You'll Never Walk Again: Colin Owensby on Resilience, Loss and a Fulfilled Life

00:00 I folded over that seatbelt, which broke my spine and tore a lot of my organs. And I was stuck and it was panicked. And by the grace of God, an ambulance watched us go off the highway. The next thing I know, the firefighters are there. They broke the back window of the SUV. And now they said, can you climb out and get through here? And I said, I don't know. I think I can. And so I did. With a broken spine, torn abs, torn abdomen, organs, everything, just the adrenaline got me out of the vehicle. And as soon as I stepped onto the dirt, I tried to stand up and I couldn't. And I just fell.

00:46 Welcome to the Johnny Jensen Show, where modern dads discover how to create the true riches, relationships, and results they deserve. Get your high value man blueprint and join our community at highvalumanproject.com. Let's go. Welcome to the Johnny Jensen show. It's great to have you here once again. I am the founder and head coach of the High Value Man Project. Wherever you are listening or watching, it's brilliant to have you here. And if it's your first time, then how did you find us? Be sure, if you enjoy this episode, to share, to give it out to other men in your life who you think would benefit either from the conversation that we're about to have today with an amazing guy or indeed anything we talk about in terms of the high value man project and our system for living.

01:31 As always, if you go to highvalumanproject.com forward slash score, then that will get you, it takes like two and a half, three minutes to get a completely personalized insight into where you're leaking your focus and joy, your energy and drive inside your life and the steps you can take to fix that. So yes, it is a guest episode. And today my guest is a man who was told at 15 that he might never walk again. Fractured spine, internal organ damage, doctors giving his parents the kind of news no parent should have to hear. Four months later, he was walking. Six months later, he was competing. And three months after the accident, he stood at the worst moment of his life again.

02:08 This time, sadly, watching his brother die right in front of him. Most men would have stopped there, shut down, found a way to get through the emotions. But no, Colin Owensby went the other way. He became a professional model, working the runways in Milan for Ormani and Zegna. He worked as a body double in Hollywood. He finished an Ironman and 100-mile ultra-marathon. He coaches men. He says he did over 200 coach clients a week, which I'm definitely going to quiz him on there, right? But on his way back to racing a third Ironman this June. When I got the PR kind of email through, there were so many crossovers between me and Colin that I just had to get him on the show. Colin has also been working on something he calls the map of resilience, which I do now know a little bit about.

02:52 And I can't wait for you to hear that as well, because men do need to be more resilient or not more resilient. We just need to be resilient, right? That's, I think we're going to get into that. And also very cool and a bit weird because it crosses over perfectly almost with the Ezra conversation. If you listen to the last guest episode, Colin's in California. I'm in Kent. And this conversation has been one I've been looking to, looking forward to, because his story and mine have crossed over way more than I expected. Colin, welcome to the show. Johnny Jensen, thanks so much for having me, brother. I appreciate it. Yeah, I'm excited to be here. I know. Yes. I make those, not surprisingly in the world we live in today, I make those little intros with some help from my AI buddy, Claude.

03:32 There you go. The fact that yours is so long, and I should have maybe, as I'm reading it out, I'm thinking, maybe I should have trimmed this down a bit. But I do pay Claude to embellish a little bit. So it's nice there. Yeah. He's incredibly handsome. A really funny guy. Animals and children love him. Yeah. So, Colin, did I miss anything out when I was introducing you? Is there anything there that you'd like to say that I missed out? Oh my gosh. There's so many different chapters and variables that happened in my life that we are going to get into for sure. Like you mentioned, my teenage years, we had some sad moments and periods that happened mostly when I was 15 years old.

04:12 And after that, I just went on the most unconventional life path. And my LinkedIn bio is a little all over the place because of it. But yeah, no, I'm happy to dive into all of it. Yeah, thanks. And the reason why I believe your story is interesting to men who are watching this, right, is very much about this two things, really. One is resilience, getting over tragedy, getting over accidents, rebuilding your body. But also inside of that, then adaptability, because as your story is going to pan out, you've morphed and changed and

04:52 gone with the flow of your life and actually experienced wonderful things as a result of that. And I believe that's an important lesson for so. so many men because we're not, you know, life is not a single chapter. It's not one experience that we have to stick with no matter how, how it's going. Even if it's going well, you know, there's a case to be argued for changing things up, for really embracing that new chapter. I think you hit the nail on the head exactly with the adaptability. That's really what the resilience is. And there's a whole tool set of things that we use in our daily life. Whether we consider ourselves resilient or not, it's really,

05:33 that's the tool set. And you can adapt all of them and use one or all of them any day. And that's how we get to it. Well, listen, to jump right to the end of the story, right? Help guys sort of give an idea of who we're talking to. What is it that you do do now? And, you know, and what has you out on the kind of podcast guest trail right now? Yeah. So, I mean, I'm not selling anything, which is rare for people on the podcasts. Yeah, I just want to help people ultimately. That's what it is. And I think I'm on the journey of doing that. I didn't know that what my life has become was unique until people started telling me that it was unique.

06:17 And so, you know, people started asking me, how did you not turn to drugs and alcohol when these major life crises were happening? And I had to think about that. I didn't know what the answer was. I didn't know that it was unique. I thought everybody just kind of was living their life in their lane and that's what it was. And ultimately, I had some folks tell me it'd be really helpful, I think, to a lot of people if you could figure out what it was that got you to living a happy, fulfilled, curious, exciting life. And it's all decisions. It's all decisions. I wasn't given any of this. So, so yeah, I just, I want to talk to people about what no matter what you're going through, there are a lot of other people who have gone through that or are currently going through it, A.

07:04 And B, there's natural ways and kind of on the on the high level view, easy ways to get through them in a positive, functional, fulfilling way. You know, that's, that's, that's, that's all I'm trying to do. I, I was a coach, like you mentioned. I am a coach. I coach a fitness school, which is how I, how I reach so many people. That's how you can do 200 a week. I thought you're like Mother Teresa going around flipping, giving people, blessing people. Here's a coaching tip. Next. Here's a coaching tip. Next. Right. Yeah. No, I, I teach at a fitness studio and I've been doing that for the last decade part-time.

07:46 I just really love it. And so that's how I have so many, so many on the head count there. Okay, good. Good. Okay. Right. Yeah. Like a badge, like when you, well, flip it like an ultra marathon badge. Like, yeah, we're not worthy. I've done some triathlons, but never done. I just, I did, I've done a marathon as well. And when I finished the marathon, I nearly died. No, no, it's not true. That sounds dramatic. I felt like dying, right? When I've done a couple of, I've done about four or five half marathons. Each time I finished it, I thought, oh, that was really enjoyable. And I'm bloody glad I'm not about to start like the second half of that. So the idea was someone talks about Ironman and the idea that you would swim that far and then cycle that far and then get off the bike and go, I know what I want to do now.

08:27 I want to do a marathon. It sounds crazy when people say it. And I don't really know. So I did my first triathlon as a kid when I was seven years old. It was the Ironman. What sort of distance? Oh, it was sort of distance. It was sprint. Yeah, of course. I understand that, but still seven years old. What do they put you through? Yeah, it must have been like a 400-meter swim, maybe a five-mile bike ride and a one-mile run kind of thing as a kid. I did get a silver medal in my first one. So I was on the right track as a kid. And I had, you know, a little, I don't know if you have them over there, but we have Walmart bikes, like a little, it's like not a fancy bike.

09:05 I was what my parents could afford me. No clip-in pedals, no arrow bars, anything like that. It was just basically a plastic bike. But yeah, I had fun. Until finished second. Yeah. And yeah, my sport as a kid was swimming. I did swim. I was on a swim rec league, never crazy competitive until I got to college. I swam for college as well. So are you a tall? Are you tall? Are you like Phelps? Are you like, are you like? Yeah, I'm Bill Carol. Yeah, I don't know in centimeters, but I'm 6'3. So I'm kind of built like the average swimmer, the collegiate swimmer guy. Yeah. And at the time, I was way bigger shoulders and lats because, you know, as a sprinter, it's all muscles.

09:47 And as soon as I stopped competing, it just, I went, you know, down to a normal fighting weight. Check this out, right? I went for a health checkup this morning. You know, like they take your bloods and your pulse and all that sort of stuff, right? So she goes, Oh, now I'm going to, now I'm going to do your height. She goes, Oh, yes, you're six foot one. I tell you now, I'm not six foot one. And I had to have a whole conversation with her because my, because my brother is six foot one, right? And he's a bit taller than me. Yeah. My whole life, I'm like, I'm six and a bit. He's six, one. So she's going to me, you're six one. I'm like, I thought I was supposed to shrink. I thought I was supposed to shrink when I'm when I'm getting old, but no, apparently she was adamant. You're six, one. I was like, okay, I'll take it. I'll take it. Take it and ride with it. I like that. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, let's do this.

10:28 Let's unpack the whole story, right? Because, you know, it is, it is the story. You, your blurb says to me, you know, you got in a pretty horrific car accident at a young age. So, you know, how old were you and how bad was it? Yeah, I was 15 years old. We were on a, my, my mom, my brother, and I were in the car taking my brother to go look at universities. So we were driving up and down the coast of California, looking at, there's a ton of schools here. So we were looking at all of them. And at the end of the long weekend of doing that, we were driving north and my brother was driving and he

11:10 fell asleep while he was driving and the highway turned and we didn't and we went off of it. And what off the side? Yeah. And it was raised and I was awake, but I was reading something in the back seat. And all I remember hearing at that point was the wheels spinning when they went airborne and then and then trees, trees, trees, trees, branches hidden, you know, like it was just allowed. And so we ultimately came to a very quick stop and very disoriented. Everybody was awake, which was great. But my mom was in the front passenger seat, crying, screaming, making sure her babies are okay.

11:49 My brother was 16. I was 15 at the time. And they got out and I couldn't, I couldn't get my door open. It was wedged in the dirt. And I had, it felt like a baseball player had swung a bat full speed right about my mid-abdomen. So I was in a significant amount of pain. And I couldn't, I couldn't do anything. I couldn't move. I was wedged. My seat had sort of collapsed. If you're, I mean, people are listening, but I'm showing you my seat collapsed over my spine. My seatbelt was across kind of my belly button because I was a little bit slouched. I was a 15-year-old kid, slouched in the seat. And I folded over that seatbelt, which broke my spine and tore a lot of my organs.

12:32 And I was stuck and it was panicked. And by the grace of God, an ambulance watched us go off the highway. So they were on the scene immediately, called fire immediately. And they came down and tried, you know, helping my brother and my mom and try to figure out how to get me out of this car. And the next thing I know, the firefighters are there and they're, they had, they, they said, you know, there's, there's bits smoking and things like that. So we got to get you out of this vehicle in case we don't want to catch on fire. Yeah, yeah. And we were in an SUV and they said, cover your eyes. They broke the back window of the SUV.

13:14 And now they said, can you climb over the suitcases? Cause our luggage was in the back from the weekend. Can you climb out and get through here? And I said, I don't know. I think I can. And so I did. I, with a broken spine, torn abs, torn abdomen, organs, everything, just the adrenaline got me out of the vehicle. And as soon as I stepped onto the dirt, I tried to stand up and I couldn't. And I, and I just fell. And they, they, so, yeah. Who asked you to stand up? Right. Climbing out was enough. Thank you very much. Just standing up was done. I couldn't, I couldn't do it. So they, they put me on, they brought the backboard down the hill from the ambulance, tied me up to it and got me up the hill and

14:01 sort of were assessing my family on the side of the road and loading me in. And I, I, I mean, I'm 42 now. That was 15 years old and I can see it clear as day. It happened yesterday in my head. Yeah. And every single moment of that whole, I don't even know how long that actually was because I can just see second by second, you know. And they put me in the back of the ambulance and I woke up about five days later. They had put me in a medical coma, an induced coma, I suppose, just for pain management. Yeah, I know from our conversations, you know, you were heavily into sport and skiing and basketball and baseball, I think, was in there as well.

14:41 So your whole identity to a degree, especially as a 15-year-old lad, was probably around sport and being. being active. And absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I'm listening. We could talk all about hospital and pain, all that sort of stuff, but I always try and find actually the real story inside of all this. Like, what, what was it like having that side of your life as a teenager tipped upside down? Yeah. So I, like you said, I was a competitive athlete across lots of disciplines. And if it was, as soon as one season ended, I was starting practice day one for the next season of the next sport. I was just, I loved it. I loved the team camaraderie of sports. I loved the physical exertion of sports.

15:22 I loved being outside and just playing, you know, and it was a connection point for my brother and I because we, you know, having, we were close in age, 20 months apart. And so every other year, we were in the same age range. So we, we, we had, we had, uh, we, we were on the same teams and did the same sports. And he was much bigger than me. Like he was just an absolute muscle stud always. And so we always joked it was like Shaq and Kobe for the basketball reference and he was the shaq. And if he wanted to back me up to, to, to, to do a layup, I had no chance. I could not ever guard him.

16:04 He was such a stud. And he was looking actually at the universities. He would, he was going to go on and play football in college as well. Soccer, American football, not soccer. And so when I was asking, so I come to in the hospital and I, you know, I had literally that the accident happened October 10th of that year, which was 19, 2019, 2019. And the Friday night before that, I was playing in a football game and I had like the best game of my life. What position are you? I was a wide receiver. Right. I was a wide receiver. Running, catching, taking the glory. Yeah, of course you were. The pin up guy catching the ball, scoring the touchdown.

16:48 It was so fun. And I had the game of my life. And I asked, you know, if I, when I came to, and I obviously couldn't move anything, I asked the doctor, you know, am I going to be able to play sports again? And they said, definitely not football. Maybe swimming. Wow. You know, and they, they, they, they didn't want to give my hopes up at all because there was also a likelihood of me not walking again. Yes, they wanted to give you some optimism, some possibility. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I had a guy, I had a guy on the podcast, Mark Ormerod, Afghan veteran.

17:29 He got caught by a roadside explosive, basically died like in terms of like clinically dead. The helicopter came in, picked, picked him up. He woke up back in the UK with no legs, half an arm and one arm. So I'm not trying to say, oh, he was worse, right? I'm not trying to say that at all, but just to have your whole identity pulled away from you like that and then go, am I going to turn this into something or am I going to crumble and fall and never, you know, and basically let go of any possibility of

18:08 living my life of turning it into something. Yeah. It's not, we don't often get confronted by, or not all of us, in fact, probably only a small percentage of us really come face to face with that decision in its truest form. Can I come back from this? Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm glad that most people don't get have to face that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if that wasn't bad enough, sadly, your brother died not long after. Yeah. So I was in a body cast for the upper body. And this was in January of, so three months later after the car accident.

18:51 And I, we, we had gone to the neighborhood gym. Oh, in the car accident, he just broke a little bone in his foot and he had a little. Just to piss you off even more. Yeah. Not only was he stronger and more handsome, but nothing happened in the car crash that he broke a little tiny bone in the side of his foot. He was recovered in like two weeks. Cheers, bro. Love you. Yeah. Yeah. And a little scratch on his forehead, literally just a little scratch on the forehead. And that was. Anyway, so we were at the gym in the neighborhood and I was working on little things that the rehab sort of had given me to work on. And he was doing the same. And then he decided to go play a game of pickup basketball.

19:32 So I went in there and just sat down because he was playing against one of his best friends, which is also a close friend of mine and another kid from the gym. And they're playing 21, which is a game where everybody plays for themselves. And I was. sitting on the sideline and he went and made a layup and was running back, you know, back to the sort of the three-point arc and just went down like a tree. And at first, I thought he was joking. At first, I saw that. And I thought he was just messing around trying to be make a funny, weird joke. And then instantly saw, oh, this is a problem. And

20:10 that's another one of those moments that second by second, I see it. I mean, this was like I said, it was over 20, 25 years ago. And he went down and instantly I knew he was gone. Like it was, it also in that moment, in a very, very strange way, gave me almost immediate closure because I watched it happen. And so I called, I ran to the front to have them call 911. I called my mom immediately after. They raced over as so they loaded, they came to the gym, the ambulance did, the medics did, and they were giving him CPR to no avail.

20:51 And they loaded him onto Gurney, took him to the hospital. And my, my mom picked me up, followed, we followed the ambulance all the way to the hospital. They took him in. And my parents met us both. At the time, they were still together. They, but they were in different locations, met us at the hospital. And yeah, the doctors kept coming out saying, we're working on him. We're not having success. We're working on him. We're not having much success. And then ultimately, the doctor came out with the worst news that any parent or sibling could ever, you know, hear. And they asked me if I wanted to go back and see him. My parents said yes.

21:34 And I, I didn't, because I had already, you know, had my moment of closure at that time. And yeah, and then life, life got really crazy after that for my family. It was, if, if that car accident didn't test us enough, that one, that one sure did. Yeah. And so that's that was a, that, that was the hardest thing of my life, that moment. Yeah. And what's it taught you, or what can you share about the grieving process? Because some people really struggle to let go of the experience of someone close to them dying.

22:11 Right. Yeah. My mom died when I was nine. I'm a lay, I'm able to be a lot easier around the subject of death when I talk to people or they tell me that someone's passed. And of course, I'm sympathetic and you know, and I don't want to, you know, be inappropriate. But one of the lines I often sort of come out with is enjoy the memories. I have the same, don't, don't, don't focus on the grief, enjoy the memories because that's actually what they would want. Yeah, go on, please tell me what, what, what have you learned about grieving and being able to think about him without it, you know, always upsetting you?

22:53 For me, I think grieving is almost like an emotion and a fleeting thing that it's not a, it's not a, it's not a, it's not the end of the story. You don't, I, I would never live my life in grief, but it's like a memory. Sometimes things come in and you get choked up. And, and even to this day, you know, like we were just talking and get choked up and give it some honor and then go about your day. And, and it's, it's, uh, yeah, I think the long run, it, you just have to realize that those thoughts never end, but they don't have to be your whole identity at that from that point on.

23:38 Um, I think a lot of people stay in the grief because maybe they have guilt that keeps them there or some other emotion that keeps them there. But I choose to honor him and my family for giving him the life that he had. And for him, you know, he wasn't always the easiest older brother, but he gave me a lot of laughs. And we had, we, you know, a lot of he pushed me to my limits as an athlete. He made me be the best version of myself in anything I did. So, yeah, I mean, it, I, I, I got to honor that. And even on, on my last Ironman, this is, I'll go back a little bit.

24:23 So in a lot of interesting and meaningful moments in my life and my dad's life, um, bald eagles have been around. And this is not like an American pride story, but bald eagles have just been around. And, uh, and sort of, it's, it's been sort of a good omen. Um, for me and my and my father. And on my last Ironman, which was my second Ironman, on the bike ride, I was getting to a point where I was getting tired, exhausted, hurt. You know, things, 112-mile bike is, you got a lot of things going through. And also, there's no, there's no, there's no, you can't, you're not allowed to have headphones in, so you can't listen to music or anything.

25:03 So you're in your thoughts, you're in your head. And I was grinding at probably like mile 80, and I see two bald eagles off in the distance. And I, and I just, I mean, again, I'm getting choked up. It's just an omen, something that reminds you and a reminder for me to keep pushing because I knew I could. And something from the universe told me, you know, keep going and keep driving and do your best. Yeah. And yeah. You just beat me to the question. I was going to ask, do you ever feel like he's giving you a nudge? Do you ever feel his presence? And it's fine if people want to say no to that question, right? Because you don't, none of we don't all have to be spiritual. We don't all have to feel that there's another level, another domain, soul, spirit, whatever.

25:45 But you just answered it for me. You just said, yeah, to a degree, it's he's always there. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not often, but occasionally that pops up. And I, and I, and I just, it's like, sometimes it's warm and fuzzy. And sometimes it's, you know, it's, uh, it makes me a little choked up. And, but yeah, there's something there. There's something there for me. And for me, sometimes I find it really warming, like, almost like the hug. And I guess your brother might be different to your mom. And some people might go, oh, you're just looking for that, or you're just, it was a moment where you needed it.

26:25 So you could, you conjured it up. But speaking personally, for me, I, I don't believe that. I don't feel that. I, I, I, I do get a sense that she's looking out for me. And when things happen by coincidence, yes, there's a part of me and my energy and my presence that's creating that. And there's also those moments, almost like those near misses, where I kind of, I think to myself, oh, okay. Yeah, there's a reason that Laurie didn't just flipping white me out. Yeah. My mum in his in his ear going, go out the way. Don't run my son over kind of thing. Yeah. So listen, I thank you for sharing all that. And I, and I really appreciate how real, real you were.

27:06 Um, you just mentioned in in passing that before your mum and dad split up. So, you know, it sounds like I know the collateral damage of all that sort of swept across across the family. Yes. You know, everyone who's listened to the podcast knows my kind of experiences of being a kid in a divorce family and then being a divorcee myself and taking my kids through that process. What was blimey? How bad was it for you? Yeah. So my parents were always in my life and always positive support figures in my life in their own ways and always pushed my brother and I to do our best and excel in everything that we did.

27:50 And it's interesting. So they met when they were first and second year of university. And I think that ultimately prior to my brother passing, they had grown into very different people on with different life goals outside of just raising the kids. I think raising the kids was the unifier at that point. If I had to look, if I had to really dive in on it. And one of the kids obviously no longer needed raising. One of them still did for a little bit. I was 15. So my dad and my mom talked about separating amicably, actually.

28:30 Surprisingly, it wasn't, there wasn't these big blowout fights, or if there was, they kept it 100% away from me. I never saw any of that. Thank God. They, they just sort of realized that it wasn't going to be the till death do us part. Well, actually, now that I just said that out loud, maybe that's, wow, there was a death. Yeah. Yeah. But the day that I moved to college, my dad moved out. So I think he stayed till the kids were out, you know? Yeah, yeah. And what's your experience? If you were sharing your experience of that with a guy who's facing divorce or a guy who's thinking, I'm just going to hang on until the kids are done.

29:15 Like, is there anything you could say to a dad that might be hearing that? Obviously, you're not a dad, and I don't mean that in any kind of condescending way, but it's powerful for someone who's been through that experience to share it back with men who might be facing it or fearing what the impact is on children. What would you say to those men? So I actually had that. opportunity to say something to my dad when I was 16 after the big emotional cloud was sort of, you know, in the rearview mirror, but we're moving forward as individuals and as a family. And I knew at that age that he wasn't living his best life and living his dreams and being a fulfilled, a fulfilled man.

29:59 And I told him when we were, we were, yeah, I told him in the car, I saw him. I just at this moment, I just felt, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to tell him how I feel. And I said, I know that you're not happy in this marriage. And I want you to know that you don't have to stay in it for me, if that's the reason at 16. So he stayed another year after that. I just knew. I just knew. And I wanted him to be happy. And it obviously that broke my mom's heart. I didn't tell her that. And she might actually, I don't think I ever told her that. So she might hear it now. But I, yeah, if you're staying here for me, don't, you know.

30:42 And as a 16-year-old kid, I was aware enough that I wanted my dad to be happy. I wanted my dad to feel whatever that was. I didn't know what it looked like for him, but I knew it wasn't where he was at. And so I think, I think at a certain age, your kid is maybe wiser than you think they might be. Oh my gosh, totally. And that can be really as well. Yeah. Completely, completely, not in any way as significant a moment, but I bought, we were always iPhone users, right? And one Christmas, and I was like, right, okay, we're going to move to Android. It's the devices are cheaper. We're all in the Google flipping docs and photos and all that sort of stuff.

31:26 So I did the research, got the Android, the, you know, Google Pixels, gave the kids one, myself, one, like the second hand wasn't brand new. And I spent about three months trying to move our whole iPhone life into an Android life, right? It was awful. And then one day, my daughter goes to me, she's about six, right? She goes, Daddy, no, she wasn't six. I didn't give, I did not give my child a six-year-old child on my mobile phone much. She'd have been more about nine. Okay, right. She goes, Daddy, I just don't think it's worth it. Boom. Like, nailed me. Like she, like what I'd been wrestling with for flipping three months, let alone the preamble into making the decision.

32:06 You've got the wisdom of a child, especially a girl, right? You say, flipping, no, you know, daddy, I just don't think it's worth it. It's just like, okay, that's it. We're going back to iPhones. So, and kids know, kids, kids do know. Also, you had been through so many experiences, pushed you to the edge of yourself emotionally. Do you think you became more emotionally aware, more emotionally mature because of the accident and the and the and your brother dying? That's an interesting question. I think that I always was emotionally aware. And maybe that's a younger brother thing. Maybe, maybe that, you know, I was, I watched family dynamics from different relationships and different points.

32:47 And, you know, my, I never knew what version of my brother was going to walk in the door. He was going to be, you know, mad from something from school or whatever. So I kind of was always reading faces and emotions and things like that. I think I knew. But I think absolutely after all those things happened, I became more aware of feelings and watching my parents grieve. I watched my parents grieve over and over and over again at 15. And ultimately, I just wanted everybody to feel good. You know, I think that's at the end of the day. I mean, as a kid, there's, you feel good or you feel bad. You know, and it's, I want them to feel good. You know, that is, that's a powerful, particularly parents wrestling with the idea of are they going to break up or not.

33:32 Kids do just know. I just want actually, I just, what would be really cool is if my parents were happy, because then I'll be happy. That's all, all I want. So one final question on this sort of section. Do you, do you, did you get a better version of your dad as a result of the breakup? Did you feel absolutely? I can cut you off there. Absolutely. I did. Yeah. He's remarried and happy and living his life now. And yeah, he, he, uh, he, he blossomed into a new person. Brilliant. Really, really, really cool to see. And then on the other side, my mom, my mom grieved and mourned a lot longer than all of us did.

34:15 And she, she took a lot longer to sort of get back into her step. Probably a good, I mean, probably a good decade, honestly, before she, before she started sort of blossoming into, into. her own life again. I think she was, not, I think, I know she was, she, she was derailed by. How old was she? My mom is 70 now. So minus, yeah, she was 49, 48. So, I mean, this is an important topic, which comes up increasingly in my work, in my conversations with men. She would have been right in perimenopause, menopause stage.

34:54 So she's had the accident, she's had the death, she's got the divorce, and she's perimenopausal, menopausal. I mean, so she's really going through the ringer big time. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And it's somehow, she still has been one of the biggest supporters and cheerleaders in my corner. Every single, I mean, I talk to her almost every day still. We have a very tight relationship. She's always still been there for me, even when she was going through the worst of the worst. You know, cheering me on at swim meets when she was obviously missing my brother and cheering me.

35:33 You know, now I, so my day job now is I do real estate and she's, you know, how's it going? You know, and she's, she congratulates me, gives me a big woohoo text if things, if I get a good sale and, you know, things like that. I'm 42. You know, you think like, I don't need my mom, but she's still every day in my corner. And I'm really grateful and blessed that I get to have her there for me. I know, I realize that it's unique and it's a blessing. And I'm really grateful. Well, it's shaping you to be the dad that you want to be, right? And that's the wonderful thing about having powerful role models as parents is it becomes the blueprint of something we're going to add to.

36:17 Now, other parents will have a shit childhood and their version is, I'm not going to put my kids through that. So their motivation becomes to do the exact opposite so that another child comes into the world and has a better experience than they did. Now, it's an interesting conversation to discuss which is more powerful, but in an ideal world, we are evolving. We're building upon a positive, a positive blueprint. And she has blessed you with that. It's good. Yeah. They both have. It's almost like that book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, in a sense, where I don't want to put them in that sense, but it's two different, completely different types of mentors in my life. So yeah, you can really pick and choose. Okay, I really like this quality over here. I really like this quality over here.

37:02 I don't really like this anxiety piece over here. I don't really like this piece over here. And you sort of build that, you know, if you're lucky enough, you can build that good blend of the two. Yeah. And that's an important message for me to couples is you mustn't lose sight of who you are. Like it happens both ways. You can, it's not, it doesn't matter who's given up more, right? But either way, when you see couples that are struggling, one or both of them has stopped being their true self. And not only are they going to struggle and enjoying life, but they're going to struggle to show up for their kids how they want to.

37:43 And quite often when a breakup happens, that parent does get to thrive without the pressure or the, you know, conforming to how the other person wants to parent. You get to like just be 100% mom. The mom I want to be for my kids or 100% dad, the dad I want to be for my kids without her in my ear telling me what I can and can't do. My ex and I always, you know, we've got completely different outlooks on what time kids have to be home and what they should be up to and stuff like that. That's fine. She can be that way. I don't need to go to war with her about it. I'm not going to change how I feel about it. And then obviously my kids are like, whoa, I'm going to stay at dad's because he lets me stay out later. It is what it is, right? But listen, there's so much more to the story that I want to want to get into.

38:28 In particular, Ashton Kutcher, but not because that's the best bit, but just I loved Two and a Hold Men, right? It's definitely a unique little chapter in my life for sure. So we'll get to it. We'll get to it. So you get back on your feet. You're back playing sport. You're at college. And where does the modeling kind of experience and Europe and catwalks and how does that all show up? That's where it gets a little unique. Yeah. So I had been told by a couple of people that I should get into modeling, which my uncle did. My uncle was a model in the 80s and 90s. Oh, okay. And he actually talked my parents out of it. Don't let Colin do it. What are we talking? We're talking billboards or catalogs, TV or yeah, all of it.

39:13 He was doing all that. And then, so my first job was for a department store in San Francisco and it paid me $1,500 for the day as a. 18-year-old kid, I was like, oh, this is it. This is great. Yeah. I'll do this every day of my life. What about the casting, though? Because my brother got scouted or spotted in Harrods. If anyone's English, British, he got scouted. His booker was Davina McCall, who's now like a celebrity and TV host and everything. But at the time, she worked for a modeling agency and she was his booker. He got spotted

39:53 in Harrods, actually. But two things. He didn't really like it that much. And more to the point, his girlfriend really didn't like it. So he did it for about for about two years. But what, what, what, so how old were you when it started? Yeah. So I was, let me see. I was just about to turn 19. So I was 18 years old. Oh, okay. Yeah, you just said you're 18. Yeah. And how did it, like, how did it accelerate? Like, and did it, did it, and so two questions. How did it accelerate? And as it accelerated, did that almost force you to make life choices or did it create the opportunity to make life choices?

40:32 Yeah. So I will say the first couple of jobs that I got, I was still on the swim team. I was still at university. I was having an issue with one of my shoulders because with sprint swimming, you put a lot of strain on your joints. And I was getting really bad shoulder problem with one of my shoulders. And the trainer told me, you know, you can either finish out this season or you can use your shoulder for the rest of your life. And so I wasn't really, I wasn't going to the Olympics. So I tapped out of being a competitive swimmer. And pretty much immediately after that, went full-time into modeling. And my agent in San Francisco said, you know, we can get you as busy as you want to be.

41:14 There's plenty of, there's plenty of companies here and there's not a ton of guys. So we can, you know, if you want to do this, we can put you out. Basically, they do, they, let's, this, let's just say the gap, for example, or Banana Republic. They'll say, hey, we, we're looking for a guy who kind of fits this mold. And then all the agencies send all their guys that fit that mold. And then the company says, okay, we want to see these 20 guys in person because we want to see how they fit our clothes and we want to see what they, how they move in person. That's the casting process in general. So you show up, you fit the clothes. Did you enjoy it? Was it fun? It was fun. It was fun. I did have a good time with it because it wasn't, for me, it was like,

41:58 it was never something that I was trying to get into. It was never something that I like dreamed of one day. In my mind as a kid, or not a kid, but a college high school kid, I wanted to go to college. I wanted to start some business in Sacramento, California, where I grew up. And I was just going to be there. And this opportunity came up where it was like, hey, you get to go talk to these different people every day because every single set that you're on, it's different people and they're all creative. And some of them are like very, you know, extravagant and wild. And some of them are masters in their, most of them are masters in their in their fields. And that's how they got to the place they got to. So I'm learning about an entirely new line of life, I guess.

42:43 I don't know how there's a whole other, behind the curtain of marketing, I get to see all of it. I'm working with the designers. I'm sometimes I'm trying stuff on for the design team and they're saying, okay, we need to make this piece smaller over here or bigger over here or longer in this section or whatever. So you get to see how sometimes how clothes are made. You get to see how ads are made. You get to see how photography is done and how they make it look beautiful. I understood lighting at that point because you see like, okay, this is my key light over here. This is a fill light down here. I need to be in this direction so the picture looks better. So the clothes look better, blah, blah, blah.

43:19 So you were lean, is it fair to say you were really leaning into the process, not just being their like job, but actually being there with the experience? I thought learning the industry was so cool. I think learning any industry actually is so cool. Whether you're starting a new job, it's wild at first and then it gets, you kind of like, oh, here's the nuance of this. Oh, here's the nuance. Oh, this is how you make this thing unique or, you know, anyway. So yeah, I thought it was fascinating. I thought it was interesting. And I had this sort of like very wide-eyed perspective of how, you know, how it was all done and how it was all made. I didn't know that I would be doing it still at 42. That's for sure. But there's something about people.

44:02 There's an energy about people. In my work, I talk a lot about energy and not like in a woo-woo energy, but it's okay. How are you being? How are you showing up as? When there's just this dumb model there who's just behind the camera, or there's a guy who's really interested in the process and he's a pleasure to work with. with. That's a different energy. That's where people become interested in you and want and want you because you bring something extra. Is it not just another flipping pretty face that's turned that's turned up? Yeah. What kind of opportunities did? Sorry, yeah. I think that curiosity led into a lot of, and also I was really a person who would just say yes. Like, I'll figure it out. If somebody was like, hey, do you know how to do XYZ? Yep, I do.

44:45 And then I'll figure it out between now and the time I have to do it. And I think I had that confidence coming from sports as well, because I knew my abilities. And, you know, anyway. So, yeah, I, that led into, gosh, I think at 20, I was in a fashion show in San Francisco and an agent from Los Angeles saw me there and said, Hey, I think you should come down to LA. I think, I think you'd have a lot more success in Los Angeles. So I had never, ever, ever thought I was going to live in LA, but I did end up living down there for about 15 years. So I went down, I did like a little scouting trip on her behalf, that agent's behalf.

45:27 And she ended up becoming my runway agent in Los Angeles. Her name's Krista. She's a rock star. She discovered so many amazing models in Los Angeles. And I had immediate success there. I booked a bunch of things. One of the first campaigns I ever did was for a company called Seven Jeans. I was their first guy they ever had in any campaign back then. Prior to that, they only had females in or just jeans. So I ended up doing campaigns for all the denim companies. I did True Religion back. This is like, you know, in the early 2000s. So I'll say all the names as like Citizens of Humanity. I did Hudson Jeans.

46:04 I did all these brands. Anyway. And then the amount of success that I had in a short amount of time in Los Angeles, I had an agent from Milan see me and say, we want to bring you over to Italy. Absolutely. Let's go. I'm not tied to this city. So I'll, I'll, you know, I'll bring a duffel bag. Let's get over to Italy. And then I ended up walking for everybody over there, which was pretty cool. Yeah. And what sort of, what sort of pressures were you under? I mean, I'm sure there's lots of partying and lots of debauchery, you know. At that era of modeling in Milan, there absolutely was. Yeah. There absolutely was.

46:45 What was that? It was. Did you dive in or did you avoid it? Or what, you know, I always, I, I liked to do everything as far as meaning like I wanted to go see the DJ show. I wanted to go to the after party at this thing. I wanted to go and then be up early in the morning and go for a run. I would, so I never wanted to get hungover. I don't go, don't get me wrong. I drank and I partied, you know, but I didn't ever, it wasn't my, I never wanted to get drunk. I wanted to be at the event. Being at the event was the exciting thing for me. Being around the people and the funny people and the interesting things was the exciting thing for me.

47:27 Getting drunk never has been my goal ever. I don't ever, I've never ever, nobody's ever heard me say, hey, let's go get drunk. That's not, I mean, I don't, I don't want to do it. I don't like the way it makes me feel. I will have a drink occasionally, but it's not my, it's not my, my, my, my motive for sure. Yeah. And seeing some of the people around you who may have got pulled into some of those habits or distractions, what's someone who found it quite easy to abstain? What was it like seeing people who fell into it all? It's sad for me to see. I have a lot of friends that got very into cocaine, very into drinking, very into, I got, I had a friend who got very into heroin.

48:11 And it's, it's always been around and I just opted out, you know, and it's sad for me to see people not being the purest version of themselves. And it's interesting because I think a lot of people who do certain drugs think it makes them more themselves, but it's the contrary. It is such a mask. The drugs and the booze is such a mask. And it's never your purest light shining through ever. I think for me, because I was early 20s in the 90s, you know, it was, it was rave time, social media, house music, ecstasy, clubs.

48:51 You know, it was just flipping party. And thankfully for myself, it was always about having fun. I never felt peer pressure. I never felt a need to, I mean, I think I was a bit of a performer. I liked to be the center of attention, or if there was a podium to get on, I was the one that was going to flipping climb up there. But it, but I enjoyed it. It wasn't a. pressure. And there were times when I wasn't quite feeling it or I wasn't quite so confident. And I didn't do those things. I took myself out of it. And then two years later, a different job, a different city, new people. And I was like, oh, wow. Okay. And the ride started again. So again,

49:34 I don't have any massive wisdom there, but seeing people who are making those choices to fit in or to feel happy or to avoid feeling sad. Yeah, it's, I think people, there's a little systems check there that go, you just nailed it yourself, being your true self. Am I being my true self? Am I with people that align with my values? Am I enjoying what's going on around me? I'm probably in a good place if that's, if that's, if they're all yeses. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. That's one of my, one of the, I mean, we haven't even touched on it yet, but the, the pillars that I have in that toolbox is, is community, but also it's, it's with a caveat of positive, a positive community, people who are going to lift me up.

50:17 That's one of the things that I, that I value being around is people who are who I aspire to be or be like. Yeah. So then let's let's let's push towards that. Okay. So let's sort of zip a little bit through this through this next bit. So from from from catwalks to where you are today via Hollywood and being somebody's body double and being in and around movies and TV. And do you consider that an extension of the modeling or was that indeed another new chapter where you got to take yourself to the next level, discover new things about yourself? Yeah, it was definitely a next chapter. It was definitely a next chapter. So yeah,

51:01 you've sort of mentioned it and I danced around it a little bit. But yeah, for about five years, I was Ashton Kutcher's body double and photo double for a series of feature films and a bunch of TV commercials that he did with Nikon, as well as I was his stand-in for two and a half men at the beginning of his career on two and a half men. And it absolutely taught me so much about professionalism and being at the top of your game and how you handle all the different factors of life. And not just him, by the way. I mean, his co-stars on everything. And when I worked with him, I got to, one of the movies I did was, it was called Valentine's Day.

51:44 And there was every celebrity in that one. I mean, because Ashton was the number one on the call sheet, I got to work daily with all these big, huge actors and see how they work. See, before the director says action, I got to see what they're doing. At the time, I wasn't acting. At the time, I had just had modeling. I'd done some TV commercials prior to that, but I wasn't fully dived in at that point of being an actor. And I was just, again, wide-eyed. It's a new industry. It's a new world for me. I'm going to watch how all these people behave. And by the way, I'm sitting shotgun to all of them. I get to see

52:26 I'm right there. I get to, I get to, I mean, I watch the interactions between, you know, and then, you know, you hear a take, I hear a cut. Yeah, the director comes over. Here's how I think might work better for this scene or push them in a different direction. And I watch them process it and then go again. And it really taught me a new art form, a new career path. I never saw acting as a career until I was next to it. Yeah. And then I realized, oh, you can actually do this for a job. Yeah, yeah, this is fun. Like, you can, this is this much fun and get paid. And some of those people that you said are top of their game.

53:03 What did you notice about like, maybe within sort of within that group of people that were top of the game, there might have been people who were really nailing it versus just kind of like not. And it's a bit like Premier League football, soccer players or whatever, people at sports stars that are really topic. What did you see about the people that really excelled? What sets them apart? What have you noticed to those being around those kind of people? One of the most amazing things that I saw was their preparation in action. So they were so prepared and knew the ins and outs of everything that this character would do. That's step one. Step two is they knew their lighting. They knew their cues. They knew what would sound good on camera.

53:47 So they knew to have certain, I mean, timing and all of that. But the preparedness ultimately is the biggest lesson because if the director says no, take that a completely different way. That didn't land. They took it a completely different way. They were ready to go because they were prepared. They knew in and out. Hey, I can run this line 47 different ways because I know this character. character. And if that, if you know, and if the director says, no, we need it sad this time, here come the tears. We're going to say it sad, you know? And they, they just knew it. The preparedness, as I keep saying that same word, but that's, that was what it was. Yeah. Yeah. A real lesson, real lesson there for everybody listening to take that on.

54:29 I love that. Excellence. Not about you don't have to be the best, but can you bring excellence to what you're doing? Because that will set you apart from that's it. Yeah. And they truly were excellent. I mean, I was, I got to work across from, or, you know, side to side from Oscar winning actors, and they were excellent. They were excellent to watch. And you, I like, you kind of realize, okay, I see why they have the accolades because somebody off the street definitely couldn't just do that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So that was, it was, it was a very cool chapter. Yeah, brilliant. And, you know, what's what's been the trajectory since then? Where, where did, you know, that, where did,

55:10 where did you reach a point where it was like a question of maybe I need to settle down there? Maybe I need to get a serious job or was it was it, you know, what was how did you, how did you recognize that one chapter was closing, you know, and another one about to open? Well, so I kind of forced that chapter to end because I booked a part on a an indie film as a lead. And I, by the way, so prior to that, I told you I had never acted before. Once I worked on that first movie with him, I realized I wanted to learn more about this. So in addition to working with him simultaneously, I was taking acting school at night, trying to figure out what this craft was and trying to figure out if it's something that I might be able to do.

55:51 And I booked, you know, I've, I've been featured on a dozen television shows, little, little parts, and a bunch of TV commercials, which I still thankfully get to do. And it's, it's, it's like, like you said, though, I, I, I, I, so I booked this part in this in this movie and it signed it it collided on the calendar with with the uh job with mr kutcher and uh so i i said i was like at a crossroads do i do i do i lean more into me and believe in me and this this path or do i stay a sidekick in a sense to this this guy and and um i i had a just a straight up conversation with him i said hey man this has been an incredible ride but i i got this opportunity and i have to run with it uh

56:36 it was like ob like obi-wan giving his his his lightsaber to to luke skywalker yeah yeah yeah yeah so he said go run with it but um i gotta hire somebody else so you know so i went and ran with that for a decade about yeah i and i was doing um still modeling doing some tv shows uh doing commercials and things like that um and then when i when i met my wife i basically said you know i gotta get a job like a like a real a real job that's not like gig based and because with you know working in that profession it

57:12 is gig based some some some months it's it's feast and famine you know been in the lead right the lead yeah yeah yeah and what i mean you must have been around all sorts of women like hot women and and what was it well i don't i'm not expecting you to sort of and i know you like to keep things a little bit separate uh in regards to to you and her but what was it about her that stopped you in your tracks the very first date and i had never ever felt this way before but my very first date i knew i was having i knew i was talking with my wife and it felt like

57:48 it wasn't an interview like a date normally can be you know it it was like i was catching up with my childhood friend and it just felt good and we didn't want the date to stop so we we had our first it was actually during covid so everything was closed uh except all the in in los angeles they had all the restaurants basically out on the sidewalks because nobody could do inside restaurants so we went to a lunch place we went to a beach a very covet friendly activity and i said you want to get dinner because i'm i don't want to stop hanging out i want to keep i want to keep chatting with you and we did and we our first our first date lasted like nine hours and we and it was like you know i i respectfully i i'm gonna take you home and and i'll

58:28 uh we'll we'll hang out again in the next day or so because i i i this is this has been too great it's been too perfect um so i took her home dropped her off gave her a kiss on the cheek and i was very i was you know i wanted to be as respectful as possible because i knew i didn't want to blow anything with this i knew i knew she was the one i knew it just literally day one i knew it yeah because you can't tell them that on the first date because she might run about a thousand miles an hour in the other direction he wants to marry me i've only known him nine hours yeah yeah so i mean i knew knew it though. And so later down the road, she said she felt the exact same way.

59:09 She called her sister after that date and said, Hey, I think something different happened here, you know? Yeah. And so I'm interested in what you're doing here about resilience, right? I hope the magic of being able to go through that story. And thanks to everyone that's listening and watching still for sharing this experience with you, Colin. Thank you. What is it about the subject of resilience that you feel you need to bring to the world right now? What's missing? Why is it important? Yeah. So as a coach, and you probably see this all the time as well.

59:48 When people face adversity, they want to give up. And for me, that's not an option. I've always sort of had this, I always sort of had this personality, I guess is what you call it, that I want to see something through and I want to do my best at it, whatever it's going to be. Whatever I can give to it, I want to give it my best. And I mean, I have personal training clients that say, you know, I got to stop. It's too hot. I'm like, no, let's keep pushing. I know. Keep what you're talking about. No, keep it. You've only been in 10 minutes. Do it. Do it hot. Do it tired. Do it. Do it sore. Who cares? Just keep going. Why are you going to stop? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's the way my brain works.

1:00:29 Just like, yeah, that's how I did the 100-mile ultra marathon. It was not easy, but I just kept going. Just keep moving your feet. You'll get there. Yeah. Yeah. One of my other kind of mantras, like the lessons at the finish line. Yeah. That's whatever it takes. And if you really can't finish, then so be it. But, but trust me, the lesson is at the finish line. Yeah. I told my wife, I was like, hey, look, I'm not going to go break something. So just know if I, if, if, if, if I feel like my knee is breaking, I'm going to stop. I'm not going to, it's not worth that. I'm not winning money at this thing, or it's not going to change our life that way. You know what I mean? But, but if as long as I'm feeling that I can keep moving, I will keep moving, period.

1:01:13 Yeah. You know, and that's in everything, in career, in love, in everything. As long as I can keep going, I'm going to keep going. And that is resilience and being able to pivot when things hurt and being able to address a problem and figure out how we're going to move forward from that problem. And that comes from an athlete thing. It comes from a love thing. It comes from a career thing. If there's a problem, let's figure out how to solve it and keep going. And it comes from a grief. Like grieving, grieving teaches. People think that grieving is the end. It's horrible. It's like, how am I ever going to get over this? I heard recently, you know, I did read up on it, the chemical reactions that are that come with grief actually evolve us, evolve.

1:02:00 There's some neuroscience in there. It like teaches us. Trust me, you can get through this and you need to because you're probably going to have some tougher stuff coming down the line. That's why actually it's really important that we let our kids have a goldfish or a or a hamster, you know, like because they need to experience what loss feels like. So when they really lose something, they're okay with it. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. I never ever thought about that, but you're absolutely right. I mean, I always thought about that in sports, you know, be a be a be a gracious loser if you're going to lose and be a gracious winner if you're going to win. But I never thought about like, yeah, get them with the goldfish because they, you got to experience that. Yeah, yeah. Well, and on the sports front, the fat kid that came last or whatever reason they came last because you can't say that anymore, right?

1:02:45 But the fat kid that came last just beat every other kid that didn't enter. So don't worry about coming last. Just get yourself in the race. That's it. That's the important thing. Yeah. But but you're actually putting something together around this map of resilience. That's right. Yeah. So I, again, so I went back and I thought about, well, some I had a handful of people tell me, you know, you should really talk to people and figure out how to help people because people are going through hard things and you seemingly have a really positive outlook on everything. And I said, you know, I do have a positive outlook. I'm super, super positive about the future and I always have been. And somebody said, you should try to figure out what that is because I think that could help a lot of people.

1:03:29 And so I spent, you know, a couple of years trying to figure out what that is, what it is. And I realized that it came from tools that my parents raised me with without them maybe knowing that they were giving me tools like the goldfish, for example. The tools that they gave me, I was able to use in any time that I felt down or at a loss or not the best in my job, or maybe I wasn't having, you know, maybe I was going through a low point in a relationship. I can lean on these pillars, these tools. And if I'm doing at least one of these nine things every day, I'm having a great life.

1:04:09 And if I'm doing more than one a day, man, I'm living the dream, you know? It's and so these tools to me, and I can do a high-level overview and I can go. Yeah, please do. Yeah, share them with us. Absolutely. And the first six of them, I have them written down. The first six of them are because you're not going to remember nice. No, I know. I've got, I've got seven on the on this blueprint exercise I do with guys coming through the high value man system for living. I'm like, right, there's seven, like when we put the blueprint together, there's seven areas of life. And every time I go to say them, I'm like, okay, there's six. And I'm like, oh, did I say that one again? I'm like, oh, man. Yeah. I need to like make myself some cue cards.

1:04:46 I do know what I'm talking about. Trust me. Trust me. Yeah. So nine. Come on there. Yeah. The first six of them are things you can do 100% by yourself. And then the other three involve maybe other people as well. They're all free. I'm sure there's going to be some crossover here with my I'm sure there will because there's these things are the things that we should be doing. Absolutely. So number one, I start with gratitude and gratitude gets me through everything. It gets me through everything, including like a hard run. I'm grateful I get to move my legs because somebody told me that one day I might not be able to. And there's a lot of people that I've met who can't. So I'm grateful that I get to move my body today or I'm grateful that I have somebody who gives a shit about me.

1:05:29 I'm grateful that I have a positive outlook, whatever, whatever it is. Gratitude is the thing. And I can always find a lot of things because I've done it for years. There's things to be grateful for. Number two is healthy activities and that's food and exercise. So if I'm eating a healthy diet, I'm living a better life than if I'm not eating a healthy diet. If I'm exercising every day, I'm living a better life than if I'm not exercising every day. And I really believe that. And that can be as simple as push-ups and a run, or it can be a gym membership, or it can be training for an Ironman and everything in between. The third one I have is getting out in nature, whatever that means to you.

1:06:14 Get outside in nature. Go be outside. Being outside is great. And if you can, the further away from a city, you can get even better. You know, I grew up in a city that was surrounded by hills with mountains and forests and all kinds of things. So if ever I needed to, my family always went hiking and camping and skiing outside and things like that. And so for me, they just ingrained these, go be outside. Life's beautiful. I mean, this was also, thankfully, I grew up before cell phones because it was the activity. What are we going to do? I would say we're going to go ride our bikes to the river. We're going to go jump in the river, swim, whatever, come back, ride our bikes home.

1:06:54 That's the day. So being outside always gave me positive feelings. And it's something that's a tool that I use. If I'm ever feeling like, man, I've been inside all day. I feel kind of weird. I'm just going to go for a walk. Finding a creative outlet. And so for me, it started off with music, but then it turned into acting. Then it turned into writing. And it went back. I'm still doing music. I'm still doing acting. I'm still, but if I can, if I can practice a creative outlet every day, whether it's painting, any of the arts, anything that makes your brain feel creative, if you can touch creativity, it's a good day.

1:07:31 I think because you're using your imagination. And if you're using imagination, you can kind of forget about pain for a moment or you can dive in and make some good out of the pain. So creative outlet is for me, definitely a pillar. Education. So finding, not necessarily going to a university, but like finding something to learn about anything. So it can be an educational podcast. It can be learning how to do something on YouTube, you know, the University of YouTube, but learning something. Like learn, if you're learning something, you're expanding your world. And I think that's important. And it can also be free. Then I have intentional goal setting. So not something that like, hey, I'm going to breathe.

1:08:11 That's like not a goal. Like it's something that's like a little bit outside of my daily world that I can work at a little bit or a lot to achieve. So it's something that's got to be achievable, but goal setting. And that's going to be a daily, a weekly, a monthly, an annual thing, a lifetime thing. But I'm working towards goals. And if I ever feel like I'm having a shitty day, I can set a new goal and start working on that goal today. Yeah. So that's big for me. Colin, that is, I use, that is fulfillment. Yeah. You know, as creatures, fulfillment comes from knowing who we are and what we want and knowing we're actively moving towards it.

1:08:51 Absolutely. When we know we're actively moving towards the thing that we said we want. we wanted, that becomes our area of resilience. We're talking about it here, right? But we're able to be focused on that. Oh, yeah, of course, this isn't going to be easy all the time. This is like, I'll be like, but I know where I'm headed. Okay, good. Yeah. Then I'm willing to enjoy the journey. And it's the actually the fulfillment comes from enjoying the journey. It's not sitting in your ass and it's not like at the beginning or sitting on your ass at the end. The magic happens on the journey. It sure does. It absolutely does. And it also gives you an opportunity to pivot if something happens and you hey, for example, the other day I was on a bike ride.

1:09:29 Literally, I was, this was, this happened to me on Sunday. I was out for a very long bike ride because I'm about a month away from my next Ironman. And I, I was about five miles on this big loop that's like a 30-mile loop. I was about five miles from my car at the end of the loop. And I had just finished my last sip of water in my second water bottle on my bike. And I, I'm like coming to the end. I'm like, okay, I'm going to go back to my truck, fill up the water bottle and go for the next loop. And I turned this corner and all the police had this country road blocked off, which I've never seen before. And there's fire trucks. And I thought, oh no, somebody got hit. There was an accident. Thankfully, nothing happened like that.

1:10:12 There was an electric wire down across the road. And they said, you got to go back the way you came from. You can't cross this road. I'm out of water. It's hot. It's here in South Carolina. Yeah. And so I said, I so I started riding away and I was like, there's no way I can go ride an hour with no water in this heat. So I rode back to the fire truck and I said, hey, do you guys have a bottle of water I might be able to top off my bottles with? Like ask me a fire truck if there's water. Thankfully they did have water. So they topped me off and set me on my way. But it's like, you know, you got to pivot. You got to pivot sometimes. So yeah, getting out on that road, that journey to the finish line gives you a lot of opportunity to deal with the adversity, whether how big or small it is and keep going.

1:11:00 So yeah. Number eight. Those are, those are, those are the six that don't involve other people. Oh, that's the six, right? Okay, cool, cool, cool. Yeah. So then the other one started involving people. So the positive community, which I mentioned earlier, finding some community group that you can be involved with. If you don't have family, I like family as mine because I lean on them as for everything. But if you don't have family, that's okay. You can find community in lots of different ways. There's got to be somebody near you that you admire, that you like their lifestyle or their ability or something that you can learn from and go meet them and be part of their community.

1:11:41 Because people who are doing better than you in some skill or some phase of career or something want to help you. It's the people, the people that are successful want to help other people be successful. People that are not successful or not positive thinkers want to drag you down and don't want you to be successful. So I always seek for the people who are doing better than me to surround myself with. So I find coaches, I find mentors, I find even just friends. I think people, I can learn. I have a beautiful group of friends here that I've cultivated over 42 years that I'm really inspired by all the people that I hang out with. So it's something that takes work, but that is the first one that involves meeting people and doing things with people.

1:12:24 And I guess if there's people who are listening who have nobody within a 10-mile radius of them, somehow they live in the desert, you can find a community through maybe a podcast or through some sort of online club. There's got to be something out there for you. I really believe that the reality of it, yeah, loneliness. It's, you know, I can, I get quite challenging around the subject of loneliness because really the only answer is to get out there, to talk to people. And if you haven't spoken to anyone for a while, get in the habit of speaking to more people. Someone on the bus, someone in the store, someone on the street, someone on the beach. It doesn't take much to say, hey, that's an interesting bag, or that's an interesting way.

1:13:03 Like, oh, you're an Arsenal fan. I'm a Spurs fan, or you're like, whatever the right. You notice stuff, you know, but you have to take a moment to notice and then actually have the balls to say, hello. It does take a little bit of courage. It does take a little bit of courage, but it becomes second nature. And my wife maybe sometimes gets embarrassed by me because I will talk to anybody about anything on the podcast together. Exactly. Okay, so last two. Yeah. So then the next one comes is giving back and volunteering and helping folks that don't have what you have.

1:13:42 And whatever phase of life that you're in, there are people who are who need help more than you and you can help them out. so giving back um one of the examples that i do i recently gotten into an organization here that i i help with this group that pushes kids in wheelchairs in community 5k events because i don't need to run another community 5k for me i don't need another t-shirt yeah yeah but i damn sure want to help some kids who cannot walk be a part of that community and be a part of uplifted so i i give back and that's free for me to do like i do not have to pay money to do that giving back i don't want people to think giving money is giving back although it is but you can volunteer your your body and as skills that you have to help somebody else and

1:14:29 i think that's have you heard of the organization park run no i have not oh man right we won't i'll look it up we'll save it save it for for for for a wrap-up conversation right but park run started in the uk it's a free 5k run timed with flipping 16 year olds that can do it in like 18 minutes or less whatever and then granddad jones who's walking it at the back right and anybody else in between and it's called park run and now it's all around the world and people set them up in their communities so it's in a park it's 5k anyone can create

1:15:06 one and they got a whole pack for doing it and stuff but i dare say that that that's a there's a whole vehicle there for you to uh expand that um you know wheelchair 5k plan that's that's gorgeous love that yeah i think it's amazing and i'm glad that i found an opportunity that allowed me to do that in in the past prior to this group i i volunteered with an adaptive surf group in in california so it also kids who who can't walk and some adults they get that one's a little bit more challenging because you you're in the ocean and you're on you know surfboards and you're hold like literally holding people on surfboards and there's a whole team per

1:15:46 surfboard getting people to ride a wave um it kinds of adaptive sports uh organizations everywhere then i'm like i i 100 want to always be involved with that because i think it's so cool uh and then the last one is kind of a bonus one number nine and and and like you said you don't know where people are on the on a spiritual level but i think finding some kind of spirituality to get involved with um and it doesn't have to be one lane because i have put my toes in every type of spirituality it seems like and i still don't have one lane that i fit in but i do find that there's there's a lot of benefit that can come from that if if you want to go there the other eight will help your life immensely uh the spirituality the that that piece is is a beautiful one if if you choose to go there as well yeah yeah well and the amount that different faiths overlap yes

1:16:40 that for me and then and then if you look at the timeline of some of where how long these have been around for and you kind of for me i end up going you know what we can't all be wrong and by the way i'm not having it that x million of you think that x million of them are wrong and you're going to have a war about it right right i'm like is there two gods there's not two gods how could you dare say there's two gods okay is it possible they're the same god but you just kind of come at it from a different angle how dare you say that's like okay right okay well yeah go on then so the religiosity of it yeah takes me out of it but the spirituality core of all of them has me

1:17:20 enamored and i and i that's we're on the same page buddy totally yeah yeah and so i've done a lot of searching through a lot of different mediums there and and uh internationally even and um i still kind of like built my own path there was uh this bruce lee had this thing called jit kundo which was martial arts space but it was the way of no ways meaning learn everything and then whatever you need in that moment that's the tool you're going to use because you already know how to do all of it and i think the same thing applies to spirituality i think learn all of it learn as much as you can absorb everything and then whatever you need in that moment you know ride with that because that is the ultimate

1:18:00 like power you know is to be able to say i've got a faith that everything's working out for me i've got a faith that if i'm the best version of me then cool's going to happen around me yes you could have it that god's the epicenter if that's what you want to do that's fine i'm kind of like well what if i'm the epicenter i'm not the creator but what if i'm the epicenter of everything that's happened like the ripple effect is coming from me i was blessed with this body i was blessed with this opportunity in fact it's a sin for me not to honor that blessing so then everybody that i come into contact with maybe that's my mission maybe that's what i'm up to here so when i honor that that's

1:18:40 when i get to make the biggest difference absolutely that's that's kind of my spirituality in it in a nutshell basically. Absolutely. I agree with you. I think that's beautiful. Yeah. Nice. Thank you. And what is it as we kind of wrap this up? What is it that you would like people to take from not just the map of resilience, but your journey, your experience as a man? What do you want people to take from this time that we've spent together? Yeah, something, I mean, what I did soul searching, finding that list is me, but I think it applies to most people. But ultimately, like, if you just made a list in your phone of things that make you feel good

1:19:20 and then every day just do one thing on that list, you're living a good life and you don't need anybody else to make that life good. And people, if you are going through a hell of a time, other people are also and other people have gone through and you can learn from other folks and lean on other folks and come out the other side positive and happy and fulfilled. Like you mentioned, I think that's a perfect word is fulfillment. You can be fulfilled life no matter what's happening to you. And I think that's what I want people to take away from it is you can have a fulfilled life and lead a fulfilled life if you if you look at it a little bit.

1:20:03 Yeah. Through the good times and the bad times. Absolutely. That's because they're all part of one life. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, what an epic time together. Thank you, Colin. I know you said you haven't got anything to sell, but colinowensby.com is the website, right? And you're on Instagram. The Colin Owensby. I don't know why I put the word the in front of everything, but it's in front of everything. So the Colin Owensby on Instagram, TikTok, you know, the website, all of that. And Colin with one L. My parents did the one L Colin, not the 2L Colin. So yeah, thanks so much. I really appreciate this conversation. It's been great to get to know you as well.

1:20:44 Guys, thanks for listening. Thanks for being part of the Johnny Jensen show. Like I said at the beginning, if you got anything from this, and I sincerely hope you did, then be sure to subscribe to the show. And as that helps me, right? That's great. But that means you get the latest episode directly to you when it comes out. And probably more important than that, give this a share. Send it to other men in your life who would benefit from this conversation that Colin has so beautifully shared with us. Cheers, guys. I'll catch you next week. Thanks for tuning in to the Johnny Jensen show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with fellow dads.

1:21:24 Creating the life you deserve starts with you. Get your high value man blueprint and join our community of motivated modern dads at highvalumanproject.com. Let's go.