as you've been. And this is true for all of us are often not the skills we need to get us to the next step. Right that there is often a actual legitimate qualitative transformation, we go from Caterpillar to butterfly, right, not just a bigger, badder caterpillar. This happens over and over again throughout our lives. And so I'm curious how your mental skills or mindset where you see them evolving. Next, what part of you is becoming a butterfly as we speak?
Evren Gunduz 35:52
Well, certainly, let's hope that I keep evolving, because if I stay on the pace I'm on... I'll be like, I'll, I may never leave this cocoon. Or what's the official scientific name a chrysalis? chrysalis?
Pete Kadushin 36:10
A chrysalis. I didn't know that I was gonna have to pull out my six year old knowledge. Yeah. And monarch butterflies back in the day classroom. And so, man, I feel smart and old at the same time.
Evren Gunduz 36:22
Yeah, yeah. No, I love that stuff. So I hope I keep evolving. I feel like the transformation the evolution, as you call it, which is one of my favorite words. The evolution that I've been on, I've been really excited for it, because it has what's what I've noticed, in the evolution I've had is that things that I'm doing, I'm getting more joy out of than I used to. So that's the that's been the outcome of the evolution I've been on. Is that when I train now, for an ultra marathon, which I'm currently training for my next ultra, yeah, here we go. To the sound effects of people "clapping"
Pete Kadushin 37:10
A smoke machine, there's rock music, confetti? Yeah.
Evren Gunduz 37:16
What's really cool is that every iteration of training I've gone through in my life, from the first race till now, the training has gotten more joyful. The races have always been a blast, because I've always been very goal, finish line oriented in my life, outcome oriented. Again, you teach best what you most need to learn. So as a coach, if you see me on the soccer field, we don't talk about. We don't talk about goals, we don't set goals with I don't set goals with my team. We don't talk about outcomes. The scoreboard is irrelevant to the culture of our soccer program. We use the scoreboard only as a launching point for the next practice. I preach over and over that the scoreboard is not the end of the race, but the start of training for the race. And whether we win or lose or draw, we're just trying to gain data from that scoreboard to then take us into tomorrow's training session. And how do we be better? So I, I mean, I'm giving this out ad nauseum at this point in my career, but I needed I'm doing that because I needed to learn this more than anyone. So I think the coolest part is that the races have never been a problem for me. But my training I've seen go from a means to an end to today, my new training season is just I love I just get out there and I love to run. I love the process of growth. I love the process of decay even I'm just intrigued and finding more joy in the daily process of my evolution. So what were I to? To give a lot of short answer to your long answer to my long answer now to shorten it, I would say I hope that my next evolution and where I see it going is that I value and appreciate the evolution. Is this getting too meta? Is this getting way too out there?!
Pete Kadushin 39:28
There is no such thing as too meta as long as we can tether that back to earth! Your job is to go to outer space. My job is to bring it back.
Evren Gunduz 39:38
All right, well, I'm gonna take it to outer space and sum it up as saying, I believe that my next evolution is to be more conscious and aware and appreciative of the evolution whether that is a growth or a decay in my life because I'm also gaining consciousness that it's not always going to be on a forever path of ascension in terms of pace, and running. And speed and mileage, like at some point physically, we can't carry on as we are forever. And when that happens, if there's a decay, can I find an appreciation and a beauty in that, as well. And that's where I, that's where I hope my evolution comes in is that I can find that appreciation in both the growth and the decay as I continue through this journey that we call life.
Pete Kadushin 40:46
To tether this back to Earth for a moment,
Evren Gunduz 40:48
yeah, are we gonna have to like, do a spacewalk around the moon
Pete Kadushin 40:53
we went spacewalking! And we're coming back in and then we're re-entering the atmosphere. I'm going to push as, as a devil's advocate. What if I don't... And I'm thinking of athletes I've worked with or listeners, what if I don't want to appreciate the decay? What if I don't want to find joy in the journey? How would you convince me otherwise?
Evren Gunduz 41:18
Yeah, I'll convince you otherwise, by saying, you're gonna have to, you have no choice but to at some point in your life, appreciate the decay and be engaged in that process just as much as the growth process, simply because of the the truth of life itself. Life is a giant arc of experience of growth and decay. And it's true of, we can look at it on a really small scale. And I'm sure you know this, Dr. Pete, but you've seen like, there's like the mastery chart where like you make progress, and then you decay a little and then you plateau before you make progress again, in something that you're working on. Oh, yes, I'm sure you're very familiar with that. You probably wrote the whole thing
Pete Kadushin 42:11
I did, I did not. My my chart drawing skills are terrible.
Evren Gunduz 42:17
I think on a macro level of life, we are young, we are middle aged, we're old. And and we die. And we go through this, this giant arc of experience of life itself. And I think that, to convince someone that they should engage in the process, and find value in your process for living your life. And what you're doing in your performances, really comes from the fact that if you look at it, on a big scale, everything begins and ends today had a beginning. And it's going to have an ending tomorrow, the same way this week, this month, this year, this lifetime. And the real beauty of it is that it goes away our experiences fade our experiences, and that's what gives them beauty. And that's what gives them a realness a, something that we want to hold on to. And therefore, if you are going to value the the growth and the times that are good, you have to equally value the times of decay that are bad as well, because those are part of that journey, just the same.
Pete Kadushin 43:45
Well, you know, I'm, I'm an asshole about language. And so I'm going to bring back the the the need to versus get to okay, because you You said you need to accept the the decay and the downhill side of the slope. And when I get pushed back around this point, around trying to appreciate the entire experience, right, the full catastrophe, yeah, just steal Jon Kabat Zinn's language, that it could be a "get to", "I get to enjoy this moment, just like the others". And when I think about habit building, if I decide to vacate my present moment, when things are not so fun, I'm getting better at vacating the present moment when things are right, I'm continuing to strengthen the thing that I do most. And so my very concrete argument for why you would want to be fully connected to your experience both on the great days, but also the terrible days is because you want to be ready for the moment that matters most. And by training my capacity to be with both the great and the uncomfortable, right the joy and the sorrow, then it means that I have that skill, that's really grooved really finely tuned. As opposed to, hoping that it shows up when the moment gets big. Whereas I've just spent all the training or all my experience saying, you know, if today is cloudy and miserable, I'm going to hang out someplace else, right, I'm going on a vacation between my ears. And you did a wonderful job here of bringing it full circle, because you started with this idea of good days, bad days, great days, terrible days being where your feet are, right being with your experience. And then we just came all the way back around to that being central to your ability, then, to enjoy experience, to enjoy the training you're doing now, to appreciate the meta level of growth and recognizing that even on bad days, you're still evolving. And the thing about evolution is it doesn't dictate whether or not you're moving up on the chart or down. Right, but you are moving forward. And so to start to wrap this up. I'm always curious for myself, because most of this is selfish, but also for folks listening. What would a practice around mindset or mental skills training look like? If you were going to prescribe something, and it could be related to the skills we've talked about today. Or it could be something else. But give us a quick hit something I could do today to test to build awareness to grow my skill? No pressure, ready, set, go. Ready, Set Go.
Evren Gunduz 46:30
I? Well, first of all, I started meditating recently, I started a meditation practice, which I I don't know if I told you about that. But it's been How does this come out?
Pete Kadushin 46:41
How does this come out all the way into this part of the show, right? You could have started there!
Evren Gunduz 46:45
We could have! This is something brand new I started back in is sort of around my new year's resolution time where we dabble in those. But I think that that's something that I would definitely add in terms of a mental skills, training pieces. The idea of meditating. And concentrating on the present moment is something that is really cool. Now, that's not something that everyone's going to resonate with. And not everyone's gonna want to jump into a full on meditation practice. Like my wife Tara forced me to do but thankfully she did.
Pete Kadushin 47:26
Let me let me call timeout before you move on to the next skill, though, because that's where you're headed, right? So before that. I mean, curious, what does your meditation practice look like?
Evren Gunduz 47:36
I wake up in the morning. And I use some habit stacking to insert this new habit. I said, Okay, after I brush my teeth, I'm going to meditate. And I go and sit on my little meditation cushion. Close my eyes, I take a bunch of deep breaths, get all loose, and then I just sit there, normal breathing for eight minutes. And I just focus on the air molecules going in and out of my nose, nostrils.
Pete Kadushin 48:13
The felt experience of air brushing up against your nose,
Evren Gunduz 48:17
Like literally, oh, that air molecule is hitting that nose hair right now.
Pete Kadushin 48:25
I love the habit stacking too. For me, I didn't become a daily meditator until it was right before my coffee. So I don't get coffee. And you know how I feel about coffee! I don't get coffee until I meditate. And now I meditate everyday because I want coffee every day. And so this is mean sneaky. Ninja hack when it comes to habits, right is being able to bootstrap one habit onto another that's already there. And so that is already worth the price of admission along with all of the other goodies that you've dropped on us.
Evren Gunduz 49:01
Yeah, I bootstrapped it to brushing teeth.
Pete Kadushin 49:04
And now you have another skill you were headed someplace before I cut you off.
Evren Gunduz 49:07
Yeah, I use a I use a phrase all the time that I work. I teach this to the athletes I work with. I use it in my own life. And it's three words "now I am". I use "now I am" 40 times a day. And it's just a great phrase to get me to consciously see and feel what I'm doing. So I'll use these three words. "Now I am" and then I'll fill in the blank. I use it when I'm out in training. And my mind starts to wander. Like let's say I'm at mile three of or I have some some crazy training runs that I that my coach ends up preparing for me where he puts on my calendar. Oh yeah today you're gonna do a five hour run. And I look at I'm like five hours. Oh, my goodness, I'm gonna go run for five, I have to run for five, I have to run for five hours today. Are you kidding me? Okay, well, here we go. And I get all my food prep and I stuffed my backpack and I will training vest and I get all ready to go and I set my watch and then I start going now, I am a man of needing to, I'm a man of latching on to gratitude and the I get to statements again, you, you teach best what you most need to learn, I have to do it because like i because otherwise I get into the "have to" mode. So I, I get to use I the I get to statement because otherwise, my default is is toward the "have to" but anyway, I'll use this now I am statement. When I'm in minute, five out of five hours, I got, I've just run for five minutes, I slept for hours and 55 minutes ahead of me, oh gosh, this is gonna be the worst. And my brain starts going toward the future of all of my to do list items I can't get done while I'm out here for five hours. All the things that are piling up in my life, I start thinking about just the you name it. And then I just use this now I am running. Now I am taking these steps. Now I am looking at the sky. Now I am breathing. Now I am training for a cool ultra marathon. And it's just about what am I doing right now in this very moment.
Pete Kadushin 51:37
It really becomes the trigger. to leverage yourself to peel yourself off of that thought that exists in the future or in the past or the feeling the feeling tone the weather in between your ears, whatever it is, and brings you right back to the felt experience of your feet on the trail. Just like it was bringing yourself back to the felt experience of the air molecules on your nostrils. So this is this is a mindfulness practice.
Evren Gunduz 52:06
Totally. And it's the, for me, it's the trigger to gratitude. I start with now I am that's my default. What I need to get my head focused back on the present moment. I go, now I am I identify all the things I'm doing looking at feeling right now. And then it leads to the I get to Wow, I get to I get to have this experience. That's that's super cool.
Pete Kadushin 52:33
So it's the gateway drug to gratitude!
Evren Gunduz 52:35
The gateway drug to gratitude, look at that. Don't tell the teenage teenagers about it!
Pete Kadushin 52:40
Now I am now I am going to start wrapping up the podcast!! It's I mean, it's a wonderful cue. That's a mantra that's easy to remember. And that we could practice today that would pull you out of thoughts and feelings and ground you in the present moment. And for me, the biggest piece there is that you then have a choice. You can go back to thinking if that's the most useful thing in that moment. Or you can stay where your feet are. Right. But I really it's it's about having choice first. And this is something that I think, you know, I never know what the theme of a conversation like this is going to be. But for me, making choice has started, you know, all the way back in the beginning of the talk. And now coming all the way around, continues to keep popping up. And so to wrap up. I have one question left before the last question. I love knowing about the beautiful moment. Right for any performance, there's something beautiful for you that's uniquely yours. So it doesn't have to be a specific moment in time, although it could be. And it could be a more general experience that you have. It's beautiful when I'm doing this. And I'm going to give you the freedom to pick your performance domain so it doesn't have to be ultra running although it could be and but I want to know what the beautiful moment looks like for you. Paint me that picture.
Evren Gunduz 54:10
The beautiful moment for me. I'm going to use coaching. I'm going to take you into my world of soccer coaching the beautiful moment for me in it when when I'm getting to coach is I just have a lot of this. I have a lot of these actually in coaching where I will the game will be going on. It's under the lights. And first of all correct me if I'm totally not interpreting this question correctly. But I'm just gonna describe what's it what my when I'm in my most beautiful What is my most beautiful moment look like?
Pete Kadushin 54:53
I want to know why it's beautiful too!
Evren Gunduz 54:55
And why it's beautiful. Yeah, that's it. Okay, cool. So I'll describe the moment and then we'll talk why It's, it's when we're coaching, it's a big game, it's against an arch rival, though we're under the lights, the student athletes are on the field, they're performing, I'm looking, I take a look down, we don't call it the bench, we call it the classroom. This is your you're not on the bench here in the classroom, this is where you're just learning and growing. So that when you get your moment out there, you're gonna crush it. So I'm looking down at the student athletes that are in the classroom. I'm looking, I looked down the other end of the field that the opposing coach and team and and what they're doing, and I just have this beautiful moment of just sheer bliss and appreciation of man, this is super cool. Just being alive being out here. Being able to watch these young people perform, to make mistakes to face challenge to overcome it to score a goal to experience that extreme joy. This is really cool that I get to do this, and that we all get to do this together as a community. We're very lucky, it takes me to all kinds of different gratitudes Pete of like, we live in a great country, we live in a great state, we live in a great town, all that happy to be alive here in 2021. And, but why do I have that beautiful moment. And I experienced a lot of those in ultra running to. And I think I think that for me, I have those beautiful moments, because I'm I think it's because of being able to be in the present, and have the gratitude that I have for the life that I've lived and have the support I've had of the people around me that have given me the opportunities that I have. I, genuinely just feed off of my appreciation for what I have. And the people that have gotten me to where I am. And the people that have supported me when I've totally fallen flat on my face and said, hey, it's totally cool. Like, we still believe in you. There's I just have a lot of people in my life that I'm so fortunate to have that believe in me. And I never, I just that's like one of the coolest gifts you can give to somebody else. And I say that just because I've experienced it is just believing in someone that they're going to they're going to be okay, even when they're not. And to give them that support. So I think that's why I have those, those moments.
Pete Kadushin 57:52
And what's interesting to me is that it wasn't tethered to specific detail, although you did a wonderful job of painting the picture or in a close my eyes and I could see the experience you were sharing. It sounds like there's a number of different conduits for you to the beautiful moments in life. And that there's some key ingredients. But they're not tethered, you don't only have one wormhole to that place through ultra running or through coaching or any rate that is there's a number of different ways you can do that. And that you have more awareness than a lot of folks around what it's like to to find that place. So thank you for sharing. And thank you for taking that question where it meant most to you!
Evren Gunduz 58:39
Yeah, I totally butchered it.
Pete Kadushin 58:43
Notice that self talk! Interesting, isn't that interesting! There's so much more that we could get into we never even got a chance to unpack your business. We were hopefully going to have around to before we get there though, where can people find more about you about the work that you're doing in leadership, give us all the details and then I'm going to put it all in the show notes.
Evren Gunduz 59:07
Fantastic. You can you can check out our website, www.enjoylifeeducation.org you can follow me on Instagram @evrenenjoylife. I have found that to be a really fun place to just interact with the community of people that mean a lot to me and and share what we do and what I love to do. And, and I think that just in general check the website out because everything that you need to know is there and and most importantly, I just value quality over quantity in terms of getting to know people and interacting with people. So probably the best way to find out more about what I do is send me an email. And let's set up a time and chat. I want to get on the phone and talk to people and set up calls and or grab a coffee or just shoot an email back and forth, so email me, it's evren@enjoylifeeducation.org.
Pete Kadushin 1:00:11
Awesome. That is awesome. And I can speak from personal experience, that's where you light up is is in relationship to others and getting a chance to really connect on that level. This speaking of connecting on that level, this has been so much fun. I loved the willingness to dig deep, you shared so many really actionable things that I know I'm going to put into play here right after we're done. And so thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the time, and I'll look forward to around two.
Evren Gunduz 1:00:42
It's been an absolute honor Pete, thanks for having me.
Pete Kadushin 1:00:45
All right. That's it for today. If you liked this episode, make sure you subscribe to the show. And don't forget to rate and leave a review. If you want to dive deeper into the concepts and concrete practices from today. I'm talking access to show notes and the transcript for the episode and a whole bunch of other mental training goodies, head over to NPL dot Academy. That's MTL dot Academy. Each week after the episode goes live, I'll also be sharing a worksheet that's going to help you level up your mindset and mental skills. And the only way to get access is through our weekly newsletter. So when you hit the bottom of the webpage, don't forget to sign up for that too. Until next time, be well
