Samantha Pruitt: 0:22

Hey superstars, welcome back. What’s up? Beautiful humans?

Polly Mertens: 0:27

Hey you guys, we’ve got something in store for you today, and technically it is. We’re recording this on a Monday, may 20th 2024, even though it’s going to drop Thursday of this week.

Samantha Pruitt: 0:38

But tell them what we’re up to, sitting in your beautiful little home in San Luis Obispo, together in the same room, high vibes room. So good, so good. Today we’re talking about big growth moments, and the reason this subject is so poignant is Polly is coming off of her first Iron Woman race. Yesterday Spent the day swimming, biking and running Like all day, all day long day swimming, biking and running Like all day, all day long.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:08

And you know we talk a lot about pivot moments, epic lifestyle, you know, living an everyday awesome lifestyle, and so you were sort of putting that into Blood, sweat and Tears yesterday out on that course and it was so fun to be part of that. So we thought today’s episode should be about these big growth moments. And they look and smell and taste different for everybody. They’re not just, you know, ironman, triathlon or event specific, but we’re going to use that to sort of tell your story, because I want you to share your story and then we’ll talk about other examples of what that might look like for people. So let’s get in. You know what? Can you start off by explaining a big growth moment and use the example we were talking about that happens with a diamond.

Polly Mertens: 1:55

So first I’ll just so. Yesterday was a half Ironman which I just want to relate for people. That’s a 70.3 mile, 1.2 mile, because everybody always asks what is that again?

Samantha Pruitt: 2:06

So let’s just you know, face it, Because it’s just so in our blood.

Polly Mertens: 2:09

but you’re right, 1.2 mile swim, ocean swim, in this case, 56 mile bike ride and a half marathon or 13.1 mile run at the end. So that’s triathlon.

Samantha Pruitt: 2:19

is Ironman branded distance, if you will, or half Ironman 70.3 miles, 70.3 miles in one day, yeah.

Polly Mertens: 2:30

Of constant movement. Yes, yes, and that took me almost nine hours to do yesterday. So a lot, of, lot of going. So one thing, you know, big growth moments we were trying to define. You know what do we call this? Is it growth? Is it a breakthrough? What is it? And one of the words that I’ve learned over my lifetime of just studying personal development is the word perturbation, and I think it’s a word in chemistry. I’m not totally sure, but it has to do with the process. Perturbation is the process, the pressure that coal, put under pressure by the earth, you know, underground, goes into to transform into a diamond. And the beauty of that process is a diamond never goes back to becoming coal, just like a butterfly can’t go back to becoming a caterpillar right, so that’s perturbation.

Polly Mertens: 3:10

We look at it, I think coal is a better one because it literally takes pressure. You know, a chrysalis maybe has some pressure to it pressure and heat yeah, probably. Yeah, I mean pretty pretty much. So. Yeah, and there was a lot of pressure and heat actually yesterday.

Samantha Pruitt: 3:25

Those are examples of transformation that are like so raw in nature.

Polly Mertens: 3:36

And those things exist all over all the time. It’s been happening for millions of eons. It’s called evolution, but there’s many other things right In nature.

Samantha Pruitt: 3:40

They’re happening inside each of us humans as well. I think sometimes people forget that or unintentionally, you know, intentionally or unintentionally, or the outside world is putting it upon us isn’t that the truth? Isn’t that the truth? Yeah, and so yesterday you had this epic day like we just described, and there were some moments, girl, yeah, I mean, you trained for this event. You had planned, you consciously chose to put yourself into the iron woman world so it wasn’t surprising but there were some surprises.

Polly Mertens: 4:14

I knew this day was coming. I knew this day was coming. It wasn’t a you know smack on the side of the head like whoa you know it wasn’t a diagnosis that I didn’t expect it was right.

Polly Mertens: 4:23

Five months of transformation that I chose to create. And I knew from 15 years or more of doing personal development work and doing hard things like this, whether a couple years ago, you beautifully challenged me to do the Trans Rockies and doing that. That was six days, 120 miles Across the Rocky Mountains, across the Rocky Mountains, across the Rocky Mountains, 20,000 feet of alligator yeah, all that craziness. So I’ve, you know, in Spartan races and you know, leveling up the challenges if you will. So I knew when you asked me I think it was December or January, we were talking about this you said you know, do you want to? You know, do an Ironman? And I don’t think it was because you were going to. No, maybe it was because you were thinking I was on the fence of recommitting myself for 2024.

Polly Mertens: 5:09

So we’re at least talking about it. And then somehow we started because I had volunteered at Morro Bay, which is right near my home, last year, so I knew, okay, I know where it is. It’s not like a big travel commitment or anything like that. I was like, oh, more Bay and that’s may. Oh, you know, I have enough time. I don’t even remember how we quite had that conversation, but I was like, yeah, I do that.

Samantha Pruitt: 5:31

And then also hang out with leveled up people. True, it’s part of who we are.

Polly Mertens: 5:38

Those are key element. It is key that you surround yourself. You become the average of the five.

Samantha Pruitt: 5:43

You know if the five people around you are like hey do you want to go out and party this weekend?

Polly Mertens: 5:47

hey, do you want to um go spend some money that we don’t need to spend, or do you want to whatever? You know, just spend a day off shopping yeah, get up to you know, fighting political against things that you don’t believe in or whatever nonsense, let’s just call it things that aren’t aligned with you and when you’re around people that are at your level or better, you know, I always say you know, soar with the eagles, don’t swim with the ducks, right?

Polly Mertens: 6:12

it’s like, be around those eagles that can give you those opportunities. Like hey, you just even had a conversation talking about iron man, right, exactly right. And then next thing I knew, whatever they’re up to, I’m like, yeah, I’ll do that, and it sounds like a good idea. And literally I remember when I said that I was like, yeah, I’d do that, and I kind of knew what that was going to look like, because I’ve, you know, done spartans, I’ve done a triathlon.

Samantha Pruitt: 6:36

It was a much shorter one you know a lot of adventure races others like, yeah, get up to that.

Polly Mertens: 6:39

I knew it would be a growth. But you, you know, there’s always what you think you know going in, and then what it looks like what?

Polly Mertens: 6:46

it actually looks like. And I think one of the beauties that people who flip that switch and get into the growth channel, like you get into. I’m up to growth and we were going to talk about, you know, some of the things that I’ve done through my life is, you know, in the personal development world. When I first got into personal growth, this was before Tony Robbins, but it was with a guy named T Harv Ecker and he had these millionaire mind weekends and then that led to me doing a whole series of things and when you pay for a, I think it was like a $10,000 or $15,000 package. The beauty of that is like, okay, get up to those things, go to those classes, travel all over the place.

Polly Mertens: 7:23

I was in Vancouver, I was in Los Angeles, you know, all over the place, new York, regularly like on the quarterly. And what I saw and what I learned through my years of personal development is you get this stepladder growth, yeah, instead of this like up down, up down, because if you don’t continue to keep yourself in a growth pattern, you kind of have a peak moment and then you kind of slide back down, exactly, you know, like people who break their diets or whatever, and then they gain a bunch of weight or you know they’re just kind of turned that the trajectory doesn’t continue to go up. It’s like a flywheel like momentum, yeah Right.

Samantha Pruitt: 8:09

If you’re riding the bike 56 miles, like yesterday, right and then you stop at an aid station, you’re stopped. Your momentum to get started again is a lot of energy, mentally and physically, to get that thing going again. Life is the same way.

Samantha Pruitt: 8:23

Well, and I’ll take it to a moment yesterday in the swim part of this race, that swim Let me just talk about that swim for a hot second, because I’ve been to a lot of races, I’ve seen a lot of things. Okay, that was carnage, that was hardcore carnage. It’s hard swim. It was cold as hell. So hypothermia everywhere left and right and the current was literally.

Polly Mertens: 8:45

You guys were swimming against the current yeah, the first half the current helped us. In the second half it you had to fight it. I mean, fight it straight into it. It felt like fight for your life, like there were moments I was like just breathing was the best that I could do. Even I I’m like I got to swim on my back just so I can catch my breath and not, you know, go into panic or something you know, because there’s people all around you, there’s water spray. I mean, it’s just it. It there’s 1600 people in this race.

Samantha Pruitt: 9:16

It feels like this K chaotic.

Polly Mertens: 9:19

Just everywhere you look, there’s arms flying by you, there’s hats, there’s boats, there’s waves. You know people kick you from. You know.

Samantha Pruitt: 9:28

Everybody’s on high alert, like gaming. So the energy inside of that vortex if you will super, you know intense.

Polly Mertens: 9:38

What I want to say, though, is about that ladder, so what I think of in growth moments is not only like getting off the bike. You sort of have to regain momentum, and you you’re at the same point. You’re at 50 miles or 20 miles, and then you just start going. But what I have found in personal growth is there are times when you can actually recede, and so like in the swim, if I stopped moving, I would go backwards like I would start drifting backwards.

Polly Mertens: 10:03

The current was so strong and it was actually kind of quick, like you’re like surprisingly, holy cow, I just went five feet backwards in like 10 seconds.

Samantha Pruitt: 10:12

You know what that speaks to. It speaks to the environment you’re in on the daily when you’re doing this growth work. So go to some high growth experience let’s say it’s a workshop or a business opportunity or an event or something like that Um, have this great growth breakthrough experience for yourself and then go back into a really toxic work environment home environment, community or whatever, stepping backwards, yeah.

Polly Mertens: 10:38

If you don’t consciously so. One of the things that I liked about when I purchased that large package is and I put those things on my calendars, like you know, and he timed them beautifully. It was like you know. Let’s say, I did one, a weekend workshop, in January, and then four times a year the other four courses were being, so I was like, oh, I’ll just put my, put those on my calendar.

Samantha Pruitt: 11:01

So my growth moments you mean make a commitment to yourself, make that commitment.

Polly Mertens: 11:05

What girl? Because I I had seen from prior years and prior experiences of doing a little bit of work, and then you, and then life has a way, man, it does just has a way of sort of normalizing uh-huh growth, and it’s not for everybody. I’m not saying everyone has to do this, but one of the things that I think you and I are about is I’m saying you’ve got one life, do this what are you talking about?

Samantha Pruitt: 11:31

you’ve got one you can’t be living in the comfort zone. That’s where dreams go to die and that’s honestly where humans go to die. We cannot. We didn’t evolve as a species that way. I mean, it’s just we’re not meant to be living that way in our bubbles of comfort.

Polly Mertens: 11:49

And I think that the trade-off you know what is it? They say An ounce of fear weighs more than the pound of regret. Right, it’s like the fear of, you know, saying yes to an Ironman or whatever it is for you, a 5K, or starting your own business, yeah, that’s pretty big.

Polly Mertens: 12:07

But whatever your step is saying yes, saying no to something. I think if you weighed it against the weight of the regret. One other thing I’ll just feel like inserting here is I think I shared this with you about two or three weeks ago, so this is late in my training and I’m just swimming. You know, in the pool I had a moment of a morning swim and it was pretty peaceful, I think. People were getting out of the water, so I was there a little bit longer. So I had felt like I had more of the pool to myself and I was just in my kind of a zone, just swimming.

Polly Mertens: 12:41

And I tell you, my future self came to me as an awareness, because I knew I only had a certain amount of these swims left. I knew like this is coming to an end and that’s how you know I was, like this is a special moment in your life. This is a special once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. Appreciate it differently, look at it differently instead of it’s just a swim right. It differently, look at it differently instead of it’s just a swim right. And that future experience of my future self saying, damn girl, when you’re 80, 90, yeah, right you, you will have been able to say you did that.

Samantha Pruitt: 13:13

Yeah, instead of the regret of god, I wish I’d done that and seeing yourself in that way, in that incredibly compassionate, empowering way, like check me out, you know, because a lot of people don’t take that moment to really be in themselves.

Polly Mertens: 13:33

You know, and be their own best companion and their own best, you know, warrior love, warrior for the self and I can definitely attribute there was a lot of swims leading up to that, because so much in the beginning for me was growing, learning. Oh, the bike doesn’t fit right, you know so I was equipment.

Polly Mertens: 13:53

Yeah, I was very in the how do I do this, how do I get a little bit better at? So there was very much a focus on the tactical, yeah, the the functional. And then once I was just swimming, you know I get past those, you know we say it’s, it’s. You know, hard in the beginning, messy in the middle, and then it gets beautiful in the end. And so I was near the end of the arrival of you know, hey, I’ve put it all together right, I’ve gone through the ugly, the messy, and then I was like like I’m swimming and all of a sudden I’m having spiritual experiences in the freaking pool, like, totally so, push through those things, push through those moments. Those experiences, these big growth moments, give us that chance to get those beautiful gems that come later.

Samantha Pruitt: 14:37

Right, and I call it building a resume of badassery. And you certainly have that. So you’re in this swim and the current is coming at you and you and 1600 of your new best friends are swimming like crazy people, like our life, trying to survive this swim. Never mind, the clock is ticking. There’s all these other variables.

Polly Mertens: 15:00

When you’re in something, yeah, you have an hour and 10 minutes to get in and out of the water, let alone the hypothermia that’s going to set in at some point. Exactly so you’ve got two clocks you’re racing against your own body temperature or you’re out.

Samantha Pruitt: 15:12

What was your mind?

Polly Mertens: 15:13

saying All kinds of nasty stuff. I want to be honest. I’m like it was jibber-jabber up there. You know the beginning was what you saw me at the start. So I entered the water in a very peaceful, grateful, fired up. You know I was like let’s go, it’s race day. I’m so glad to be doing this.

Polly Mertens: 15:36

I don’t love the swim, but okay, in an hour and 10 minutes hopefully this is you know we’ll come to and then I’ll keep going, and so the first half of my stride. So it’s an out and back. So you swim out this distance and you come back. And I knew from having traveled and this comes. This is another tip is, having traveled this water before, I trained in that. An open bay, to be clear, it’s ocean water, it’s an ocean. Yep, in the harbor of morro bay, where the ocean water comes into the bay, the tide yeah, the tide comes in a couple times a day, in and out, in and out. It gets stronger in some places, whatnot. So I had practiced.

Polly Mertens: 16:12

Thank you, my ocean angel, tracy, had come out with me on two different swims. The first swim and I’m going a little deep into the pre-race, but the first swim she and I did I had the wetsuit that I had from years ago of just going out once or twice surfing, and it was fine. And I got out of the water after that first practice and I almost froze to death, like I had, like my hands were frozen and it took me an hour to warm up and I was like, oh my God, and thankfully this was close, or not too close, to the race that I could adjust. And, lesson learned, I got a new wetsuit. She went out with me again. I was cold but nothing. Got boobies but I did yep, got boobies cap, but I did learn that this current was a force to be reckoned with. So she and I she was even having trouble kayaking against this current. She’s like. I was like, can I hold on to your kayak for a moment because I just need to catch my breath? And she was running out of breath trying to kayak us in place. Little Exactly. So yeah, so it was. So.

Polly Mertens: 17:10

My strategy was I knew what was ahead Conserve energy you still got to get to that first turnaround but conserve energy and be ready to, you know, kick it into gear. On the backend I didn’t know quite what the experience of all the other people, the waves crashing the current as forceful as it was. I was kind of hoping it was going to be gentle on us, you know, but it was none of that and the people and all that stuff, so it it felt like a fight for your life, yeah. And so when you ask what was going through my mind, so when we got to that point and I could just see everybody changed, like if you lifted your head out of the water, everybody’s head was kind of up like what’s happening all of a sudden.

Polly Mertens: 17:50

Like people were shocked, Panicking, Shocked and panic at that point Like whoa, how you know and you could. Just it was a little bit like Titanic moment, you know, like everybody’s going, we’re taking on water here. Some of us might not make it.

Samantha Pruitt: 18:05

Yeah, you know well many people played that out in their heads and made a different decision than you.

Polly Mertens: 18:11

Yeah, Thank you. Yeah, and you and I talked about this we’re walking. That morning there was a spectator who had a sign that said don’t give up, and we’re both like that’s not very encouraging, how rude.

Samantha Pruitt: 18:25

Put that on a sign. It’s a race. It didn’t feel very appropriate.

Polly Mertens: 18:28

But I tell you that signaled to me Because in the moment I was like, this is I don’t know if I can do this, like I don’t know if I can make myself swim as hard as it’s going to take to get out of this water, you know, or myself swim as hard as it’s going to take to get out of this water, you know, or get out of this channel that we’re in. And if it’s all this like all the way, that’s because I didn’t know like was this just a piece of it and we get around it or whatever. And I and I remember that sign. It said don’t give up. And I went, are you kidding me? That’s why that sign was there. And I said, okay, you know what, what if I can just make it the next little bit and just they’ll pull me or I’ll get too tired, whatever, I’m just going to keep going on.

Polly Mertens: 19:10

And I went to, you know, I swam as hard as I could for the next whatever. And then they allow you to hang on to a kayak or a boater if you need to take a breath. And I needed to take a breath and I took a breath. And then I was, and I just was telling myself one of the things that I’ve done in part of that work that led up to this we will talk about capacity is I did a workshop called warrior, and it’s the inner warrior, one who conquers oneself, and I was like you’ve got to inner warrior, this girl. I was like you have got to fight for this if you want this, yeah, you’ve got to pull it all out and leave it all on the course.

Samantha Pruitt: 19:49

Thank God that inner warrior was in you. Yeah, you had built that inner warrior through years of work.

Polly Mertens: 19:56

Yeah, Right, yeah. And then my Spartan days. I was like, girl, you’re strong, you know. I was just telling myself I’m strong enough for this mentally, strong enough physically. I was just like you know, because when you’re training in a pool it’s funny, you know, or it’s not funny, it’s just different. You’re like oh, I’m swimming a lot of at ease. There’s a lot of mellow swimming, alcohol maybe some people your life is definitely not in danger.

Polly Mertens: 20:19

It’s definitely not in danger. There’s not. People like throwing the yeah, and you just kind of have your lane to yourself. You’re like la la, la, just getting the miles in. This is like constant Somebody’s bumping into you, kicking in front of you. You’re avoiding something, right. So very distracting. Lots of that Unnerving yeah Just kind of gets in and I was just like you’re gonna have to swim, you know. And one of the things that goes to your mind is, I’ve heard, is people either get too much in the swim or they put too much on the bike and they don’t save it for the back end and stuff. And so I was like, well, should I save it? And I was like, if you don’t give it all you’ve got right now, there’s not gonna be a bike.

Polly Mertens: 20:59

That’s right. There’s not gonna be a bike that the rest is not going to happen. It was like, exactly you got to figure that part out when you get to that part and right now you’ve got to get through this part and it was only going to happen if I did 110, you know it’s like hard ass and you did and I did.

Samantha Pruitt: 21:19

And 308 of your friends did not. Yeah, so get a grip. 308 people either willingly got themselves out of that. Literally, they were exiting stage right and left all over the place, or they just didn’t make the cutoff because they just were sort of stuck out there and couldn’t muster the mental or physical fortitude to push forward, to get through, and so they were removed from the race. Yeah, yeah.

Polly Mertens: 21:46

I’ve never seen anything which is a huge. What people don’t know is that’s a lot.

Samantha Pruitt: 21:50

It’s insane. I’ve never seen anything like it in a triathlon. Yeah.

Polly Mertens: 21:55

So yeah, so that was like Paulie’s a badass. There we go, yeah, yeah. Well, I got to transition. I’m like, am I okay? Like, should I keep going? You know, I was like give me the medal now Like I just earned.

Samantha Pruitt: 22:11

Yeah, and along the way, of these big growth opportunities you need to celebrate. You need to celebrate the small wins along the way to the big win, a hundred percent, especially when we’re talking about the magnitude of this kind of big life level up experience.

Polly Mertens: 22:31

you best be celebrating along the way, and we did an episode. The previous episode, if you’re listening to this just prior, is called pause and reflect, and it’s a lot about that. We teach you how to take what we’re taking right now and we’re publishing this for you but how we evaluate and reconsider and just reflect upon what we did and how’s it going and what was that like or whatnot. And I mean peak athletes. They document all this stuff right and they data. You know we’re not data mining like they are, but that’s how they get better, that’s how they improve, and so there’s benefit in the pause and reflect that we’re doing and we invite you to as well.

Samantha Pruitt: 23:11

Let’s talk about a little bit of the process of the change. Whether you’re in the moment, like you were in the middle of this race, or whatever it looks like for people. Right, you’re in it, it is happening, and you proceeded to then go to the bike and have some challenges on the bike and then proceeded to go.

Polly Mertens: 23:29

Well, one thing you know, just before we leave the swim that we wanted to talk about is we call it flipping the switch, and I think I’ve just told the story about it. But so a warrior switch, yeah. So at that moment where I’m hanging on to this pole, literally in the current, and everybody’s kind of like having a Titanic moment, where I’m hanging onto this pole, literally in the current is, and everybody’s kind of like having a Titanic moment I was like I’m going to grab onto this pole and I just need to re. We call it reassessing, reassess, and that was my hard pivot moment. And that’s where it was like hard pivot. Got to go even harder into this if you’re going to make it. And so reassess, and then I recommit it, don’t give up. Like I could have just swam off to the side, gotten on a kayak and been like I’m done here. Thanks very much.

Samantha Pruitt: 24:07

You reassessed and then you recommitted.

Polly Mertens: 24:09

That’s flipping the switch, reassess, recommit and then overcome. It was like I can overcome this, this current, this challenge, this distance, whatever.

Samantha Pruitt: 24:18

Why should people reassess, recommit and overcome?

Polly Mertens: 24:22

If you want success, if you want your outcome’s a outcome. If you want your outcome, and sometimes the forces that you’re up against don’t look like what you thought they were going to be, or the situation. Newsflash people are people, weather is weather.

Samantha Pruitt: 24:36

Life is life, life is life.

Polly Mertens: 24:37

Yeah, it’s like you have. You know, one of the things that we were talking about last night is correct and continue. Yeah, we were talking about last night is correct and continue.

Polly Mertens: 24:45

Yeah right, champions make adjustments, not excuses. Oh, say that again. Yeah, not my words, but I’ll borrow them from some beautiful people champions make adjustments, not excuses. Exactly, and I trained to that. I trained to that mantra while I was swimming a lot, just in the practice of this, and that was my moment, a hard, pivot moment of let me reassess. Okay, I’m recommitting to this, I’m going to do everything I can to get through these. Next, you know, six tenths of a mile, the halfway. I’m going to overcome everything I can, mentally, physically, and we’ll see how it goes.

Polly Mertens: 25:18

And then you and then I was reassessing along the way, you know, I made it a certain distance, had to catch my breath. What do I need to do from here? You know, and you get to different moments along the course, I would say. And so I was like well, should I swim on the outside or should I swim on the inside for this part? How’s the water doing? Where are all the people? You know, and, just taking stock, it was never just me head down in the water swim, and I think a lot of people were doing that, you know, and not that mine was the best strategy because I think some people were just better swimmers than me.

Samantha Pruitt: 25:53

They were just oh, if I just swim hard, they had it in them. If I watched people coming out, it was carnage, pretty much. All the people I mean people were falling over, they couldn’t get up the steps. I mean people were jacked. So it was definitely one of those really epic experiences for you. It was good. Good, in the process of these moments there are growing pains, there’s a level of new awareness that comes about, a new perspective, and we talk a lot about this increasing capacity in the self mentally, physically, spiritually each of us as human beings creating a higher level of capacity within ourselves when we actively choose and put ourselves into these mass opportunities for growth.

Polly Mertens: 26:36

You know, just as you were saying, that I started. So I love the, the metaphor of like a container. You know, like we grow our container, if you will, and what I started to see, as you were, you, you guys can’t see samantha, but she was sort of like moving her arms outward, like we expand, like thinking like she opened her arms up bigger and it’s like when we grow our capacity. I started to think about like, when it’s little, like you can harness, like a little dust devil, and when it’s bigger, you can harness a tornado, because life will throw sometimes tornado people, tornado situations, and having the capacity is it doesn’t break the container, it doesn’t destroy everything the container has and maybe it’s flexibility.

Polly Mertens: 27:16

I’m not saying it’s glass necessarily, but whatever, but it’s even a balloon. Yeah, it has the fortitude to hold that. Whether you know, as we’re younger, more immature, don’t have a lot of life experience, haven’t tried hard things haven’t done growth work on ourselves, we have a smaller container, you know, things like it’s like little sandpaper, like the little scratch on the outside of our skin will be like ow, ow, ow, ow, right. And if you toughen up or if you grow that container bigger problems, bigger opportunities, harder things it will take and you talked about in your coaching. Why don’t you share about your capacity to hold the coaching clients when they get the situation Business coaching clients or life health fitness coaching clients.

Samantha Pruitt: 28:02

If I don’t have a large capacity, I can’t hold space for the others or the other Sometimes it’s a group, sometimes it’s an individual when they are really having a struggle. You know, every human comes through life and into our spaces with a different level of capacity and you know part of our work is helping them build their capacity Right. But however they’re in the moment, the challenge, the big growth opportunity, if you will, they come with that, maybe possibly a limited capacity.

Samantha Pruitt: 28:35

And if you put a bunch of them in a room together with limited capacities, by the way space and have a ton of capacity, because it’s not just your own need to be able to moderate, handle, adapt yeah, be wise within these situations and emotionally fit, but you also need to help service their needs or lack thereof of what their capacity is.

Polly Mertens: 28:59

So and it, yeah, it’s huge, you know. Reminds me a friend of ours came over last night and we were reliving.

Samantha Pruitt: 29:05

That was so beautiful, by the way, our celebration moment. Badass women in this room last night I can’t believe. The roof of this house did not just blow off at some point celebrating your victory, but every single one of the females in the space just legend status I mean, it was gorgeous families of humans too. So good, just gold, so much gold.

Polly Mertens: 29:28

That’s a team stuff and beautiful tracy was sharing how you had introduced to them her and her sister sharon. Oh yeah, the rim to rim, which is a very challenging. It can be run, but I’m guessing you guys hyped it, maybe where you go down one marathon you go, yeah, with a little bit of an elevation gain, kind of steep.

Polly Mertens: 29:48

The Grand Canyon Marathon is what we basically did and she talked about how. So rim to rim it’s called is one direction and some people do rim to rim to rim Crazy folks like this lady sitting across from me. But Tracy said that you having taken them on that journey and that experience, and her having completed it and her growth moment, like you know, we talk about expanding that container but she’s like nothing could stop me after that Invincible yeah, Invincible.

Samantha Pruitt: 30:19

And her sister, when she faced cancer, you know, fell back on that moment for herself around the physical and mental and spiritual strength she had as well Like.

Polly Mertens: 30:31

I got this and you know, I think one of the things we definitely want to share in this is how things translate, how these you know people are like why would you do that? Why, you know, like there’s a lot of, let’s say, naysaying against whatever the physical challenge looks like and everyone’s is different, like I would not do some crazy falling off of some big cliff things that guys in windsuits do. It’s like that looks like I could die, you know, and I’m sure they’ve trained for it.

Samantha Pruitt: 30:59

You know it wasn’t their first jump, or something.

Polly Mertens: 31:06

So, whatever somebody’s epic is, they’re getting up to something that challenges and pushes their limits and it’s when we, you know my two words this year are expand and elevate, yes, and this first five, six months of the year has been 100% the shoot, you know, like the tunnel for both of those, for mental and physical, to create that moment that happened yesterday, right, and the growth, the bigger container that I’ve now grown into.

Samantha Pruitt: 31:33

Exactly. We call it also emotional fitness to build that building of the capacity we just talked about, right? So building your physical body’s strength, but also your mental strength, your physical body’s flexibility and endurance, but also your mental strength, your physical body’s flexibility and endurance, but also your mental and emotional flexibility and endurance. These are just daily tools that allow you to say yes when these opportunities arise. And then you go on about the actual big growth moment and you know what’s cool about what we’re doing now and we really, really want to make sure people understand. This is part of the process being able to unpack the experience with somebody. So, being seen during the moment I’m bearing, witness to this.

Samantha Pruitt: 32:17

That was huge, that experience for the two of us. It transforms the moment right, the many, many moments, and then being able to have conversation about it so you can process what the hell just happened. Because if you keep it in your own head, it can get stuck there and it can maybe feel and look different right, it’s true, when I came off the race. There can be different emotions. You want to talk about that moment.

Polly Mertens: 32:45

Well, you were helping me a lot, you know, because, you know, as a Spartan athlete, I was always in the top 10 in my age group, crushing it Often in the first three, you know, and in this race I look up my number. I’m the last female in my age group and that is hard to see. And there’s other little micro moments, you, that is hard to see. And there’s other little moment, micro moments, you know. So I talked about the win of the swim and that was a big win and my mind is like, oh, you’re 22nd out of 22. But you helped me continue to focus on the win in the end and I’m just raw off of this. So there’s more work to be done. I’m not feeling the elation yet because I’ve my mind has the oh, you know, 22 that’s the evil twin we talk about.

Samantha Pruitt: 33:32

She’s hanging out right now yeah, and that’s you know.

Polly Mertens: 33:35

We talked about my human design and gene keys, my astrology and stuff, and so I have doubt and, let’s say, confusion, confusion and and so this is just a representation of how that manifests in my life is doubt going into things or doubting myself or not good enough? Stuff like that we all get it, even as a coach. Hell yeah, of course. Here I am just completed an Ironman and I still go, but I know how to turn this trajectory Exactly, and that’s actually part of the work inside of these big growth opportunities.

Samantha Pruitt: 34:08

What we’re talking about now is the aftermath, if you will, the unpacking in the space, like, okay, so what transpired? What was I thinking? How was I feeling, and being able to reflect back, discuss it, talk through it and really come to terms with what was real, rather than there were moments of the evil twin coming to visit, knocking on the door and I, you know, some things didn’t feel good. Yeah, yeah, we’re totally human. It’s not all going to feel good, for sure, but the feel good is looking at what is real and sharing it with somebody, I think, is a huge part of that.

Polly Mertens: 34:47

Yeah, two things I want to say. First, I don’t want to miss this opportunity to deeply, deeply, deeply Thank you for every moment, for inspiring me to take on this challenge, to step into that, because that’s who you are, is you create those radical what if? What if for people that they don’t necessarily think they will do for themselves. That’s who you are in the world and being that beacon for me. When you know I call you, I’m like, oh shit, the bike’s too slow, and this and that and, and we would strategize and having you along the way, and in that moment when I got out of the water I didn’t have parents that gave me and for me anyway, enough. You know, one of my love languages is words of affirmation. And I got out of that water and you hugged me and said I’m so proud of you and that fueled what was to come 56 miles of hard biking, and I just want to thank you for that, you know you were there for me when I needed that.

Polly Mertens: 36:05

That was. It’s so rich that I’ve never had before, and so keep doing that and if you got and you know we talked about finding those people in the world- that can be that with us and for us, whether it’s a hired coach or a dear friend or someone that’s you know we. We watched that REI a hundred, how to run a hundred miles, or whatever, and those two guys were for each other.

Samantha Pruitt: 36:31

You know, and it’s finding your people, it’s finding your equal, it’s finding somebody who sees you and believes in you and, no matter what the hell goes down, is there for all of it. Not just the fun times, the shit storms, I mean honestly that’s when we have the most fun usually.

Polly Mertens: 36:53

And that’s your capacity and that’s where you’ve built that capacity. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Who you are in the world has capacity for people that are having tornado storms and holding space for people that are just going through tough stuff.

Samantha Pruitt: 37:06

Whatever that you know, having bearing witness to someone else’s transformation. Are you kidding, Right? Gold, gold, gold. There was one other thing I was going to say.

Polly Mertens: 37:19

I got off track.

Samantha Pruitt: 37:20

No, it’s okay. It’s okay. So we’re talking about bearing witness to another human Oops. We’re talking about absorbing and unpacking what transpired. You’re still going to do it.

Polly Mertens: 37:29

Yes, it’s going to take time, I know what the second thing is Okay. So one of our I think my favorite lines that we have is how your life feels is more important than how it looks, and so this is a moment where how my life looks is I just did this amazing thing and inside I’ve got an old story or a weak story that doesn’t align with it, but I’m not going to live with that because I know how I feel is important and I want to feel good about this, and so it’s inner tweaking, it’s inner conversations, it’s outer conversations it’s journaling, whatever it takes for me to not let that evil twin or the monkey in the mind take out this wind from me, exactly, right.

Polly Mertens: 38:12

So where I sit today, one day after and it’s a little bit of just, you know, after burn, you know you’re totally, you know, raw, yeah, so it’s like it’s just tired. Yeah, the mental challenge, as I told you, in the swim you know that I played with, you know, nine hours of moving your body through space, self-propelling your body through space.

Samantha Pruitt: 38:34

It’s kind of hilarious if we talk about it like that Talk about perturbation.

Polly Mertens: 38:36

Yeah, so nine hours of physical and huge mental challenge to do that has left me with a little bit of an empty tank today to work on this last little bit. But I will set that aside and say I’m not going to let you know A today’s empty tank and then take the. Oh, I’m 26. That’s not going to be the story I’m going to tell, but that’s the story that my mind has for me today, not going to be the ending story.

Polly Mertens: 39:04

But you have to recognize like, okay, that’s just what it is, but you don’t have to live with that story and that feeling.

Samantha Pruitt: 39:12

And the world doesn’t see you in that way, and that goes for all humans listening to this, by the way. Why would we see ourselves in that way? So it’s just a really interesting internal dialogue, old pattern, it’s old patterns and stories from way back now that we haven’t quite let go of yet, right. So this if this opportunity, as an example, this race, is the moment in your trajectory that you fully released that old story, that is the money it will be worth every damn mile, every dollar, every ounce of effort put in gold, so, true, gold. So we talk about finding these opportunities, seeking them out actively, choosing to put your place yourself into these places, into these moments. Because what happens if you don’t? What happens if you just, you know, do a couple of things and then you sort of get into cruise control on your life?

Polly Mertens: 40:17

What does that look?

Samantha Pruitt: 40:17

like I know.

Polly Mertens: 40:19

And and you know not good, sometimes our life looks pretty different from, let’s say, the normalcy or like the average, if you will. You did raise a family and, you know, have business and stuff and yeah, no, we’re a little bit later in life, so we have more free time, flexibility, whatever. But I would say even in that, just having having the mindset, whatever the life is looking like, that you deserve and want to feel good, feel healthy, feel vital, feel alive, so like choosing that. You know there was times in your life where early on in your life, it led to a really critical health moment.

Samantha Pruitt: 40:54

Total dysfunction. It was a disaster. Yeah, it was pretty messy.

Polly Mertens: 40:59

And so you had to change that direct trajectory. Yeah, so getting up to that now, like I just want people to not have regrets later.

Samantha Pruitt: 41:10

I feel like you can build a hunger for it, and like we have a hunger for this now.

Samantha Pruitt: 41:16

right, it’s a part of our diet, if you will, a part of our nutritional strategy for building the best body condition in lives of our whatever’s possible for us, like you know, and so maybe the first couple are hard and you haven’t quite built the hunger to continue on the journey, doing challenging things, doing hard things.

Samantha Pruitt: 41:39

But at some point there is a shift and that shift will occur faster, easier if you will, if you surround yourself with other people doing the things, if you build a life around that. So if, if athletics are a thing and you want to be doing that, you need to be going to the right places, hanging out with the right people and living a particular lifestyle that this becomes a normal thing for us. When I was doing ultras for all those years right, and I’m still playing in the ultras I would hang out with all those crazy people and I was like I’m one of these guys, this is normal. Prior to that, I was a triathlete. Now I’m coming back into the triathlon world but when I went into ultras I was like, oh, I guess this is just what we do on the weekends.

Samantha Pruitt: 42:21

We run all these miles and then we sit around with our feet up and we drink a beer and then we do it again the next day and it became a normal thing, yeah, yeah. And then for our journey now and circling back to triathlon, for me that’s my current norm is like where are those playing? People playing, you know, if it’s you and art it’s you, saying I want to get up to art, I need to be playing with some art. People Like where’s my community? Where’s that culture? Where are those artists hanging, what are they doing? And and going to be part of that.

Polly Mertens: 42:58

And those, you know people, and those people with. A lot of the coaching we do is with those owners, entrepreneurs, the startup businesses or the solo, whether solopreneuring or the woman man is the head of it. We’re working with them and it’s like they need to be hanging out with their hawks. Yes, they need to find the hawks, because the people most likely in your company aren’t the hawks. No, you’re their leader.

Samantha Pruitt: 43:22

Exactly, those aren’t your, I mean, I’m sure they’re lovely, but that’s not where you hang out, so go find them.

Polly Mertens: 43:27

Got to find the mastermind, create it whatever, join something you know get into those circles and there’s lots out there but that’s not what we’re going to talk too much about with that, but yeah.

Samantha Pruitt: 43:37

So we’re really talking about increasing your capacity and getting yourself into a lifestyle where big growth moments are part of your path. You have one life, you have one body. We don’t know how long this is going to go. We hope for a very long time, right. But why go through the growing pains, the growth spurts? Why have the breakthroughs? Why leave the comfort zone? Why?

Polly Mertens: 44:07

You know it’s different for everyone. I think you know one of the things that I recognized when I was in my 30s and my aunt and uncle, who I love dearly, had you know they were very traditional raised five kids. She was a librarian, you know, he worked at, you know, kind of average job, whatever, saved all their money and raised, you know, love their kids, very family oriented. They weren’t lavish, they were very, you know, post-war era kind of conservative and they get towards the retirement and you know they didn’t not take care of themselves so they weren’t like broken down. But you know they have kids actually in various parts of the world now, ones in Israel, ones in Germany, washington DC, you know whatever and they like to travel.

Polly Mertens: 44:52

But at 65, they found their bodies, weren’t you know? They didn’t like sitting on planes for 10, 12 hours right, or all that travel. And so their horizon, their willingness to go see their kids, grandkids, shrunk down, and I remember my aunt the horizon to keep living their life shrunk down. Well, they still were like we’re going to live our life, but it’s not going to be what we thought it was In this capacity?

Polly Mertens: 45:16

Yeah, so you know they had taken, you know I remember they had taken a cruise to Alaska and really enjoyed that in their maybe early 60s or late 50s or something. And I was like, oh, this is how their life is going to look after retirement, Right, and it didn’t. It got, you know it got smaller At the house and you know they would drive down to see one of the grandkids, you know, like what they felt that they could support or felt comfortable to their bodies, and I was like wake up call, yeah, wake up call. And at the time I actually think that was about the same time the four hour work week came out and I read that book and it was like many retirements through life.

Polly Mertens: 45:53

Right so those became my guideposts. So the four hour work week retirements for life is like don’t save up all this money, work, work, work, you know, to your 65. Yeah. And then you have money to do stuff, becauseewind, okay, I have the next, you know, 30 years. I can do it differently. So I have personally taken that guidance and everybody gets their own guidance of you know. Some people it’s like, yeah, create a crushing business, sell it, then whatever, whatever their thing is. But mine was create more mini retirements throughout my life where work some or work and adventure together, nomadic, whatever, and so I’ve built this. That’s how my guideposts looked. That’s how my map quest looked of what I wanted to get.

Samantha Pruitt: 46:49

Mine was similar, but maybe even harsher in that my parents, so they immigrated to America with my brother and sister. I was born in the US and so I constantly watched and grew up in the struggle of chasing the American dream as an immigrant family and to watch what happened and I mean it was a rough go for most of the journey but to continue to see them striving in that way and holding on to those dreams or ideals, if you will, and not adapting sufficiently or course correcting at any point, until my mom got cancer when I was nine. She got cancer again when she was 60. When she was 60, my dad died of a heart attack at 62. My mom died of cancer at 67. So my experience was watching them in health crisis and financial crisis and turmoil and struggle and strife and then eventually to see them both die young.

Polly Mertens: 47:57

I was like that is a hell. No, All of that for that outcome.

Samantha Pruitt: 48:01

Right, and there was little awakenings along the way. But the final breaking point if you will was absolutely not. Everything can go to hell, if you will. I am not going to chase those dreams. Those dreams don’t belong to me. I won’t inherit those dreams.

Samantha Pruitt: 48:26

I will have a different life and just building that different life is what works for me, you know, and it isn’t about financial success and a lot of security and a lot of things and items and yada, yada. It is about experiencing this one epic life in this one freaking, amazing body that I have and the humans I can be with, the places I can go and the experiences I can have. That is my wealth, and if I die totally poor, I am fine with that, you know. So, rich, oh my gosh. And I get rich every day because of these experiences. Like you and I get to share and we get to share with lots and lots of people.

Samantha Pruitt: 49:02

I am becoming richer every moment because of those choices. You know, and I’m not saying I don’t need to feed myself and pay my bills. Okay, the basics have to be there, but there’s so much more available to us, yeah, yeah. So wake-up calls can come in whatever way, shape and form, but the biggest wake-up call usually comes in being aware and seeing something outside of your life that someone else might be experiencing and saying wow.

Polly Mertens: 49:33

And choosing. Am I going to follow that path or is that the Will?

Samantha Pruitt: 49:37

that be my story? Yeah, do I want that, or will I create my own?

Polly Mertens: 49:40

story and creating your own story is key in that right, because a lot of, you know, we don’t realize the asleepness and the, you know, hypnosis actually, that we allow ourselves as human souls in the very beginning of our journey and then we, you know, get indoctrinated into some social culture up to, you know, let’s say, early 20s or something, and then people get a little adrift, right, and then you pick up on that, let’s say the success ladder that society will then gladly hand you into to start, you know, climbing up this, because this is what it’s supposed to look like.

Polly Mertens: 50:13

And if we don’t realize, what is it our soul’s calling is? And that can include growing a business, it can include being amazing at your talent, your art, your career, your family, whatever, your athletics, whatever. But choose it that we start to coach, because they find themselves at the end of a journey or midstream during a journey and their bodies, their souls, their spirits get broken down because they’re not choosing and they’re just going through the motions they’ve got a ladder against a building they never even wanted to go up and they’re halfway on the ladder like damn, and they’re psychologically or physically or emotionally broken down.

Samantha Pruitt: 50:56

Yeah.

Polly Mertens: 50:57

And it’ll break down faster when it’s against your values. Fastest way to you know translate into health problems is going against who you know you should be, or you know what you’re up to in the world and settling, settling and we believe everyone at their core kind of knows if this is them or not, because all you have to do is have a little bit of awareness.

Samantha Pruitt: 51:20

Have Polly or Sam ask a few questions and next thing you know you’re like damn, you’re right and the cool thing is you can rebuild at any point. You can make the change, the pivot, that hard pivot, at any point.

Polly Mertens: 51:35

Reassess, re-pivot, because we’re humans.

Samantha Pruitt: 51:37

Yeah, we should wrap this thing up.

Polly Mertens: 51:39

Well, no, we have two more things I just want to say in race analogy. So I got this from Oprah years ago, so it is a running analogy or a race analogy. And she would say and this helped me in yesterday’s race is run your race, running your race. And if you haven’t run a race before, think of like, uh, what the story I heard her tell was to her, um, producers. You know. So Oprah had these various producers that helped her produce the show, if you will, and they were like oh, this, this, um fellow TV show, they’re doing this and these are the ratings they have. And she’s like guys, gals, we need to run our race Right.

Polly Mertens: 52:20

And so in a horse race, the horses line up in their own little shoot right, like you have your own little shoot, to start, like do your, this is your shoot, this is your race, whatever. And they put the little blinders on them and then it’s like go right, and the blinders? So they don’t. Oh, look left, look right. Like how, how’s the race horse next to me doing? You know, maybe there’s a horse out in front of me, I want to catch him or something, but but it’s meant to be run your own race. And in the especially for me, in the biking and the running part, swimming was just chaos, right, but in the biking and the running part it’s like oh, I’m being passed like oh shit, you know.

Polly Mertens: 53:00

And in the run I’m like okay, I’m kind of like here, you know, and it can make you want to get and get off, whatever all sorts of things, but it’s most when the evil twin shows up. Yeah, and it’s just running your own race, like that person trained, like they trained. That person is where they are, that person you know, and this holy moly, can you translate this to social media? Right, and this translates? So, run your race, living aligned with your values, like we were just talking. And then the second part of that is we spread this out into the world. Is let go of comparison.

Samantha Pruitt: 53:22

Let go, let go of comparison and there were times when I’m like oh, look how fast that one’s biking.

Polly Mertens: 53:29

Why can’t you know whatever? And it’s like, yeah, that I’m just not that person.

Samantha Pruitt: 53:33

I’ve coached hundreds and hundreds of athletes, all different levels. You know, virgin newbie can’t do anything, all the way up to Ironman ultra, and people also do these really insane comparisons to themselves. They’ll be like well, I used to be able to run a 5k in 27 minutes or whatever. And I’m like well, how old were you? 19. Okay, now you’re 58. Hmm, you know what I mean. Like what they have in there. I used to be a really good athlete. I used to do this. My body used to look like this when I put on a swimsuit. It used to perform like this when I would do a thing.

Polly Mertens: 54:11

I would say use that if it inspires you, not if it pulls you back. Yeah. So if it inspires you, not if it pulls you back, yeah. So if it inspires you to say I used to be able to do this and I think I still can, fantastic, that is a story worth stepping into and going. Let me see if I can still run a 5k in 27 minutes at 58.

Samantha Pruitt: 54:29

Well, you know, I’ve set a goal for myself. This year I turned 55. I did a full Ironman 13 years ago. I know my time time. I know my splits on the swim, bike run and all the transition shenanigans and I will pr, 13 years later, personal record at the full iron man distance. So I’m not saying you can’t get faster because that shit’s about to go down, but if you’re using that as a tool against yourself, against yourself versus yeah, it’s super dysfunctional right? So it’s absolutely correct what you’re saying.

Polly Mertens: 55:00

If it’s going to fuel you and inspire you, then use it If it takes the gas out of your gas tank or if it, you know, has you.

Samantha Pruitt: 55:08

You’re this unique person. You know you’re going through your own life in this one body that you got so many, many things happen along the way to this person called you, in this body, in this life, right, and so being able to adapt, be emotionally fit and being able to adapt to who you are today me, post menopausal, 55 year old female whatever with all my things, girl, female, whatever with all my things like is a deep level of self-knowing and compassion that I have for myself now, but also a deep knowing and what is possible I was just going to say what’s possible, because there’s so many technologies.

Polly Mertens: 55:51

You know, like you know so much more about nutrition. Everything you know, like all the things that you can actually rewind the clock in some ways, you know you can you know more about nutrition. Everything you know, like all the things that you can actually rewind the clock in some ways, you know you can. You know more. I mean a lot more has come out in 13 years about the coaching of that sport that you can tap into. Learned about this, learn about VO2 Mac whatever. You know how to swim, whatever and nutrition wise. So there is definitely a possibility and utilize that. And how can I do better 13 years later, standing on the shoulders of all that I learned? It’s when we go, oh, why can’t I do what I did back then? So avoid that.

Polly Mertens: 56:27

But, yeah, so the comparison definitely of people around you, all the things.

Samantha Pruitt: 56:32

How should we leave our audience today? What would be our call to action, or our one thing?

Polly Mertens: 56:40

audience today. What would be our call to action? Or our one thing I want to say you know what I, what I thought our one thing should be before we started, and I just, you know, oftentimes we invite people like we’d like to be an invitation to. You know, like, get up to these big growth things and you know, try hard things, whatever. And that’s one way of going about it. And I just think I want to flip that and say what will you regret if you don’t?

Polly Mertens: 57:04

You know, what will your 80 or 90 year old self look like? Feel like, how will the next years of your life go if you keep on doing what you’ve always done, or if you keep saying no to the things that you are afraid to or you could get up to, like how can you make those pounds of regret really weigh on you? So you take this one life that you’ve been given more seriously, more, more appreciated. You know like you have the opportunity of holding in your hands to do these things. Whatever your epic challenge may look like it could be little compared to some of the things that you do, but it’s still your epic shift, it’s that hard, pivot that you want to make. But if you don’t make it, you’re going to be living with those regrets.

Samantha Pruitt: 57:49

You know what my one liner to that is yeah, Never give up on your future self. Another way of saying it never give up on who you’re becoming. Never give up on who you’re becoming Ever.

Polly Mertens: 58:04

Yeah, we’re still becoming, until the day we die we’re becoming and you’ll appreciate that you, that you create, you know, like the looking back, you know, so that swim moment that I talked about being in that pool. She’s a badass. It was like such a gift for my future self to go. Thank you for doing these labs, because 89 year old self can’t be doing that much swimming you know.

Samantha Pruitt: 58:26

So congrats on your race.

Polly Mertens: 58:27

Thank you.

Samantha Pruitt: 58:28

Freaking epic. Thank you, yes.

Polly Mertens: 58:30

Yes, yes. So what do we want to help our dear listener remember right now.

Samantha Pruitt: 58:37

Well, I always want to say the same thing. I hope so. How your life feels is more important than how it looks.

Polly Mertens: 58:44

And I want to remind you every day is your opportunity to find your awesome. Get out there, guys. All right, Iron Woman, let’s celebrate Woo.