Ep #25: Get Your Brain in Shape with Brooke Castillo

Welcome to The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’re a woman who is midlife and plus sized and you want to start running but don’t know how, or if it’s even possible, you’re in the right place. Using proven strategies and real-life experience, certified running and life coach Jill Angie shares how you can learn to run in the body you have right now.

Hey rebels, you are listening to episode number 25 of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. I’m your host, Jill Angie, and we have another amazing interview today with none other but one of my own coaches and mentors, Brooke Castillo.

For those of you who don’t know Brooke, she is a master certified life coach, she’s the founder of The Life Coach School, which is where I trained, and she’s also the host of the wildly popular Life Coach School Podcast. She’s dedicated to helping people change their lives one thought at a time, and through this process, through her work in the world, she has impacted hundreds of thousands of people by doing what she does.

And many of the principles that I teach, for example, about managing your inner mean girl and learning to love your body are things that I learned directly from Brooke. She’s literally changed my life with her teachings, and I am so excited to share all of her knowledge with you today.

Now, real quick, before we get to the interview, I have something awesome for you. If you’re a fan of Enell bras, and you know I am, you can now get free shipping on all your online orders from their website if you use the code JILLSHIP at checkout. Use it at checkout and boom, free shipping on all your orders. There you go.

You can find all the Enell products at enell.com, and of course, for running, the one that I recommend the most is the Enell Sport. Now, without further ado, I am so excited to introduce you to Brooke Castillo.

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Jill: Hey everyone, I am super excited to bring you a very special guest this week. And this week I have one of my all-time favorite people, a woman who has – I credit her with changing my life in so many ways. She’s just completely magical and amazing, and her name is Brooke Castillo.

Brooke: Holy cow.

Jill: I know, right? I need to talk about how much I love you.

Brooke: What an intro. I love it. I’ll come any time.

Jill: Yeah, and so – she really – no joke, she has changed my life in so many ways and made me a much better person and I just – I felt like I needed to share her wisdom with you. So we are going to talk with Brooke Castillo today about all kinds of stuff. And for those of my listeners that don’t know the magic that is Brooke Castillo, Brooke, welcome, and could you give us a short summary of who you are, what you do, why you do it? Tell us everything.

Brooke: Yes. I’m thrilled to be here, thank you for such a nice intro. It’s so interesting whenever I hear people talk about any of my students or any of my clients that talk about, “Oh my gosh, my life’s so much better because of Brooke,” I always feel like it’s not because of me, right? It’s because you applied the tools that we have. And I know that sounds like I’m just trying to be humble. It’s really not. Like, I already think I’m amazing so we know that. This really is about like, having the magical tools, having the tools of understanding how our brain affects everything in our life, including our bodies and what we’re able to do with them and how we show up in the world. So that is really what I’m about. My work and the secret magic that I have is the self-coaching model, which we may or may not talk about today, but that really is – to summarize and what all my work is about is understanding that our thoughts create our reality, and our thoughts create our results in our lives. So any time I’m able to talk about that, introduce that concept to anyone and maybe some of your listeners don’t know about that yet, I am thrilled to do so.

Jill: We are so going to get all up in that today.

Brooke: Do it.

Jill: For sure. Because it really is magic. It’s like, one of those things, when you realize that’s the secret, like, that’s it. Like, that’s really the only tool you need. So my listeners spend a lot of time really working and focusing on their physical health between running and cross training, and you know, nutrition and so forth, like, always trying to be the most fit version of themselves that they can be. So they really get that concept of striving to get stronger and fitter, and I know that you have that very same philosophy towards mental health, or mental fitness, and I’d love for you to talk a little bit about what that means to you.

Brooke: Yeah, such a good question. And I – it’s hard for me to separate them out because I feel like all of the work that we do on our physical fitness requires so much mental fitness to be able to do it, right? Because there’s so much chatter going on in our brains, so much instant gratification our brain is constantly trying to talk us into. Like, for example, I would guess with your runners it’s like, “Doesn’t matter if you run today, doesn’t matter if you get your shoes on and get dressed and go out there. You’ll do it tomorrow.” Like, all that kind of talk will affect your physical health. So I feel like when you focus on your mental health, the physical health becomes much easier. But I think you can approach both of them in the same way, and it – we don’t usually think about our mental health in terms of reps and practice and building up our fitness level, but that really is how our mental health needs to be approached and treated. Because what happens is we start looking inside of our brains and I will say – I think this is actually kind of fascinating when I think about the work that you do, one of the things about running if you don’t have headphones in – I don’t run because I think it’s hard. You can coach me on that later.

Jill: We’ve had that conversation. It is hard.

Brooke: I walk very consistently all of the time, and one of the things that I notice when I’m walking is all of the brain dialogue and all of the sentences and all of the things that are streaming through my head. And so I really do feel like running is a great opportunity for you to get a peek into your mental health. And when you’re running, what are you noticing is going on in there? What are you noticing that you’re saying to yourself? What are you thinking about? What do you spend the majority of your time thinking about without supervision? It’s similar to the physical health in terms of what do you spend most of your time doing, right? Are you sitting on the couch all the time? Are you watching TV all the time? Is your brain constantly thinking negative thoughts about yourself? About what you’re capable of? About what’s possible for you about your body? Any of those things. So I think understanding where you are and where you’re starting is really important, and being compassionate about it, right? So I would think that it’s similar to being out of physical shape. It’s so easy to beat yourself up for that, to like, try and go out for a run and recognize that that’s never going to happen in day one, right? Don’t we have this idea?

We’re like, I’m going to go run for a mile. Like, there’s no way I could go out there and run for a mile. But just having a look at where you are physically, having what you’re capable of fitness wise with compassion is very similar to looking at your brain and a lot of my clients will start looking into their brain and seeing how negative their thinking is about themselves, about everything in their life, and they’ll just want to give up immediately. So I think in that way it’s really similar that it requires practice and repetition and consistency.

Jill: Yeah, I could not agree more. And one of the things that I know you do with your clients and I also do with my clients is you know, if you’re practicing thinking a new way that like, literally just say, I’m going to practice this a hundred times, to like, build up the muscle, that thought muscle of making that new way of thinking a habit because the first time you do it it feels kind of weird and awkward and you’re like, “No, that’s bullshit.” And just to kind of follow back to a point that you said about when you run without headphones, it’s so interesting because my – many of my runners run with headphones because if they don’t, their brain is like, when is this going to be over? This hurt, this is hard, I want to stop. And if they’re listening to music, they’re distracted from all that mind chatter, they don’t even realize it’s going on and I’m like, oh my gosh, because it’s kind of good to know when your brain isn’t distracted with music that it’s sitting there like, being kind of shitty and mean.

Brooke: I could totally understand that not wanting to go on a run because you don’t want to listen to your brain talk to you out loud. Like, I totally understand that, but here’s something that I want to offer that I think is super interesting is if you are just beginning to do anything, whether it’s running or doing thought work, or you know, riding a unicycle, whatever it is, if you are able to watch yourself from outside of yourself, that is a skill that you have to practice. Because so much of the time, we have all of this like, hate chatter going on in our brain and we think that that’s who we are, and when we’re able to kind of step out of that and watch ourselves run and watch ourselves think while we run, it’s so fascinating to notice like, wow, I really – you’re so slow, you can’t do this, this hurts too much, you’re never going to be capable, there’s no way you’ll ever be able to run a mile, or whatever it is. And if you can watch yourself have those thoughts with compassion, that changes everything.

And that sounds like it should be pretty easy to do, but it’s so challenging because we think – right? It’s like, we think we are our thinking. We think – for example, if you have a thought that says, I’ll never be able to run, I’m not a runner, running is hard, which is kind of my negative chatter that goes on in my brain about running, and I think about it a lot. Actually, the other day, a coyote ran out in front of my dog and my dog took off after it, and I was sprinting through the woods chasing my dog and screaming at the top of my lungs, which both take a lot of energy and a lot of focus. And what I realize is like, I really can run. And I can run really fast. And I’m actually in pretty good shape when my head isn’t in the way, right? Because I was totally focused on saving my dog’s life from impending doom and all of a sudden, I was like, wow, I’m way more capable than I allow myself to believe. And so I’m sure that’s true for so many of the people that you’re working with.

Jill: I think it is, and I think it’s that – and it goes right back to the mental fitness. You know, to change how your brain is thinking about yourself, to change that negative self-talk you have to be willing to be a little uncomfortable in the moment and listen to the self-talk and to get better as a runner, you have to be willing to be uncomfortable in the beginning because it’s way easier to sit on the couch. That is a circumstance. Not even my opinion. Like, it’s a medical fact. And so it’s that willingness to be uncomfortable and so I mean, actually kind of brings me to something that I’d love to discuss further. My take on that negative self-talk, sort of that mean voice in the head is I just call it the inner mean girl. And to me, that’s a way of sort of distancing yourself from the voice so that you can listen to it and just pretend it’s somebody talking to you instead of the voice in your head.

But you know, I think there are a lot of times when – so maybe the inner mean girl is saying, you’re too slow to be a real runner, you’ll never run a mile, or whatever, and we want to change that opinion. But it seems like getting to that belief of like, oh, you could run a mile, it’s just way too much – too much of a jump. And I mean, what do you suggest for people who are like, you can’t just tell me just to change my mind then believe that I can do it because I can’t do it now. So how do you bridge that gap?

Brooke: Yeah, I love this question. I think that a lot of times when you start observing yourself think, you’ll notice that you’re having a thought like, you’ll never be able to run a mile, for example. And one of the things that I like to do is question the thought without trying to change it, right? Like, oh, that’s not a good thought, I’m going to get a new one. It’s like, why are you thinking that? Do you know that that’s a choice? Why are you thinking that? And most of the time, we will come back and say, well, because of my past. I’ve never been able to run a mile before. There’s all this evidence as to why we’ve never been an athlete, I was never able to do it in school, whatever it is, the story that you have about it. And when you ask yourself, Okay, but what do I want? What do I want to do? Why am I living from my past and just repeating it?

I want to run a mile. And if you can change your thoughts from you’ll never be able to, which you believe, to I want to, which you can also believe, they’re both in your mind pretty equally true. Instead of trying to jump to I will run a mile, which your brain’s like, uh huh. And you can’t – you can pretend that you believe it but you don’t. But what you can think on purpose and deliberately is I want to run a mile, I want to run a mile. And you start living from your future and from your truest desires, and you stop living from the past, which is just on repeat on your mind when you’re not supervising your mind. And this is really important as – it’s kind of a sales technique that I have for all of you guys listening, to encourage you to do this. If you don’t supervise your mind, if you don’t pay attention to what you’re thinking, it just repeats. Like, it likes to be efficient, so it just is like, let’s just run that script that we’re been writing our whole life. Now, if you notice that that script is really negative, you’ll just keep creating those emotions and that effect in your life. But when you start supervising your brain, you can just change it just a little bit.

Okay, I know that we believe that I’m loathsome and awful and super fat and will never be able to run. You’re like – and don’t even try to argue with it. Just be like, yes, all that is true, and I want to change some of it, and I want to see what I can do. I want to see what I’m capable of, I want to see if my future can be different than my past. And I think that just gives you enough of a shift where you’re not going from, you know, oh my gosh, I’m so fat and ugly and I’m out of shape, to I am beautiful, you know, I can run, I’m a gazelle, which your brain is like, no, you’re not. You can just go from that space to I hate my body, to I have a body, and then go from there. So one of the easiest ways to kind of what we call, ladder, from one negative thought to a different thought is just to say what you want. And to give yourself permission to say it out loud. Whatever that is, whatever is true for you, say it out loud. Now, I don’t mean say it to anybody else. Saying it to yourself can conjure up enough criticism. Just say it to yourself for a minute until you can actually start believing it a little bit, then you might want to share it with somebody else.

Jill: I love that. And that’s almost like the concept of repetitions, right? Like, that practicing thinking that new way and then so when somebody’s practicing a new thought, they’re practicing like, kind of – I always say to my clients like, I just want you to install some new software in your brain. Like, let’s just make it a program that we’re running but sometimes you install it and then there’s a glitch and the old program starts running. You go back to version two when you want to be on version three. And then there’s this whole it’s not working because I still have these old negative thoughts. What’s your take on that?

Brooke: Yeah, so any time you have the thought you’re not going to be able to do it, you just go, yeah, but I really want to be able to do it. You’re not going to be able to do it. Yeah, but I really want to be able to do it. And the other thing is you have to keep supervising your mind and telling it what to think on purpose. One of the best things you can do, especially for runners is you go out and you choose to think something 10 times, 20 times, 100 times. That is the most powerful thing to do. if you go running and you’re like, I want to be able to run a mile, I want to be able to run a mile, I want to be able to run a mile, and you get just a cadence going with it, you just keep thinking it and thinking it and thinking it, you’ll notice maybe in the beginning – and I’ll share a story with you that really applies to how this affected me in my life on a different topic, but it’s exactly the same kind of brain management is I came up with this idea that I could make 100 million dollars. And when I first decided that this would be a possibility for me, my body literally like, rejected it.

It’s kind of like some of you that haven’t ever started running and you’re like, I could run a mile, but your body’s like error. Thought error. So I’m like, why – there are people that make 100 million dollars. Why not a life coach from Dallas? Why not? Right? And my brain’s like, reject, reject, the body tenses up against it. The more I talked about it, the more I said it, the more I repeated it, the more I said I want to make 100 million dollars in a year, I want to be an example of what is possible, I want to make – now my brain is very comfortable. It’s like, oh, here we go again with the 100 million dollars. And when we talk about it, I’m just really comfortable with it now. So I didn’t start with I will make 100 million dollars because it was just too much of a leap. But I want to, and it’s possible that I could is what I started with. And like you said, I just repeated it over and I talked aloud about it, I told everybody that I can. So if you are someone that has this impossible goal for yourself, let’s say it’s running a marathon, you just start saying, I want to run a marathon. I’m going to run a marathon someday. You say it like, 100 times, and then you start saying it to other people.

Well, I’m going to run a marathon. And you’ll notice yourself tensing up and your answer is but I’m going to run a marathon. And if you live from the future, if you live from that possibility – right now it’s an impossibility, but if you live from that possibility, you start identifying as someone who could actually do that thing. And it literally changes your brain. Not just like, metaphorically, but literally changes the neural pathways in your brain. So yes, repetition. But you have to believe it. You can’t just have an affirmation where you’re like, I’m beautiful, I’m beautiful, I’m beautiful, I’m beautiful. that will never work. Because what you’re really saying is I’m beautiful, no you’re not, I’m beautiful, no you’re not, I’m beautiful, no you’re not.

Jill: Right, and then it’s just like, additional pain and suffering. Not only are you thinking the negative thought then you’re arguing with yourself about it.

Brooke: Yes, that’s right.

Jill: So it’s so funny that the 100-million-dollar story because almost every single one of my clients that has run a marathon is literally that’s how it started is they’ll send me a text in the middle of the night – this has literally happened more than once. I save them. I get a text in the middle of the night that says, “I just woke up and thought of this crazy idea. What if I ran a marathon?” And then I’ll wake up in the morning and I’ll see it and I’ll be like, “Oh, you said it out loud so I’m afraid there’s nothing else to do but go and do it.” And then we go to work on okay, how do you start living like somebody who’s going to run a marathon.

Brooke: And I want to just say something to that because I love the work that you do. Like, a lot of people will think it doesn’t matter if I run a marathon, running a marathon isn’t a big deal, I don’t need to run a marathon to prove that I’m a runner, anything like that. But I just want to say that picking a goal like running a marathon, which is outrageously ridiculous, in my opinion, just like can I make 100 million dollars is, that’s why we do it, right? Because once you say, I could run – what is it, 26 freaking miles?

Jill: 26.2.

Brooke: 26 miles, your brain rejects it but then you start identifying that you can believe something that you don’t yet believe, and that skill and then executing on it isn’t about the marathon. It’s about you and that’s why it matters. Who cares about the marathon? What I care about is that you made that choice and you went and did that. And here’s the other thing about a marathon, and this is true, you guys, for any goal that you pick. You pick a goal that you know is going to hurt in the doing of it. And you do it anyway. That’s the magic because you know at the end that you will be proud of yourself. You will like, high five yourself, and no one can take that away from you. And I – let me tell you. If I had run a marathon, I would think about it all the time. No matter what happened, I’d be like, yeah, but I ran a marathon.

Jill: You just wear the race medal everywhere.

Brooke: I’d be like, yeah, but you know what I did? You’re like, yeah, I might have just gotten in a car wreck but I did run a marathon.

Jill: I mean, I kind of believe everyone should be that way about their accomplishments. Like, yeah, but did you know this about me? I ran a marathon.

Brooke: Yeah, I was willing to go through that discomfort for myself alone, right? For me and my relationship with myself I was willing to do that to – I love that feeling of being proud of myself and signing up for something super hard. We don’t sign up for a marathon because it’s easy. That’s what I love about it, right? Or even running a 5K. Anything – if you’re out of shape, like, any goal, we don’t sign up for goals like that because they’re easy. We sign up because they’re hard and who we have to become in order to achieve it. So good. Love it.

Jill: It is good. And I think a lot of the time we sign up and we think – we either say, “Oh, I want to run a marathon because I’m going – it’s going to make me happy.” Or, “I want to lose weight because it’s going to make me happy.” Or whatever it is, “I want to earn 100 million dollars because it’s going to make me happy. And like, sure, you can be happy as fuck when you get there, like, that’s a given, right? But like, that’s not the reward, in my mind. It is that person that you become – you become the person who can like, set big goals, keep their commitment to themselves and do hard things. And like, apply that over and over again. Like, to me that’s the real reward. It’s not like, the happiness at the end because you can be happy in a million different ways. You don’t have to…

Brooke: Oh my god, and if you are trying to run a marathon – first of all, it doesn’t sound like it should go in the same sentence, but if you’re running a marathon in order to be happy – right? Because when we start associating with happy, we like – what would make you really happy is to just sit on the couch with Netflix. Why bother with the marathon? I could just be happy right here, right? We don’t do it for the happy and it’s not that pleasure happy that we get from eating an Oreo. It’s the genuine like, deep sense of pride that is that true sustainable happiness that doesn’t come from outside of ourselves. So worth it.

Jill: For sure. Alright, well now I kind of have a question for you because when we’re talking about like, setting these big goals and we know upfront like, I’m signing up for a marathon, it’s not going to be easy, there are going to be a lot of times along the way when I’m going to quit, or I’m going to want to quit. At the beginning you’re like, super motivated, the first month of training goes, and then you have that first 10-mile training run and you’re like, what is happening, right? And then the inner mean girl starts up, right? And so we have to start managing our brain. And so, what do you say to somebody who’s like, you know what, I changed my mind, I don’t want to do this anymore, it’s too hard, when in reality they kind of – I’m just going to give that to you and see what you have to say.

Brooke: Well, I think that’s life, right? There are people who listen to that voice and stop and quit, and there’s people who plan on that voice and are willing to go through the discomfort of it. I always say that discomfort is the currency to achieving our dreams. So this idea that you’re going to go on a 10-mile run, yeah, that’s going to be hard. And your brain’s going to want to quit and your brain’s going to tell you to go back and sit down and relax on the couch and that none of this is necessary. But if you know your brain is going to do that, that’s the key. You anticipate it. And it’s kind of like, that’s okay. And I have found in my own life, the thing that solves all of this the best is when I make a commitment, it’s not optional to quit. I just don’t give myself that option, and I will tell you that that – when is it okay to quit? Never. Unless you’re injured, right? Never. It takes away so much of the brain chatter because you stop the negotiation, you stop the justification, you stop the excuses. You’re just like, listen, this is hard as hell and we’re running 10 miles today, and that’s it. Or you give yourself whatever – how you’re going to handle it when you come up against that, you have a plan for it ahead of time. That’s what mental fitness is about is anticipating that physical pain – the physical pain of running is a bummer. I know this because I was chasing that coyote.

Jill: It does get better. It starts to feel good.

Brooke: But here’s the thing, what is way more painful than the physical pain is your brain commentary on it. Because I want you guys to think about this. You’re running, and let’s say you’re aching a little bit, you feel a little sore in the muscles, and that – if you think about what that feels like, it’s kind of bothersome. But then your brain’s like, oh my god, we’re probably going to die. This is awful, this is terrible. And then all of a sudden, you’re like, wow, like, I just went from zero to a million just over one little ache in my body. So I think paying attention to that, you’re like, yeah, and planning on what you want to think when your body starts aching. This is part of the process, this is going to hurt, we can handle hard things, we can handle a little bit of pain, we can handle our body adjusting and getting stronger. That was like my son, he worked out the other day and he’s like, “I genuinely can’t move my arms.” You did it right. He’s like, “Is it supposed to hurt this much?” I’m like, “Yes.” He’s like, “Oh, okay.” Like, nothing’s gone wrong here, this is what getting in shape feels like.

Jill: Well, I think that’s where a lot of the drama happens is when we have these thoughts that like, this is really hard, I want to quit, and we think that something is wrong with thinking that. Like, how about that’s just your brain operating as designed? Well done, brain. You can override it but it’s just – right? It’s following evolution.

Brooke: Well, and I mean, isn’t it interesting that like, we used to have to run away from things. We used to have to run towards things, right? So this brain chatter was irrelevant. We’re like, run or die. Right? This is what’s going to happen. So now, it’s like we have to recognize that there’s very few chances that we are forced into excellence. Like, we are probably not going to be excellent unless we make a decision to be so. And in order to make that decision, you’re going to have to come up against your brain telling you that everything should be going the other direction. It’s like – this is what I’m always saying to my students. It’s like, everything that got us here alive is now going to kill us if we keep listening to it because your brain’s constantly saying, “Go back in the cave, lay down, stay away from people, stay away from anything you don’t recognize, stay away from new stuff. Don’t run if you don’t have to.”

Jill: Yeah, right, because you don’t run if you have to conserve resources, right? If you have to hunt for you food, running is a luxury. It is not…

Brooke: Yes, go back in the cave, lay down. And we’re like, okay.

Jill: I know, right? Where’s the Netflix?

Brooke: Good idea.

Jill: So funny. So I just kind of had this sort of epiphany that your – the work that you do, the work that you teach is kind of like a personal trainer for your brain.

Brooke: Totally.

Jill: Or like, a running coach for your brain.

Brooke: Yes, totally.

Jill: So like, if you have a big goal, you’re just going to sit down and come up with a training plan that is going to take into account all of the obstacles that are going to come up and some of those might be mental obstacles. Many – actually, I think running is 80% mental and only like, 20% physical.

Brooke: I bet you’re right. I don’t know from personal experience, but I’ll tell you why I don’t run is because of a bunch of really negative chatter in my brain, right? And so I think that that’s about running, and I haven’t like, sat down and like, had a conversation with myself about that. But I think when you make a decision that you want to be a runner, and I love that you say this in your work too, like, in order to be a runner, the only thing you have to do is run. And nobody can tell you you can’t run. Like, nobody can tell you that you’re too big to run or that you’re not an athlete or that you don’t have the right outfit. And I love that. I just think that like, I am woman, I will run. And nobody can tell me otherwise. The only thing that’s going to tell you that you can’t do it is your own brain. And if you can overcome that, then everybody else is easy I think after that.

Jill: Yeah, because nobody else is in your head except for you.

Brooke: Right.

Jill: Right? So let’s just listen.

Brooke: You’re like, it’s a disaster in there.

Jill: I know it is. It’s like, open the closet door and you’re like, I can’t look at that, I’m going to close it. But it’s worth it to take everything out of the closet, unpack it.

Brooke: Well, and you know, one of the other reasons why it’s totally worth it is when other people are like, “Umm, you know you’re overweight, right? You’re going to go for a run?” Right? You’re like, listen, you’re going to have to get up a lot earlier in the morning to try and be mean to me because my brain is way meaner than you will ever be to me. And that’s totally how I feel. It’s like, people are like, “You’re never offended.” I’m like, “No one comes close to offending me because my own brain is so mean to my own self and always has been.” It’s so fascinating how our brains do that. Don’t spend any time trying to figure out why. I’ve spent enough time for all of us. There is no answer as to why.

Jill: It just is.

Brooke: It just is. Change your mind about it.

Jill: Right, and I think the sooner you accept that brains are mean, brains are kind of jerks and assholes. Like, just accept it and then you can move on, right? Like, you know, if you’re somebody who’s 5’10”, you don’t spend your whole life thinking, how can I be 5’4″? Or if you’re 5’4″, I guess you could just wear heels, which I do. But, right? There are things in life that we just accept and we just move on, and we don’t spend hours and hours obsessing over it and I think…

Brooke: Well, I mean, there are some people who are 5’10” that obsess about being shorter, but it’s a complete waste of time, right? That’s the thing. It’s like, your brain is going to give you a lot of negative things. That’s a C, right? That’s a circumstance. When I say the C, we’re talking about that but that’s a fact. What you do with those negative things, if you obey them and react to them and listen to them, that’s on you. Your brain doing it is not on you. But you reacting and listening and living your life by that, that is on you because you have a choice. Once you recognize that, you have a choice whether you’re going to listen to that voice or not.

Jill: That’s beautiful. And I think that’s – like, that is the key message is that we always have a choice in what we can – it’s literally the only choice that we have at all on the planet.

Brooke: That’s what we do have control over.

Jill: Yeah, it’s like, the one thing so let’s rock and roll with that.

Brooke: Totally, and like we said, like, you need to get in shape. You need to get your brain in shape, you need to give yourself time and be patient and be compassionate with yourself for all that negative thinking. There’s nothing wrong with you if you have a bunch of negative thinking at all. It just means you’re human. But you can change it. I think that – I remember when I had that epiphany, like, what? I can change what I think? That is amazing. Why didn’t anybody tell me that? It seems so obvious once you know. Wow, like, I can go on a run and not hate on myself the entire time. Maybe I’ll just hate on myself 50% of the time.

Jill: Yeah, right? It’s like, you can dial it in. You can say, alright, we’re just going to hate 20% less this time.

Brooke: Because sometimes I teach my students to do what I call a thought download, and I sometimes say this to myself. I’m like, alright, I’ll hear you out. What do you got? Tell me all the negative things. Tell me all the horrible things, all the things you’re afraid of, all the things you’re worried about, all the things you don’t like. I’ll hear you out and then we’re done. And I think that that’s powerful. And I think like, if you can go on a run and just let it all drain out of your brain and you come back, you feel better physically, mentally, it’s beautiful.

Jill: Yeah, for sure. Oh, I love that so much. Alright, and I think on that note, like, we’ve just covered it.

Brooke: We’ve covered everything.

Jill: So if you’ve been listening to this, you’re fixed. Go forth and…

Brooke: And if you’re not fixed, just turn this podcast on whenever you go for a run for like, the next 10 days. Just listen to us tell you all of this stuff. Because if you can learn this, if you can learn – everything else is easy, I’m telling you. This is the hardest part. And I do think – here’s the other thing. Let’s end on this. And just like managing your mind, you don’t do it once and then you’re fit. You have to keep going out for that run every single day, you have to keep managing your mind every single day. You never get to the point in running where you’re like, “I thought I was fit now, I could stop.” You have to keep running to stay fit, it’s the same with your brain.

Jill: Yeah, I mean, it’s like the perfect analogy for sure. And so you guys, I know a lot of you listen to my podcast while you’re running, and I just need you to know that Brooke’s podcast is what I listen to when I am running.

Brooke: Oh, good. So I do go running, y’all, see?

Jill: You do, you do. You do go running all the time. In fact, sometimes I like, have to stop and like, type out notes.

Brooke: That’s awesome.

Jill: I’ll be like, I got to stop running for a second because I got to get that truth bomb down. But for real, so I mean, Brooke’s podcast is just like, one truth bomb like this after another, and it will literally change your life. Or it will give you the tools to change your own life. Brooke, where can people get more of you? I mean, I mentioned the podcast but I’d love for you to kind of talk people through like, what’s the best way for them to do this work that you teach?

Brooke: Totally. So the podcast is on iTunes at The Life Coach School Podcast, and then you can also go to thelifecoachschool.com and learn more about my program called Self-Coaching Scholars if you want to check out that, and all the podcasts are there as well if you want to look at those. But yeah, that’s the best way to find me. I think I am on Instagram but not really on there. Don’t find me there. Find me on my podcast. That’s the…

Jill: Follow her on Instagram though because there are some really – I screenshot your Instagram posts all the time.

Brooke: Oh good.

Jill: I’ve got to tell you about this super cool app that I just found. It’s called Clips, I think. And so basically, I mean, you can do a million things with it but what I do is I take these little screenshots of Instagram memes that I think are awesome, you know, like, discomfort is the currency to growth, that kind of stuff, and then you can have them just play with music behind them. You can turn them into a little video. It’s so easy and so…

Brooke: Stop it.

Jill: I know. So like, when I work on like, the new belief system that I want to install in my brain for myself, I put it on these little memes and then I put it to like, Beyoncé or something in the background.

Brooke: Brilliant.

Jill: Like, watch it and read them kind of going through over and over again. So just – everyone…

Brooke: So my Instagram is what? @thelifecoachschool?

Jill: It is. I think it’s @thelifecoachschool, yeah.

Brooke: See, I knew that. And with that, this podcast has been brought to you by Clips.

Jill: I know, I should reach out to them. Get a little kickback on that. But yeah, thank you so much, Brooke. This has been – first of all, I’ve learned a lot, and every time I’m around you I learn a lot, but I am just like – I love like, so much of what we discussed today and I’m going to be implementing this with all of my clients immediately. So get ready all of you.

Brooke: Awesome. I love it, and I love you. Thank you so much for having me.

Jill: Thank you.

Hey rebels. Well, I hope you enjoyed my chat with Brooke, and if you want to get more of her magic, you can find all of it at www.thelifecoachschool.com. Don’t forget the. You can find links to the podcast – the amazing podcast that she has, lots of free resources, and even if you want to become a life coach as well, you can find out exactly how to do that at her website. And again, that is www.thelifecoachschool.com.

And of course, all of those links are at notyouraveragerunner.com/25 and you can just head on over there and click them if you want. I will talk to you next week, happy running, and we’ll be back to some really cool stuff exploring what it means to be a rebel runner. I’m going to teach you everything I know starting with episode 26. Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you liked what you heard and want more, head over to www.notyouraveragerunner.com to download your free one-week jumpstart plan and get started running today.