Surviving Tragedy and Embracing Ironman with Sebastien Bellin

In this episode, Charlie and Claire welcome Sebastien Bellin, a former professional basketball player recounts his journey from global traveller with his parents, to sports as a means of cultural immersion, to eventually becoming deeply invested in the sports industry. Sebastien shares the story of his near-fatal encounter with a bombing at Brussels airport, where he was severely injured and nearly lost both his legs.

Despite these challenges, he managed to maintain consciousness long enough to stay alive due to his high glucose levels from enjoying pasta carbonara the night before the tragedy. Post recovery, he set a seemingly unrealistic goal of competing in the Ironman race in Hawaii, which he was able to successfully achieve.

Throughout his story, Sebastien emphasises the importance of staying present and having a positive outlook on life. He also discusses the differences between fixing and healing oneself, and shares insights on the significance of quality vs quantity, and how focusing on immeasurable qualities can help one see no limits in life.

Highlights:

• Sebastien's Early Life and Basketball Career
• Transition from Sports to Business
• The Brussels Attack & The Power of Pasta Carbonara
• The Power of Presence and Overcoming Fear
• Setting the Goal: From Hospital Bed to Ironman
• The Journey to Ironman and Lessons Learned
• The Impact of Sports and Education

Contact Sebastien Bellin: LinkedIn | BBC Article

Sebastien Bellin is a former professional basketball player from Belgium who gained worldwide attention due to his harrowing experience during the 2016 Brussels bombings. He was at the Brussels Airport when the terrorist attacks occurred, and a widely circulated photograph showed him injured and lying on the floor of the airport. After the attacks, Sebastien Bellin underwent extensive medical treatment and rehabilitation. He has since become an inspirational figure, sharing his story of resilience and recovery, which includes completing the Ironman in Kona, Hawaii in 2022. Bellin's story serves as a testament to his determination and the support he received during his journey to recovery. In this episode Claire and I wanted to know how 3 portions of pasta saved his life, why did goal setting help his recovery and how did sport help him prepare for the biggest challenge of his life, staying alive.

Please Subscribe to Business of Endurance on Apple Podcasts, leave a comment, and give us a 5-Star review.

Sponsor Messages:
Get your free personalised plan to highlight any areas where improvements can be made in your business and inspire you with some new ideas with the Entrepreneurial Happiness Scoreboard from the Trusted Team here.

Get your free low carb snacks guide from 4th Discipline here.

Launch Your Own Podcast:

ShoRunner is the leading podcast production and strategic content company for brands, organisations, institutions, individuals, and entrepreneurs. Our team sets you up with the right strategy, equipment, training, guidance and content to ensure you sound amazing while speaking to your niche audience and networking with your perfect clients. Get in touch jason@shorunner.com

This episode was sponsored by The Trusted Team and 4th Discipline

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

I'm Charlie Meding and I'm Claire.

Speaker 2: 0:06

Fudge.

Speaker 1: 0:06

Welcome to the business of endures.

Speaker 3: 0:16

There's a little bit of wishful thinking, but at the same time I did know that everything in life is like a ladder, you know it's one step at a time and I've always had the ladder as an image in my mind. The importance is not to quantify the experience. The importance is to do everything possible for those experiences to exist in their learning development.

Speaker 1: 0:49

Sebastian Bellin is a former professional basketball player from Belgium who gained worldwide tension due to his harrowing experience during the 2016 Brussels bombings. He was at the Brussels airport when the terrorist attacks occurred and widely circulated photographs showed him injured, lying dying, on the floor, basically, of the airport. After the attacks, sebastian underwent extensive medical treatment and rehabilitation. He's since become an inspirational figure, sharing his story of resilience and recovery, which includes completing the Iron man in Kona, hawaii, in 2022. Bellin's story serves as a testament to his determination and the support he received during his journey to recovery. In this episode, claire and I wanted to know how three portions of pasta saved his life, why did goal setting help his recovery and how did sport help him prepare for the biggest challenge of his life, which was, of course, staying alive. So I know you are going to be truly inspired by this episode with Sebastian Bellin.

Speaker 1: 1:57

One of the things I took from this interview is that it's really important that we get a balance in our life correct. It's so easy to get two bogged down in business, in sport, in one thing or another, but not see the bigger picture. So if you wait till the end of this episode, I'm going to give you a free guide that will give you a much better idea as to how you can balance your life back. So welcome to the podcast, sebastian. Thank you so much for joining us, really looking forward to chatting. I always like to kick things off with the story, and you have an incredible story, but I actually want to start at the story before the incredible story, I think, which is more around your basketball career. So tell us a little bit about your basketball career and kind of what level did you get to within that sport?

Speaker 3: 2:51

Actually, my basketball career was never really it was all you know. I come from parents, so two Belgian parents and my dad traveled the world or worked for pharmaceutical companies, and so I was born in Brazil and lived in many different countries around the world, always working for these American companies, and sports at first was my calling card. It's not easy as a kid to change every three years, you know, to go from Brazil to Indianapolis to Philadelphia, to Denmark, to Italy. So sports became my way to introduce myself into new cultures and to new countries. So it was never.

Speaker 3: 3:30

I never had a mission to play professional sports. My real objective was always to, you know, connect with kids, to make friends, to make new friends, and that was the real purpose and the passion. I guess one thing led to another. And yeah, I remember moving to Belgium and going to the American school there, the Air National School of Brussels, and I was in eighth grade and obviously extremely tall, and just the buddies or the friends that I hung out with were like, dude, you got to play basketball, you know you have to start playing basketball and it's like sacrilegious if you're really tall and you don't play basketball and you go to American Air National School and so I said, okay, let me try.

Speaker 3: 4:14

I had never touched a basketball before the age of 13, eighth grade, and I just fell in love with the sport. And from there, yeah, I got a scholarship to play. I played on the junior national belching team, I got a scholarship to play basketball in the States and then, after four years of college basketball Division I I played 15 years professionally in Europe and that's my experience of sports. Before I became a job. It was really just about the passion and meeting and being able to adapt to new cultures and countries.

Speaker 1: 4:48

Brilliant. What do you think the highlight of your basketball?

Speaker 3: 4:52

career was the highlight of my basketball career, I'd say anytime you play for your country, you know, anytime you're the captain of your national team and you represent your country on a European stage and you get to lead them, let's say as captain, yeah, I think that's probably the highlight, I would say, of my basketball, of my professional career Brilliant.

Speaker 1: 5:17

And obviously the reason I became aware of you was reading your story around what happened in Brussels. So do you want to tell us that story? Because it was very much defined by one key day, wasn't it? One very sad, very dramatic day. So I'll let you tell the story for those people that don't know anything about you. But I think there's a. I just wanted to. I'm sure you will, but I know that, given the Claire's nutritionist, I wanted to weave in the three plates of carbonara a piece, because I think that's an important part of the story. But I'll let you tell us a little bit about what happened that day.

Speaker 3: 5:53

Yeah, well, I am. You know what, when I, when I retired from basketball, my wife told me it was time to get a real job and then I couldn't keep bouncing the basketball. You know, we had two kids at the time and even though it was a great career and very fortunate, I always knew that basketball was always going to be a stepping stone. You know, it's going to be a kind of an enzyme to make life easier post basketball, and when I retired, with two buddies, I was part of a founding group of a small company called Key Motion. It was the world's first automated video production system. So we could live-shoot a basketball game 100% automatically. No, no cameraman, no operator, and we had a third camera that we had created the concept and algorithm that every shock block resets. The third camera could detect and therefore tag the previous possession in an ad. So these were the days of before. Highlights were part of the media packages so we could create highlights unlimited. You know, as long as we had the cameras, any game that was in the arena, we could create highlights on the fly and we sold the company in less than three years. It was very successful.

Speaker 3: 7:03

It took off the idea, the team, and so I started going back and forth from our little offices in Louvain-en-Nove in Belgium. I started going back and forth to our new investor was in New York City, and so I spent a lot of time on airplanes, you know, between our US clients and our European clients. And the night before yeah, the night before, we had been in Paris all day and I get to the airport, I get to the train station that day, and that night, after being in Paris all day, and I go to dinner with some friends. You know, I get a call from my friend and at first I didn't want to go, I'm too tired. He calls me back like four times, begging me to go, and so we finally meet up at a little restaurant In uh in, except this is March 21st, this is a true story and I get to the, we get to the restaurant and I order my favorite dish of pasta carbonara. You know it's. I love the pasta carbonara there. And you know the owner comes out with the pasta carbonara dish and you know I'm so hungry I haven't eaten anything all day. But by the time he comes out with my friend and his wife's food, I've already finished and he looks at me and he says he says, listen, that wasn't enough. And I said, yeah, your quantity, you know, is horrible, your quality is amazing, but your quantity, the portions for a, a, six, nine, you know, two meters, five guys, absolutely horrendous. So he gets really offended and he goes into the back, you know, and you know, and he prepares me. Just he comes out a few minutes later with a double portion, huge, and I go back, you know, I finished the meal.

Speaker 3: 8:39

I go back that night to my house in in Brussels and the next day I go to the airport and I get blown up. You know, I was five yards, five meters away from the second bomb at Brussels airport and I lose practically both. I almost lose both my legs. My legs are shattered. By the time I get to the hospital, you know, I'm fighting for my life for an hour and a half just in complete chaos. And when I get to the hospital I need three blood transfusions just to stabilize me, just to bring me back to normal.

Speaker 3: 9:11

And the thing is in the subsequent days at the hospital, you know there's so much questions, unknowns. One of the things that was amazing was that I never passed out during that hour and a half at the airport. So while others were maybe panicking or, you know, yes, succumbing to their injuries, you know, 34 people died that day. I actually stayed aware the whole time and the surgeons, the doctors, had never, were never able to understand how a guy so tall, you know, with so much body mass index, could lose so much blood and yet never pass out. And they asked so many questions, they were so curious about that and finally they threw in the towel.

Speaker 3: 9:51

You know, I said listen, you're a freak of nature. You're lucky that your specimen, your physical specimen, kept you alive. And until I told them about the pasta carbonara the night before, two weeks later, and actually the chief surgeon came back and said you know, that's why you're alive. You're actually, your glycemic index was so high, you know, your glucose level were so high in your blood that you were able to sustain, you know, the dramatic blood loss of your of that day. So the moral of the story, like I always tell everyone, is, you know, never say no to her second or third portion of the pasta carbonara, you know, or your favorite dish. That's exactly. You know, the life changing experience that allowed me to survive, you know, is eating a crap load of pasta the night before.

Speaker 1: 10:39

They say life is too short for tonight or your food. But life would have been too short if you haven't enjoyed your food.

Speaker 2: 10:51

I just want to jump in here, because three portions of carbonara, that is quite a lot of carbohydrate. So I want to help you determine how much carbohydrate you need before training and also to help you restock your glycogen stores after training. So if you head to the show notes or for disciplinecom, you can download our 30 to 60 gram carbohydrate next guide.

Speaker 1: 11:21

Tell me a little bit about what happened, or the decision making around the minutes after the explosion, because I understand that actually you staying alone, alone and not passing out, was actually the difference between you staying alive and dying, wasn't it? So tell us a little bit about what happened there.

Speaker 3: 11:40

Yeah, I think in those moments you know it's definitely been a top level athletes, but also, like I always say, my childhood of adapting, you know, of constantly having to adapt to new environments and new circumstances. I kind of meshed those two together and I knew that I was in for the game of my life. You know, I knew that this was the championship game, this was the moment that it all had to come together and in those moments, I think, you know, looking back on it, it's what created this foundation of that, I kind of the ripples that I still float on today because I survived it. And it's very tricky because decision making is critical, you know. And what decisions do we make, whether it's in business or in life? How do we make good decisions? And decisions in this case was a wrong decision means death, a good decision means surviving, and so I really had to kind of keep my focus, and one of the focuses that I always tried, you know, I knew kind of can create a differentiator is being present, try to be the most present now.

Speaker 3: 12:51

And one of the things that takes us out of the present moment is fear and, like I always say, fear is a very big difference between danger. If you're not in danger, fear is an illusion. Okay, the only reality is danger. For example, a car coming at you full speed. That's dangerous. You got to move out of the way or you're going to get hit by a car. Fear is getting up in the morning thinking, oh shit, today I'm going to get hit by a car. So fear puts us either in the past or in the future. If we're not in danger, danger and the awareness of danger keeps us present. So if the mind is present, the mind becomes real, the reality. And the more focused you are in our reality, the more you will see opportunities or resources present. If you place the mind in the past or the future, yeah, you're going to miss out on the reality of the present moment. You're going to be living in illusions.

Speaker 3: 13:47

And so one of the things that kept me, you know very quickly, I created mantras in my mind. You say you know, for example, the dead woman beside me. You know she's a victor, she's dead. So she had not survived. I was in danger of dying, but I had survived, you know. So, in the present moment, I kept telling myself listen, you're strong enough to survive two bombs, you can do this and that reality check of saying, hey, I survived, you're still alive, you're not dead, you're bleeding to death, but you're present, you're present. It'll allow me very much to see. To be present, and the more present we are, the more yeah, we are, the more resources you stack on your side and the more observance you are to your environment because you're present. So you'll see opportunities.

Speaker 3: 14:34

And so, therefore, a scarf to my right became my tourniquet. You know, I saw a scarf. You know there was a at one point. If you look at the picture that went around the world, you see a little suitcase to my left. You know, I asked somebody to bring it over to me and I was able to somehow lift my legs. You know, I thought my legs were detached but I lifted my legs above, you know, to kind of diminish the flow of blood. I saw a baggage cart in the distance. I asked somebody to bring over the baggage cart because I knew that I had to be mobile.

Speaker 3: 15:07

Again, the idea of dragging a six nine, two meters five guy is not very enticing. However, pushing a six nine guy is a lot more appealing to people that are panicking or people that are trying to help. And so everything I needed to survive was right there. You know, I mean, I just had to be present and notice those things so that when I coach, when I, when I, when I speak, you know in keynotes, the exercises that are so important are what creates you to be able to be present. How do we stay present? And there are very simple method, kind of month or or practices that one can eliminate fear, because that's the one thing, I think, that people fear and therefore takes them out of the present moment. And, second of all, it's to be able to, yeah, to to stay very present by eliminating fear, but also by creating a constant, how I say, sustainable mindset that keeps us very present and high energetic.

Speaker 2: 16:09

How do you think being an athlete and having that athlete mindset helped you in that situation, or do you think it helped you in that situation? I?

Speaker 3: 16:16

think athletes are how do I say it? I wouldn't say we're more prone to be present, but you know, like I always say, you're only as good as your last game. You know, if you play on championship teams and you lose, yeah, you're losing. I mean there's in a society that has a hard time now being very blunt about things. You know, if I'm a champion and I lose, I'm a loser, I lost. So, on the other hand, if you know, if you win, you're a winner. You want. So if I practice like shits today I had a bad practice there's, no, there's. It's very hard to in sports to sugarcoat things. Right, it's all, yeah, but I was tired the night before and I had my kids were. Okay, who cares? Who cares? You know you still practice like that.

Speaker 3: 17:08

Part of being an athlete is being able to be present and in the moment that needed to surpass, you know you were before. You know. So be present, continue, and so I think being present is something that becomes very natural Now. You can prepare yourself to be more present, but it still comes down to being present, and I think that definitely helped is the mindset of listen. All that matters is now I've had a lot of you know incredible coaches and one of the coaches you know, greg Campy.

Speaker 3: 17:45

I played division one basketball in the United States and collegiate and one of the things he always used to say was just win the day, just win the day. You know what you did yesterday, what you did tomorrow. Look, you can prepare yourself to win the day, but at the end of the day you got to win today, win the day. And when you have that kind of mindset of just win the day just now, do everything you can to win the present moment, focus on the present moment and just win now. It really changes your life because it's like what I did yesterday, yesterday and if I win today, tomorrow is going to be a lot easier. So don't think about tomorrow, just win today. And I think so. To answer your question, claire, that was my. I think the big thing that helped me is I am constantly trying to stay Presently, trying to stay present. You know, whether it's an interview with you, whether it's whatever I do in life, I try to prepare for the present moment, but to be very present once it happens.

Speaker 1: 18:44

Awesome advice because I've often said you know it's either full or stress, or unless you're in current danger. It also almost always means that you're in the future or in the past, whereas if you're in the present, unless you're in current danger, it's very difficult to be. You know you're almost always happy in the present on you, so I think that's great advice. When you came, you know, after you got through your recovery, what sort of physically, what were the long term impact of the explosion for you that day and what. So explain a little bit about that, but then explain what made you look towards Iron man as a thing for the future.

Speaker 3: 19:23

So to set the scene a little bit, you have to understand that I was on a hospital bed for four months so I couldn't move. And when I say hospital bed I'm not saying like you can get up and go to the loo whenever you want. I mean, I'm talking about immobile, with your legs in external fixators, you know, in apparatuses. Like they couldn't operate on me for a week after the attacks because of how severe my injuries were. So before they could really operate on me they had to put me my left leg in an external fixator to kind of stabilize my leg. They had to do skin grafts on me to close the major wounds in my legs, you know. So even before we could kind of address the issues came completely different protocols to just be able to get to that point where they could start addressing things. That's how severe it was. And one of the things that when you've had open wounds it's very dangerous is dormant bacteria. There's dormant bacteria in the leg but you can't put metal into it, because if there's still dormant bacteria the bacteria gets on the metal. Yet it's a catastrophe. It spreads like wildfire and that's really where amputation will take place. So I was in a setting and I had to put my mindset in a positive you know positive energy and to try to stay positive in order to be able to continue this process. That I was very hopeful. You know people were telling me oh, you're gonna, you're gonna be in a wheelchair, you're gonna do this, that. So I said, okay, what's the opposite extreme of being on a hospital bed, you know, for months I'm not knowing your outcome? The opposite extreme is to one day do a triathlon, do one of the hardest endurance races there is. And so I literally got on, you know, the computer, on my phone, and I was just like looking up hardest endurance race and the Iron man in Hawaii came up, and so I said, all right, that's what I'll do one day.

Speaker 3: 21:14

And it was mainly when you add extremes, you find balance. You know, the sum of two extremes is balance, and I believe the happiest people in the world are the most balanced. You don't need the most, you don't need the least, just find balance. And when there's balance, energy flows a lot easier, a lot easier. And life is about energy, and to overcome what I had to overcome, you need a lot of good energy, a lot of good energy.

Speaker 3: 21:39

So I wanted to find balance and I wanted to find something to focus on, an objective to keep me from going nuts, you know, on that hospital bed. So, yes, to answer your question, that's how the Iron man came up. It was a little bit of a pipe dream, but one. It was something I focused on. You know the discipline, the humility to say look, it's a long ways to go, but that's my focus, that's my drive, that's my inspiration. And on top of that, yes, to create energy within me to be able to sustain, you know, 13 major surgeries under full anesthesia. I'm not talking about the little ones, you know, to restrain my aches or stuff like that. I'm talking about 13 metal in my, both my legs and my hip. You know it's, it was. It's a very long journey that I had to overcome, I think this is.

Speaker 1: 22:27

we've had a few people on the podcast that have done similar sorts of things, in the sense of they find themselves in a really difficult position and they set themselves the most. What's seen is absolutely ludicrous goal. I mean, when I set a goal to do with my first Iron man, it seemed like ludicrous goal but I had. I wasn't lying on a mobile on a hospital bed, so this just seems completely outlandish, and I'm a big one for setting goals that have you step outside your comfort zone because ultimately that's where the magic happens. But did you feel like when you set that goal, there was you were actually going to achieve it, or did you think I'm going to set something to kind of just motivate myself to get from here? Or did you actually think it was possible you were going to achieve it?

Speaker 3: 23:09

That's a really good question. It was a little bit of a pipe dream, like I said. You know, when I set that goal, I was a little bit like I don't know if I'll ever be able to do that, and there's a little bit of wishful thinking. But at the same time, I did know that everything in life is like a ladder, you know, it's one step at a time and I've always had the ladder as an image in my mind, and so the last step on that ladder was Kona, was the Iron man, okay, and I knew that there was going to be a lot of other steps before that.

Speaker 3: 23:40

But what I also know is that there's a big difference between fixing yourself and healing yourself. So fixing you know we live in a society that is, and it has amazing medical systems At least I experienced the best. You know surgeons, nutritionists, people who helped me, you know, incredibly fix myself, but the hardest is not to measure it. But fixing is not the hard part. The healing is the hard part, is the really hard part, and that's what my, that's what survivorship is to me.

Speaker 1: 24:14

Brilliant. I love the ladder analogy. I've often described it as it's like eating an elephant. You just got to do it one bite at a time, but the ladder, just one more step. And if you keep taking that one more step, it's amazing. How are you you can get to. So that's brilliant. Once you got to that start line in Kona, what was the biggest challenge for you? Getting from the start line to the finish line Because, by the way, claire and I were both in Kona that year. Claire was racing and I was there supporting, although we didn't know about your story, no, which would have been amazing to see. But what was the biggest challenge for you? To get through what is an unbelievably difficult race.

Speaker 3: 24:51

That's a really great question. So I started with, of course, a half marathon, a full marathon, a half Ironman, and I remember, first of all, it was really difficult to delays, you know, because Ironman at the time was postponed, you know, for a year and a half, and for me, I was supposed to do the Ironman with metal inside of me. So I don't feel anything anymore from my left, in my left leg, from the knee down. I've lost all feeling and I've lost the big part of my calf muscle, and so the idea was to keep the metal inside of me. So I, for five years, I had a metal plate holding my femur. To re re attaching my femur to my hip socket, there was a metal plate and a metal bar, and then I had it. My tibia was metal. They put a metal into my left tibia and after five years I had trained with all that metal, but they had to take it out. You know, it became, the body was starting to reject, like the screws were coming out. You know the body was, yeah, was fixing itself and it was rejecting this metal. It was no longer needed, so to speak. So we had to take.

Speaker 3: 26:00

I did a half Ironman in November of 2021, I think it was. I just felt horrible and I was like how am I going to do it? Already, I feel terrible and on top of that, I'm about to take all this metal out. How the heck am I going to take? How to do an Ironman, you know, full Ironman in Hawaii in those conditions and then so it was more. It was my body able to take it without the metal, without the support?

Speaker 3: 26:25

And, second of all, something I've really struggled with as well is, you know, I'm one of the lucky ones of March 22nd 2016. There's 34 people who died that day and a lot of amazing people put time and energy into making me walk again, helping me walk again, into fixing me, and so I didn't want to push my luck. I didn't want to continue training. I didn't want to continue on. Yeah, it's not easy running without feeling in your left leg, and so I didn't want to do permanent damage and be like you know all your dedication, all your hard work to fix me. Yeah, now, in five years or 10 years, I'm back in a wheelchair. I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to risk it.

Speaker 3: 27:10

So there was a period of two months after the last surgery in January of 2022, where I really hesitated, and then I got back to the drawing board. He's my coach, luke Van Lierder, and I said, okay, let's figure out a way where we can train with machines or with it won't put too much pressure on my hips or my legs. And we had to go back to the drawing board and you know, after the last surgery was January 7, 2022. And so he gave me about eight months until Kona, because I needed another month and a half to recuperate from the surgery, and then we started building up again, little by little, to Kona.

Speaker 3: 27:51

But it was fascinating. It was fascinating to be able to come up with different ideas, and that's again my. My passion is just do it differently, you know, find different ways to adapt, or that's what a handicap is right. A handicap is doesn't mean you can't do something, it just means it's going to be a little bit different. You know, someone who can hear, someone who's deaf can hear, but they just they hear differently than you and I, and so if you learn that skill sets of doing things differently, you grow, you know, you become even better.

Speaker 1: 28:21

I just was listening to an interview by a neurologist or an neurologist, and one of the pieces of research she quoted was they got people, three groups, one doing as they were doing, one doing a load of weight training that gained, let's call it, 20 grams of muscle.

Speaker 1: 28:39

And in a third group, who just had to sit at home but think about weight training and think about gaining muscle, they gained nearly as much muscle as the people that went to the gym. Absolutely, it's absolutely incredible, but a one hour of the mind it is. And I think there's a lot of research around the power of the placebo effect and I think you get to a whole episode on that. But the question I really want to ask you is, given the journey that you've been on and given that I mean, you guys were two of the final people to get Mike Riley the iconic Mike Riley saying you are an Iron man as you cross the line in Kona, because he retired after that particular race, didn't he? What thoughts were going through your mind? How did it feel? But what thoughts were you thinking as you cross the line and Mike Riley said you are an?

Speaker 3: 29:24

Iron man. First of all, my wife and one of my daughters were there. I often say there's what drives me in life is to create a quality mindset. There's a big difference between it's one. In my keynotes I talk about four pillars, and the last pillar is quantity versus quality, and most of us, unfortunately, have been educated or have been basking in an environment where quantity has become our focus and obsession. So how much money we make, what diplomas, grades, titles, labels, all of that, how many likes I have on social media, it's very hard for me to kind of pass this on because unless you've lived it, it's very hard to experience. Unless you've experienced it, it's very hard to fathom this. But I like money, I like quantity. But there's a difference between how do you create that and what is your focus in life.

Speaker 3: 30:23

Because we create a mindset that's focused on quantity, money, all those things we create limitations. Anything that's measurable, anything that's quantifiable in life is limited, it's finite, there's an end to it. We are teaching our minds to see limits, anything that is nonmeasurable. Qualitative empathy, long tolerance, discipline those are things you cannot measure and if you're constantly focusing on those things, your mind no longer sees any limitations. So when a challenge happens to you. People who have been trained to focus on quantity, they will immediately see the limits. Oh this, oh that excuses this, oh that they will see limitations. People who have seen, focused, have experienced creativity, imagination, love, all those things I talked about that you cannot measure. Their mind doesn't see limits. And it sounds crazy, but you know. So we're crossing the finish line.

Speaker 3: 31:24

Yeah, I'm a very humble person, but I no longer see limits. So the first thing I crossed was like I didn't see the end of something, I just started the start of what's next. You know, like my wife, my kid is there. You know the things I love the most in life. It was it's not the end of something, it's the start of something. And what's the next limitless challenge that I find in my life? And that's really what I felt. Now I was equipped with something, with a more, an even stronger conviction in quality, in this new found, you know, confidence that the more you focus on quality, the more you teach your mind not to see any limits and anything really becomes possible.

Speaker 1: 32:07

We've got these different parts of our mind, but it's not about letting the mind control you. It's about you realizing this is my mind playing games. It's creating fear that's not even real, so I think it's absolutely brilliant. One of the traditions we have on this podcast is to get the previous guest to ask the next guest a question without knowing who that guest will be. So our last guest was Sophie Power, who is an ultra runner, and I think Claire, have you got Sophie's question?

Speaker 2: 32:33

So Sophie asks how do you hope to make a positive impact on the world through sport?

Speaker 3: 32:39

Great question, beautiful question.

Speaker 3: 32:40

So my wife is a teacher, as I mentioned, and I believe that one of the reasons we moved back to the United States is because sports here is considered part of the curriculum and one of the ways that I think kids' benefits growing up is being able to follow their passion, is being able to create a mindset of the non-measurable.

Speaker 3: 33:06

So, whether a kid loves playing an instrument or acting, or drawing or playing sports, the importance is not to quantify the experience. The importance is to do everything possible for those experiences to exist in their learning development. Well, that's my dream to really create an environment through sports where kids can learn but, most of all, can create that limit-slip mind To say, hey, I love playing badminton, I love playing this, and it's not about the results, it's about creating, like I said, an environment where it's part of the curriculum. Hey, listen, that's part of growing up, it's part of growing to school, it's part of the education process. Do things that you love to do, because if the mind and the body are entombed with things that they love to do passion, creativity, that's how you create a limitless mind that prompts a thought actually it's a really good answer and I really like it.

Speaker 1: 34:13

In the UK we've got a trend in schools where they're kind of like at sports day there won't be winners and losers, there's no first places. It's kind of we just want everyone to compete. I can understand the pros and cons of that, because obviously you're trying to encourage the kid that wouldn't want to run in sports day to be involved, but equally, life is about people who have people winners and losers in different situations. What are your thoughts based on that?

Speaker 3: 34:38

what you just said. There is winner and losers in life, okay, but later in life it's at a formative years, it's even. There is winning and losing, but it's the self. At a young age, you're not competing against somebody else, You're competing against yourself. Teach people to compete against themselves at a young age. Okay, Are you getting better? Are you feeling happier? Are you feeling healthier? Are you feeling more energetic? Are you feeling more creative? Are you more social? Do you like speaking in front of your team more?

Speaker 3: 35:14

These are all things that, if a kid creates that mindset from an early age, no, you make sure the kid is improving, but for themselves, and at one point I guarantee you with that foundation, they will lean towards a more outward competitiveness. But it starts from within and before you start competing against others, make sure you're built correctly within. Look, it sounds very utopic what I'm saying. Reach a little bit at the surface of these game changers in sports. Look at the Nadals, the Federer's. Look at these guys, the Messi's. If you scratch the surface, there's so much quality. Nadal, what's the one thing he talks about? His island, Mallorca, his culture, his country? That's passion.

Speaker 3: 36:07

Federer, his parents, the game changers in professional sports or in sports. If you scratch below the surface of society, builds onto them the layer. There's nothing but quality in game changers. Michael Jordan you look at the importance of his father had his life when his father passed away. I'm not making this up. High performance is based on a limitless mindset. That's what high performance is, because if you focus high performance on oh, this kid is tall, this kid weighs, at one point they're going to stop. But if the kid is playing sports because they absolutely love the sports, because they did it with their father or mother or because they did it with their best friends, or that's the kid I'm going to invest in. That's the kid, because that kid is going to make it.

Speaker 1: 36:57

And I think it's really interesting. I think it's definitely. I can see both sides of the argument, but I think you're right. You're setting people up for a better future by doing that, or at least for a period of time. Now, one of the things that we always again do on this podcast is ask for books, book recommendations, books that you've found yourself either recommending to others, or books that you've found to be really helpful during your life. What books have you found that really helped you?

Speaker 3: 37:27

One of them is Pillars of the Earth. I love Ken Follett, so I love the blend of historical fiction, of reality, of history and also of a little bit of fiction. So Pillars of the Earth is one of my favorite books of all time. The Building of a Cathedral, you know. Over time I think it emerges you into another world and I think he's one of the best authors there is in terms of historical fiction and definitely nobody's ever recommended that on the podcast.

Speaker 1: 37:54

That's going to be on the reading list. It's been amazing to get you on the podcast. Thank you, sebastian. Before we start the interview with Sebastian Bellin, I said I would give you something free that can help you better understand how you're doing at balancing your life. So at the Truster Team we have a thing called the Entrepreneurial Happiness Scorecard. It allows you to go through a sequence of questions and then we'll send you a bespoke document based on how we think you can improve both your life and your business. So if you head to the show notes or head to wwwthetrustedteam, you can find the Entrepreneurial Happiness Scorecard and you can see how you're doing and whether you're winning the game of business and the game of life. So what were your takeaways from the interview with Sebastian?

Speaker 2: 38:46

It was fascinating. I think the biggest part for me was about actually how being an athlete probably or I would imagine, totally set him up to be able to survive the two bombings in the airport for so many reasons. I guess number one being able to make decisions really quickly. And although he didn't really answer that point about sort of decision making but I was thinking in terms of, like team sports and things, having to think really quickly so he was obviously able to do that in a time when it was extremely stressful. So the way that he described it in terms of him consciously making these decisions and being very present, I think that was a really useful takeaway in terms of being present in the moment to be able to make decisions.

Speaker 1: 39:32

And one thing he didn't explain actually, which I thought he was going to from one of the questions I asked, but worth explaining to the audiences the reason that was so important he got himself on that trolley was because he knew that because there had been bombs going off, medical services were unlikely to rush straight into the airport to find out, you know, to find people like him. So he knew that if he wanted to get urgent medical attention, he had to get himself out of the airport, out of the main building. Ultimately, it was that clarity of thinking that got him to go get himself on the trolley, which allowed him to be taken outside, and that is what saved his life. So that clarity of thinking, yes, I have no doubt that, whether it's sport or whether it's something like being in the army, would also, I would imagine, set you up for some situations like that. It was interesting around the whole carbonara thing. Are you any thoughts as to why the surgeon said that that possibly did mean that he had an extra high index?

Speaker 2: 40:32

It's interesting because I was having a think about this and trying to think kind of back to kind of my days on intensive care unit and things and trauma, and actually why would that be? And I guess my thoughts on it are that when you have trauma and his was, you know, absolute trauma in every sense in terms of the situation, in terms of the blood loss, in terms of his shattered pelvis, I think it was, and his femur that your body becomes hypermetabolic, so it uses energy extremely quickly. There's a whole cascade of events that happens in your body, with cytokinesis an example, that sets off this cascade of healing and being able to deal with that trauma at that time. And so you're using energy really quickly. But we tend to see that actually most of the energy that you're using is released from fat, your triglyceride levels, which the breakdown of fatty acids from fats is usually what you're seeing being released, and I'm guessing that because he had really large stores of glycosin, because he had so much carbohydrate the night before, that would have kept his blood glucose levels a little bit higher. So, in terms of him being consciously being able to make decisions, because your brain primarily runs off, like I was about to say, off carbonara. It mainly runs off of glucose or likes to use glucose. So that would have certainly put him instead. But I'm also thinking that as athletes we're very good at one being able to store carbohydrates very efficiently, but also being able to up regulate really quickly and being able to utilize and get carbohydrate out into your blood system really quickly, compared to an old athlete. So that's also an interesting part of his body being in that fright and flight response.

Speaker 2: 42:12

Because if you think about when we do a race, that is exactly what happens. You know, we are, our adrenaline starts pumping blood, glucose starts pumping out, we get ready to race. So he has done that so many times throughout his life. Your body wouldn't differentiate between feeling of a competition versus a trauma situation, because it's a similar sort of situation. So I would imagine my take on it is that he had enough fuel in his body to be able to think and concentrate and make these decisions. But also, from a trauma perspective, he had enough energy being pumped around his system. So that's my take on it. But I mean, an exercise physiologist would probably have an heyday trying to work out why and what happened. But you know I love the takeaway point is you know, always have extras. Basically.

Speaker 1: 43:00

There's just no such thing as too many carbs, is there.

Speaker 2: 43:03

Not in that case, no. And how tall is he? 6'9", did he say he was?

Speaker 1: 43:07

Yeah something like that.

Speaker 2: 43:08

It's crazy, crazy. You know that's a lot of. If you think of the efficiency of his heart pumping as well. You know an athlete's heart is really efficient. You know, maybe that was something to do with it in terms of how he survived that amount of blood loss. I don't.

Speaker 1: 43:22

If you want us to keep getting amazing guests onto the Business of Endurance podcast. We don't ask you to pay for us. We don't ask for patronage. All we ask for is that you subscribe to the podcast, ideally on Apple. Give us a five star rating because it shows us you care and, if you've got time, leave us a comment. One word is fine, something like inspiring or amazing or something like that, but we really do appreciate it and it will help us to continue to deliver amazing guests on what we hope you find to be an amazing podcast. Thanks very much.