Tom Hodge: A Sensible, Empowering Approach To Endurance Training, Dealing With Childhood Issues, And Rejecting Victim Mentality (With Mark Sisson's Help!)

Get ready listeners for a most unusual and heavy and unique show with my old friend Tom Hodge!

Tom is an endurance adventurer living an interesting dream life of enjoyable but extensive endurance exercise every day, traveling the globe for major events, mixing with top athletes and watching them perform, and being on this amazing journey that he's going to tell you about in this episode. You will hear about his recent global odyssey and how it turned into a fantastic exploration of how childhood trauma affects us all our whole lives, how we use distraction, endurance, suffering, and drinking to avoid facing things and also how Tom hit rock bottom and then abruptly turned everything around by staring at a wall.

You will hear Mark Sisson’s name brought up often in the story and learn about the special relationship Tom and Mark share and how Mark was the only person who “saw through everything.” I think this show will be really valuable for everyone to reflect on how we carry stuff our whole lives and the benefits of waking up and doing honest self-assessment. As my former podcast guest Bruce Lipton says, our subconscious programming occurs from age 0-7 and then we operate from our subconscious 95% of the time, for the rest of our lives! Listen as Tom goes deep and gets vulnerable, incredibly honest, and reflective as he talks about his wild ride. It’s a pretty colorful show—you will hear about how he went from UCLA student to being a highly paid model in Japan after getting randomly discovered—a career that took him around the world for 25 years. You will learn why Tom eventually rejected his victim mentality, reconciled his childhood issues with gratitude, self-exploration (without any outside help), and turned things around to where he stands today.

It’s wild, it's mind blowing, and you are going to love this show, especially if you’re a younger listener and dreaming of a career and trying to figure out which career path to take. Regardless of age or where you’re at in your life, there are so many valuable lessons to take away from this show, especially the importance of self-exploration and honesty and avoiding our collective penchant for distraction every second of every day so we don’t have to face things that might unlock a path to a more fulfilling and grateful life.

TIMESTAMPS:

Psychological experts today talk about how our childhood programming is something we play out every day. [01:08]

It shouldn’t matter if you are first or last.  It is what you get out of the activity itself. [06:12]

How does one define failure? How can one deal with insecurities? [07:52]

Childhood programming is being studied more and more as for its effects on our current personhood. [15:42]

Usually when are drinking excessive alcohol, you are trying to numb some childhood trauma. [17:40]

Tom had to leave his dysfunctional family and try to make it on his own. [20:56]

Because of Tom’s dyslexia, he had difficulty reading.  He bought a book to read, determined to master that skill. At the same time, he committed to exercise, all this to avoid alcohol. [30:32]

Addiction to exercise can be toxic. [43:58]

If your grip strength is weak, it is directly correlated with your predicted lifespan. 

The greatest currency one can have is time. [01:00:32]

How does one learn to deal with this subject of childhood trauma? [01:07:42]

There is much more distractibility in today’s world.  Much more stress than before advanced technology. [01:12:26]

LINKS:

• Brad Kearns.com
• Brad’s Shopping page
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