#10: Chris Larsen (Competitive Cyclist and Entrepreneur) - Raising Athlete Kids and Approaching Fatherhood with Intention

It really underscores how time is finite, and with finitude comes gratitude. So when you realize that something is finite, you appreciate it that much more. These are the things that I think aren't readily apparent and we might say, hey, there's this disadvantage, we need to correct for that disadvantage. But what if we're actually doing a disservice to that individual, that group of people that we're trying to help?

This is the ATHLETE Dad Podcast, where we explore the intersection between physical pursuits and fatherhood. I'm Ben Gibson, and if you're an ambitious dad that is pursuing or looking to pursue your athletic passions now while improving the way you show up at home, then this is a show for you. As an athlete dad, I'm always intrigued by how dads that are athletes raise their kids that are also athletes. There's a lot of topics I've been wanting to explore in this area, because I think it's an interesting and complex topic that I don't think that, despite our best efforts, I don't think many dads that are athletes nail this topic as well as they want to. So I'm very excited to have today's guest, chris Larson, on to talk about this topic and more. Chris is the founder and managing partner of a company called Next Level Income, but his athletic background is in competitive cycling. Chris was an all-American cyclist. He was top five at the national championships and was eventually top 10 in the world championships. Today, chris isn't just a cyclist, but he's also doing amazing things like rafting the Grand Canyon, climbing Mount Rainier and any other outdoor pursuits, especially if he can find a way to incorporate his family in it. Most importantly, chris is a father of two teenage boys and a husband to his wife who, by the way, they just recently celebrated a huge wedding anniversary. So congrats to Chris and Jessica. But in my conversation with Chris, we hear about how he helps to nurture his own kids' passions, which are very different than his own. How he thinks about balancing his kids' sports with school and family and responsibilities. He talks about some great mental frameworks that I really love for how he approaches how you engage with your kids and their passions and their commitments. And I just loved how intentional Chris is about how he navigates being a husband, being a father, how he navigates his career, how he navigates his family's finances so that he's deliberately setting himself up for success, to have time and to have resources to be able to live the life he wants. And if you're even just a parent that just wants to help your kids get the most out of their own athletic experiences, I think you're going to love this episode. As a bonus for our listeners, chris is giving away a free copy of his book Next Level Income, which, to put it into context, of why this is great for athlete dads. It's a way to help more parents achieve greater financial independence so that you can go out and pursue more of your athletic passions and spend more time with your family by having a better financial setup. I've added that, and all the other resources we talk about in this episode, into the show notes. So, without further ado, please enjoy this episode with Chris Larson. Well, chris, good morning. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I'm so excited for our conversation. Yeah, man, great to see you, ben. Something I think would be really helpful is setting the context of what your life looks like right now. So I think about this really in terms of two buckets something that you're excited about inside of the home and something that you're really excited about outside of the home. So help us understand a bit more about yourself and what it's like to be Dad, chris. All that right now.

Yeah, so I appreciate that, Ben, I have two boys, 11 and 13, and they are both in middle school. So they're both in the same middle school. And you know, what I'm really excited about is we live in Asheville, North Carolina, and we were able to get them into. It's an all boys middle school, small, small classes 12 kids to class, 24 kids a grade my younger son's in six, my older son's in eight but it's an outdoor based school. Every Wednesday Like yesterday was Wednesday and they went out and they canoed. So they actually went actually on. My older son canoed and my younger son height and that was there. That was what they did for school. And then they write a report about it and they talk about things like teamwork, you know, working together as a team inside the canoe and building relationships and those sorts of things. They still talk about what they learned. They're learning how to be young men. That's really exciting to get to see them kind of grow and develop. They're also both into lacrosse. So we spent a lot of time on the weekends and you know, traveling with them and doing those things. So it's fun to see your children to develop passions around things that they weren't like. I wasn't a lacrosse player. It's really cool to see that happening as well. I'm also married, my wife and I. Something that's exciting is in two days we're going to be celebrating our 17th wedding anniversary. We've actually been together for 22 years, you know, so that's something that I'm fired up. I think it's a testament to you know our commitment to one another and being married isn't easy, so you have to work at it, you have to do things, but our marriage or relationship, is as strong as it's ever been. So inside, the house got a lot of stuff with my family I'm excited about outside, from a business perspective, we're about to launch some funds in our business, which is really going to be a great thing for investors, so I'm fired up about that as well.

That's awesome, oh my gosh, and I love the outdoor school idea. So I want to dig into that a bit more, because that's something that we've actually done with our oldest son in preschool. He goes to this all outdoor preschool, which there's so many things I love about it. I remember the first time we got his school gear list and it wasn't like pens and pencils. It was like you need waterproof boots, you need heavy parka, you know, like all these really cool things, because rain or shine, snow, whatever they're out there and I think that there's so many things that come from that valuable experience. What helped you all make that shift? Because was this something they had ever done?

before.

Or is this a new transition?

Yeah, so this is so. My older son started in sixth grade at this school and, to get a little personal, our older son was not thriving in the school he was in before. And look, there are things that we're not supposed to talk about in society these days and I think that's that is really harmful in a lot of ways, because things like, oh, boys and girls aren't different, that there's really good research, especially when it comes to school and learning, that boys and girls are very different, they develop at different rates, and some people may not like that I'm saying this, but when you say, hey, there's no differences between genders, we're basically, you know, if not discounting we're, if not throwing away, we're discounting that research that's out there. And there are cases I'm not going to, I'm not going to say they're not, they're not earned cases, and I have a lot of experience in our own family with with those cases specifically. So I'm not going to say that I don't think that's possible, but in general, boys learn differently than girls and they develop at different rates than girls. So when, when we notice some of these challenges that my son was was facing in this, you know we'll call it a feminized school system, which was, you know, almost all female teachers, female administrators. You know it's a lot of, a lot of women and you know it's just. It's just different when you have a little active boy that's being, quote unquote, disruptive in class. And there really wasn't anything wrong per se with my son, aside from the fact that he needed to be more active and he learns in different ways. So when we learned about this school and we brought him in, it was we saw a couple of things that were really interesting. One, the activity level was was off the charts, right. So when you're they're active throughout the day, active throughout the week, not just in activities and sports and different things, you know, but but camping and doing service work and going out and, you know, pulling garbage out of the rivers that you know, around Asheville, like you know, teaching, teaching these young boys to serve not only themselves but also the communities, which is which is really impressive. But also what really impressed me, because my younger son was in the public school system at the time, the public schools. So as a fifth grader they were actually teaching a fourth grade curriculum and in this new school they said well, we're not going to slow down, we're going to your son is going to get caught in sixth grade to sixth grade curriculum and if they've fallen behind during COVID, we believe that they will catch up and they will rise to the level that's expected of them. And that was a very refreshing perspective and I think it's something that you know we can all take as parents and learn from, which is, if you have low expectations for your children, they're probably going to rise to those expectations and if you, if you have high expectations and you support them and give them the right environment, they can thrive and achieve more than we thought they could believe. And again, that's something else we've seen society today which is, hey, you can't do that because you have this disadvantage right, and that that really you know. That's unfortunate, because I think we all have this innate potential inside of us and we can come about it from an athletic perspective, you know later on in this conversation, but it's amazing what people can achieve even when it doesn't appear like they have that capability on the outside.

I couldn't agree with that more. I think you know, and I think about the way that a lot of society approaches the disadvantages. Oftentimes, you know, and to sort of generalize here, oftentimes I think that the initial reaction is like oh well, this is challenging for them, let's make it easier. And I think that that one doesn't doesn't serve them right, because the I agree with you on the idea of people typically rise to the expectations that you set for them and I think the environment is really key for that. Like we have, there's a responsibility to put them in an environment, the resources to enable them to rise to those occasions. But I also think that, like you know, think about your own story and I think about this myself, and I can't think of a single successful person who this isn't true for where those disadvantages are such an important part of their story. They were the pivotal moments for them that were transformative of. Here was this setback, here was this limitation, here was this disadvantage, and it is because of that that I succeeded.

I think you hit the nail on the head and it's not even in spite of, it's because of and you can look at this from a few different things like I raised bicycles, you know, starting 30 years ago, I remember the first races that I lost, the first events that I lost like, and those drove me to be better. But there's, there's research on this. Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in his book David versus Goliath. He also wrote the book Outliers and I'm sure you know my parents are familiar with this because of the when you're, when you're chilled when your child is born. They talked about Canadian hockey players and the best. We're all born in the early part of the year because they matured a little bit quicker than the kids that were later on the year. My wife's Canadian and you know big, you know people love hockey in Canada. We actually one of our first kind of neat of neat things. We watched the avalanche when the Stanley Cup together and I was like this is cool, my wife likes to watch hockey, girlfriend. But Malcolm Gladwell talks about desirable difficulties and for me it hit home because I lost my father at age five. And Malcolm talks about how there's this disproportionate number of American presidents, ceos, successful individuals that lost parents at a young age. Now what and he calls them desirable difficulties? Now, you certainly do not want to lose a parent, definitely don't want to lose a father. You know as a son. We know, we know the statistics on single family households. You know, and that's why it's so important to have, you know, the family unit, in my opinion. So losing a parent, losing a father, is not an advantage in any way, shape or form. So why do these people go on to be successful? It's a great question. One, because they had the support, they had the right community around them, you know. Maybe they had a strong, you know, parental figure. But two, they learned to overcome something that was a drastic, drastic setback for a child. And it also it really underscores how time is finite and with finitude comes gratitude right. So when you realize that something is finite, you appreciate it that much more. So you know again these. These are the things that I think aren't readily apparent and we might say, hey, there's this disadvantage, we need to correct for that disadvantage. But what if we're actually doing a disservice to that individual, that group of people that we're trying to help? We have to be very careful with that.

Yeah, and I think you hit it too with the. You know the idea of opportunity like so much of being a parent. I've found in my short experiences that, man, I've really got to give my kids the opportunities to succeed, and I think especially opportunities to struggle, because you know, we all work really hard like we have to provide for our families, like we want to have a nice lifestyle, and with that also comes some of the missed opportunities that many of us had as kids. You know, I remember a lot of struggles as a kid and it is again because of many of those struggles that I live the life that I have today. And I think that you know it's like, yes, I want to be financially successful and well off and not have to worry about those things, but now I have to introduce deliberate opportunities for my son to struggle in a really healthy way to learn some of those lessons and so, yeah, removing that opportunity is doing them a disservice and I think, like the most, the thing I am most afraid of because of that and also because of you know this is sort of a tangent, but like technology and all these things that are weighing down on our kids, is like when my son becomes 18, and he's ready to go out into the world, he's just like apathetic, he's just like disinterested, like kind of the stereotypical, like boring, disinterested teenager that doesn't have passion and zest for life, and it's like itching to get out of my house to go and define his own life for himself, and so, yeah, that opportunity is such a big part of it.

It's interesting how, the more successful you become in today's world, the more stuff you have, the more you strive and try to exit that you know, for you know during your leisure time, if you will. So you know we look at, we look at our boys, and we try to limit screens and do different things with respect to that. But again going back to saying, hey, like you're going to go on this camping trip for three days, you're not going to be around your parents, you're going to sleep outside. You're not even going to sleep in a tent, you're going to sleep under a tarp. It's going to be 40 degrees, it's going to be raining. These are things that a lot of people, you know you're listening and you're shaking your head up and down and thinking like, yeah, I did that, like I remember you're doing those things and a lot of us think back with fondness during those memories when you were. You know you weren't comfortable in those times and what happens is, you know I took a cold plunge this morning. Okay, why on earth would I get into a 40 some degree tank of water first thing in the morning? You know, for three, four minutes, to the point where I'm shivering and super uncomfortable when? Well one, the data says that and Dr Andrew Hooberman says it's really good for me. So that does that. But it also sets the tone for the day because it's like, well, hey, if I can do something that I literally did not want to do, I paced around for like 15 minutes. I was picking up and like why am I like doing laundry and you know, doing these little errands and picking everything up around the kitchen? I'm like I don't really want to get into the cold plunge and I only I have a 30 minute window and I waited 15 minutes, so it's, and I was like, all right, that's it. I was like I'm going down, I'm doing it, and when you do it and you realize, you know what, I overcame that, a version that I had and I'm, I'm stronger. Like a little part of me inside became stronger because I realized I overcame that and there's joy that comes from that, you know. And there's also, you know, a resiliency that you develop. And that's what I think is you were saying, ben, that's what we're trying to develop. Our children is that resiliency, when they're placed into an uncomfortable or unfamiliar situation, that they have the skills, but really also the mental fortitude to overcome.

Yeah, and I loved it that the outdoor stuff was a big part of this school, because that is, I think, the environment where we are able to learn those lessons in some of the best ways. Right, and yeah, through the, you know, the rigors of canoeing and kayaking and the physical struggle and the teamwork, and then the elements and then the camping outside, to your point to like I love that they're. They're not an attempt, they're under the tarp and it's freezing cold, like I think it's it's also, like you guys aren't intense.

I didn't realize that I was like you're not, like where's your tent? Like oh, we sleep under a tarp.

I'm like a tarp, like wow, that's, that's pretty, that's all right, cool, yeah, a little, a little bivouac, you know, does a body good? So that's the same idea to where? Yeah, like, okay, we go camping with our kids or we take our kids outside, and it's like we try to make them as comfortable as possible. But the thing I've also learned, even just with my son being an outdoor school again, when it's snowing they're out there and so it's funny that sometimes this other parent was just making this comment around, like, oh, just, you know, be mindful of this activity because the kids might get cold. And I'm like, oh, he won't get cold. Like he, he's totally fine. Like this kid is banging on our door as soon as a snowflake hits the ground. He's like, dude, let me outside. Like barely getting his clothes on because he's just, he's built up that, yeah, that that fortitude to be able to understand. Like, oh, this isn't, this isn't that bad. And so I think, as as dads, it's a good reminder to, I think, beyond the health benefits of the cold punch that you mentioned, because that's what I have to lean into to. I'm like Huberman says this is good, he swears it's good. He better be right about this, because this is not enjoyable. It's like I think we have to remind ourselves of that too, because just as we don't want our lives, for our kids to be so comfortable that they don't benefit from that, we've got to keep sharp too. So I'm curious now, like I would love to explore a bit more Of your athletic background and then understand more about, kind of like, how that's defined your life today. So take us back to, take us back to you know. Where did your life as an athlete start, where did it peak, and kind of what did that look like for you?

Yeah, I was. I was thinking more about the dad part and that's about the athlete part of the podcast as we got going. But yeah, so it's. You know, you, you asked me that question and it is, it's wild what our minds do, because I started racing bicycles when I was 14 years old and you know, my mind went back and I'll never forget that I was riding my bike around the neighborhood and my son asked me the other days why did you like to race, like, why'd you like to ride? I'll never forget that sense of freedom that I had by riding and then ultimately crossing the road, the big road with the light, which I pushed the button to cross, and feeling like I was now free, like able to do all these things that I couldn't do before, because I could leave the confines of my neighborhood on a bicycle. And it's amazing what that does for you. And then I also was thinking back and I lived in kind of a blue collar neighborhood. Remember these kids chasing me on the bike one day and they couldn't catch me, and I remember just thinking like I'm pretty strong on the bike, like I remember like these kids couldn't catch me on the bike, and I just remember thinking about that and ultimately, what happened then is I got a. This is when mountain bikes started to become popular in the early 90s like 91, 92. And I wanted a mountain bike. So I had this old BMX bike that I got when I was five and I was about to turn 13. I wanted a mountain bike. So I got a new mountain bike for my 13th birthday. A big deal $350,. I never forget Schwinn and Hard Rock, I think it was and I started riding it but there weren't a ton of trails. So I started riding it a little bit like on the road. But my family friend he rode a lot and we knew him from church, family we knew from church and he's like, oh, you got a new bike, why don't you ride down to Annapolis with me, which was 10 miles away? And now it's like 10 miles, that's not very long. But back then that was I was like that's a long way. We rode to Annapolis and back one Saturday morning he's like I do this every Saturday and I was like that's neat. And then he did a race and I was like, wow, clint's doing a race. I want to do a race. So I was like, all right, I'm going to save up. So I saved up. I had a paper route. I saved up all fall, all winter, all spring, and I bought my first road bike when I was 14 the next year and I went to my first race. And that first race I actually met my best friend, chris, and I'll never forget we were sitting there and he was a year younger than me. I was like, oh, how often do you ride your bike? Like, how often do you train? And he's like I train every day. I'm like holy cow, I train every day. I got to ride every day if I want to be good. So I started. I started riding every day. The second or third race I did. I had been training. I sprinted out of the pack and I pass it everybody and I'm coming up to the finish line. I'll never forget that feeling Like I'm going to win this race. And these are all adults, I'm racing against and I'm I think I was still 14 at the time About to win the race and my foot came out of the pedal and I crashed head first in the pavement. So, from the what's the commercial, from the thrill of victory to the you know, to the pain of defeat is that what it is, you know.

I think it's something like that I could have been on that.

That's what ABC or you know sports commercial like coming out of the pack and then just like face first into, like yard sale, into the pavement. But I was like I was going to win that race and kept racing, won the state championship the next year and, you know, started to have some success and I always felt like I was a kid that didn't really fit in Ben. So for me I felt like I kind of found my tribe. I found something that I was, I was good at and I was kind of a nerd. I played, I played in the orchestra, I played in the marching band, I sung in the church choir, I was on the math team. My friends and I juggled like you know, this is like Uber nerd right and let's not pretend like cycling is the coolest sport in the world and you're a skinny 15 or 16 year old kid that shaves his legs. That doesn't really make you more popular, frankly. But I felt like I found my spot and that was really. You know, not only did I find something that I was pretty good at and you know I found my best friend in, but you know it also was, it was, it was an outlet. You know that really, you know, really gave me something and it taught me so many things in life. But yeah, that was as well as 30 years ago.

That's awesome. And talk about the right environment to help somebody succeed, like just one. You know you having that moment where you realized, wow, this kid trains every day. Like that realization of like I love this, if I want to be good at this, this is what the good people do, and I need to commit to that, and I think so many people I don't think even get the opportunity to succeed because they aren't in an environment to see, hey, like this doesn't have to be your thing, but like, if you want to be really good at this, which is also like there's many perks that come along and many lessons to be learned that come along with that, this is kind of what it takes, and so I love that. You had that environment and man, you literally ran with it. Like that's an impressive leap to go from Road with it. But, yeah, road with it. Right, you really rode away with that thing. Yeah, that you, you know, in a very short period of time, transitioned that into you know being, you know, the state champion. And I'm curious too you know you saved all this money to buy your own bike. Why was that an important piece for you, that you were the one that bought the bike?

Yeah. So you know what it's interesting I mentioned, my father passed away when I was young, so I had my mother, my stepfather, and they were passively supportive it's probably the best way I can describe it so they didn't really hold me back, but they also really didn't push me. And you know, like my stepfather played football in high school and college. He was the captain of his football team. You know my mother, she was a music major, so, like you know, that was her thing. So for this kid you know this, you know skinny white kid, you know that went from, you know, five foot nine, 135 pounds to six feet 135 pounds in a summer as he was starting to race his bike. You know, this was a little, you know this was a little out of the norm, you know for anybody. But you know, for my parents I don't really think they knew, you know what to do and they're like you're. I just remember my mom thinking like I'd have my training calendar and she'd be like, why do you have to ride three hours today? It was just, it just didn't make sense to her. So for me being able to, you know, earn that bike, to go out and buy that with my own money. And then you know, ultimately, you know learn how to train and you know I found a team that I raced with and developed that. It wasn't that it was important to me at the time. I take pride in it now, but it was massively important because I developed these skills and these habits to be an individual to you know learn how, to. You know find information to become better, develop relationships. I was going out and getting sponsors at the age of 15 to help us pay for our expenses. I was hitchhiking to races. Essentially, you know hitching rides from teammates and friends. You know sleeping on floors and it's pretty neat to see like what you're capable of as a young individual. You know in kind of. You know kind of. You know a sport that's kind of. You know misfits, kind of like punk rock in a way.

Yeah, I mean I can't help but think about what an outlier you seem to have been as a kid, like I think it's so rare for young kids to take that much initiative, and I think probably something that you I'm guessing do is like you think about, like, what are the things that I found really valuable about my own upbringing, my own life, and how do I translate some of those benefits to your own kids? So you know, I know we talked about some of this might been environmental, you know the dynamic with your losing your father, but when you think about that innate initiative, how do you think about translating that to your own kids today?

Yes, excellent question. It's something I've thought about a lot in multiple aspects. So, but let's take it from the sporting aspect. So I've been asked oh, are your kids going to race Like? You want your kids to race bicycles First off, cycling is a really difficult sport. It's not a lot of fun to train for. It's fun to do, it's fun to go ride your bike, you know, because all of that takes your Einstein, you got the big smile on the face riding the bike. And it's fun to go out in the woods on your bike. And it's, it is fun. But from a sporting perspective, endurance sports in general aren't that fun to train for. They're very grueling, you know, going out and riding for two, three, four, five, six hours. I train times 30 hours a week. You know your crotch hurts, your back hurts, your legs hurt, your neck hurts. You know you have blisters on your hands from just from standing up and moving the bike underneath your body. Like your hands have blisters, like it's a very grueling sport that really it wears your body out, so much that if you look at the physiologic statistics of a cyclist doing the Tour de France, it mirrors a patient that's in hospice. They're literally killing themselves. It is a grueling, grueling sport. So I was conscious of that. But I also didn't want to force my children so that I could live vicariously through their success. I want them to love the sport of cycling, so I tried to give my children exposure to a lot of different sports. And what's wild is I said this earlier they both chose the sport of lacrosse. So that is their passion, that is their love, and the saying that I have for them is if you're committed, I'm committed. So I tell them like I will mirror your commitment level. So if you want to do this and you're training every day and you want to go, you know if you need to go eight hours to go to a camp or a tryout for a team and you've trained for it, I will take you there. You know if you need, if we need to get on a plane to do that, if you need specific equipment or coaching and you are putting in your work, you do that. Oh, by the way, their job is first and foremost to go to school and go to good grades. That's their job. So if they fall behind, if their grades are not Bs or above, then they don't get screens, they don't get to go to practice that day. If they don't have their assignments turned in, they're not going to go to practice before they do their homework. So like they have to do all the basics and then they have to show the commitment at a sporting level, and this is a fine balance too. Duckworth talks about this in her book Grit. The children, the individuals that go on to be successful are those that have a long-term vision of what they want themselves to be as an athlete. But as parents she talks about how it still is parents' responsibility at times when these undeveloped, immature individuals maybe they don't want to do that. We have to encourage them and explain the importance of that. I'll give you an example. I'm sitting in, I'm fortunate, I have a hot tub, I have a pool, we have a cold plunge, I have a sauna. So my son did like a little training bike race the other night and I said, hey, I turned the hot tub one. So we're sitting in the hot tub afterwards and kind of relaxing a little bit and he's like oh, I didn't get a chance to practice lacrosse today, dad. And I said, like it's okay, you know you don't have to practice every day at your age. I said but you should try to get 1% better. And he's like, well, what does that mean? And I explained it to him and I was like, well, if you get 1% better every day, how much better are you in a year? And he said 365%. I said that's a great answer, but that's not the right answer. And I explained to him the compounding effect and how that riding his bike and developing endurance translates into success on the lacrosse field. To try to imprint the fact that what his mindset every day should be just a small improvement and it doesn't have. It could be a mental improvement, it could be a physical improvement. It could be, you know, a skill-based improvement. You know it could. It could be a social improvement, right, and you know that's what I want. I want my children to be critical thinkers and I want them to just get up and use the most out of the time that they have every day in Pursuit of what their passion is all. And look, if they decide tomorrow that they never want to play the cross again, that's okay.

Yeah, chris, I love that framework of if you're committed, I'm committed and I'm gonna mirror your level of commitment. That is. That is amazing, because I think you see what happens sometimes when that is out of balance, right, when the parent is like very committed, and it sometimes can squash a little bit of that intrinsic motivation, but it's like hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna mirror where you're at. And I think you also hit on a really key part. That man, I wish that I had wonderful coaches growing up. My dad was one of my coaches for my entire life. He was always literally in my corner when I was wrestling and I had that confidence of knowing, wow, yeah, he was there. But the thing I wish I always had more of as a kid is someone to really paint that vision of the importance of Just, hey, let's just bask in dreaming about this for a little bit, like I don't want to, you don't, you do not have to do this, but like let's just dream about what this could feel like, be like mean, like for you, and I think that that helps kind of like pull people up a little bit more to where it's like okay, I want this, I'm in it, and it's like great, I'm committed, you're committed, I will mirror you. I'm here to support you. Yeah, that's that's. That's such a great way to think about it, and I love the way that you are literally living this out. You talked about traveling for your son's Practice to tell me about what that, what that looks like for you, I'll kind of use another anecdote.

So my son, same one, and they both. You know I have my older son, so a lot of this stuff. You know we have these, these conversations at a little higher level and my younger son is starting to kind of have these as well and we talk a lot about he. Actually, my younger son is more Interested in the business side of things with me, even though we do basically the same stuff on the sporting side. But it's neat to have, you know, these conversations around both athletics as well as business and kind of relate different stories. But my older son, he said you know, dad, it seems like you're not as interested in cycling as much as you used to be and you're more interested in lacrosse. And I said, well, what makes you say that? And he said, well, you, you know, you go to like lacrosse games and you know we go, we even go watch like professional lacrosse games together. And so why is that he goes? That's what we do. And I said, yeah, I said I can only be in one place at a time, you know. But you know I do, I take my bike, like. So we drove up to Maryland from North Carolina was eight-hour drive Actually it was more than that, it was nine or ten because we're in northern Maryland, up near Delaware, up near a Philly Wilmington area and there's a long drive and I took my bike up with me. So I rode when he was, you know, at practice and did that. It's important to kind of kind of fit that stuff in, but it's, you know, we have, we have limited time. His parents, right, we have limited time, we have a window and Jim Shields talks about like 18 summers family boardroom. It's a great, great book, great resource. If you're listening, you haven't, haven't read it or seen that yet. The family boardroom I'm sorry, the family board meeting, yeah, but I use that time with my sons to, you know, talk to them to have those experiences. So you know, there's some really, really cool things that we get to do and I've modeled, I've Intentionally built our business in ways so that I have that flexibility to do that. But the thing is I still do, I still am active and the boys understand that there are times when I'm gonna go do something for me or dad or with my wife, like is, you know, we're gonna go do some stuff and that the world doesn't revolve around them. Like we say in our house. We say team Larson, we are a team, we're a family unit and that means that we're part of the family first. Then we're individuals below that. So if the family is gonna do something, you know as a family, if somebody's you know competing or doing something, we're gonna support that individual. You know it's not always all about, you know, the individual, mm-hmm.

I love that. I mean, I just hear so many ways that Athletics has influenced a lot of the ways that you're showing up, and I think you hit on it with bringing your bike and making sure you're getting that time in for yourself. It's that. That's an important part of it. You know there's there's certainly sacrifices we have to make as parents. That's that's understood. But I don't think that we do our kids a service to sacrifice All of ourselves and what makes us whole and what makes us better For the sake of that right, we have to take that time and and I think that that comes to one of our Pillars here at the athlete dad is modeling ambition and how important that is. Yeah, Tell me more about how has being an athlete shaped the way that you show up as dad?

I think it really because of when I started racing, you know, when I was literally kind of forming my framework and then literally becoming an adult, it it has woven itself not only into my psyche but also, you know, the the literal being that I am and I spent 18 years in the medical device space. I was in sales, I was in ORs, I covered cases, I was on call and as a hiring manager and it was. I had a training site. The company I worked with and I was a hiring manager built sales teams. I always loved the higher athletes, because what does athletics do? It teaches you one you have to plan, you have to discipline, you have to have, you know, structure in your life. Oh, a great one. I love delayed gratification. Right, it's not all me, me, me, now, now, now it's like I'm gonna, I am going to sacrifice this today for this in the future and you mentioned it earlier been like painting that vision. You know. So my, my sons and I talk about like, oh, they want to play D1 lacrosse in college, awesome. I love to hear him think about that, because if you're 11 and 13, you're talking about what you need to do. You know, five to ten years out. Well, that cascades all the way back through and it creates these building blocks of academic, academics and, you know, physical training and athletic training and teamwork, and I have to, you know, learn how to write and express myself and, oh, maybe, put together highlight reels and, you know, promote and communicate. It's like so many different things that fall into that stuff. So all of these things kind of cascade down and are very relatable and those things translate into the professional space, right, because, okay, we have to train, we have to gather this information and knowledge and go to school, you know, to do this and be these people. I want to own a business. I have to build a team, I have to be a good team leader, I have to model, you know what I want my team to be like, but I also have to support those in my team. I have to bring people into my team that are better than me at different things. Maybe they're better suited, you know, physically, maybe they're better suited mentally, maybe they're better suited, you know, from an, from an education perspective. All of these things, you know, matter, matter so much. And then you know I was talking to my older son, were having a conversation, I just did a 72 mile gravel Bike race this past weekend, so it took me almost six hours. I mean is really hard for me because I don't I don't often train more than an hour and a half or two hours, so there's a long event. So I had to kind of prepare and train and dial in my diet and I lost, you know, I lost like seven pounds, which for me is a fair amount of weight. You know, kind of feel good and and I had I had like the best, you know, the best Performance that I had this year. So I was proud of that and my son was asked he's like, why do you? He's like, why do you like, why do you still do these events? Like you're not gonna win? Like why do you still do them? Said, it's for motivation. Right, it's for motivation, and that's what's great about sports. When you have a tournament, when you have an event coming up, you're if, let's say, you go to the gym, you go to the gym for an hour a day and you have nothing that you're training for aside from being healthier. So I lay down on the bench to do some bench press and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do 10 reps at this weight. Well, okay, maybe I'll just give up at eight reps, like, if I'm not pushing for something, if I'm on my bike and I'm, I'm doing hill repeats right, like intervals for people that know what that is and I'm gonna go hard for three, four or five minutes. How hard am I going to go? Well, if I have an event coming up and I know that maybe I'm going to skip the beer, maybe I'm going to skip the pizza, maybe I'm going to have the salad, maybe I'm going to have the protein shake, maybe I'm going to ride a little harder, those events, that motivating factor, whatever it is in your life that you're competing for athletics, business, personally, academically it will make you better, it will make you sharper, it will make you be more focused. Look, life is an energy game. Use your energy, focus that energy. We all have the same number of hours and days and time from day to day. You have to find things that will focus your energy and your effort. That's ultimately going to make you better. Hack that system and make it work for you. I think it's important that we relate that to our children as well.

Yeah, I really feel that. I mean, that was something that I think was a big part of why I felt the need to continue pursuing athletic endeavors myself. I'm not going to put up any records, I'm not going to be the fastest to climb X or the first to climb whatever, but it was still such an important part of my life and how I felt I needed to show up as a dad, as a human. I think the goal piece is man. If I ever, I try not to give any unsolicited advice. I try to ask more questions than I speak. The one piece of advice that I am always unabashedly giving is you've got to have a goal. You've got to have something you're working towards because, to your point, it has this amazing ability to elevate your abilities in all aspects of your life. It has the ability to unify everything in my life and make my priorities crystal clear. I named this event coming up, so I know, working backwards, like my diet's going to be dialed, which means that my time has to be dialed because I have to plan for all these things. That means that my sleep has got to be dialed. That means that when I'm with the family, I am very deliberate about being present, because this is a finite amount of time. Based on the other time commitments that I've got, I just feel like I show up so much better in all these aspects. Then, too, there's long training days that I feel you as an endurance athlete. There's some six, seven hour days in the mountains. I'm like, oh man. But I'm like, well, is it going to be easier in Alaska? No, dude, it's going to be way harder, way longer, way colder. It's like, dude, I got to get my butt moving, whereas if I'm just out there which is okay, it's okay to just go out and enjoy it sometimes, but it's like if I'm training for it, it's going to be at a different level of intentionality. So, yeah, I really feel that importance of the goals setting there. Love that.

Yeah, that's what it's all about. It's like, hey, if you can business, family health, whatever it may be in your life, you should have a goal like the one thing, right, bill Keller, is it Bill Keller, the one thing? I'm not sure he talks about Keller Williams. He founded Keller Williams and he says what's the one thing in your life that you can do? That will make everything else easier. And I think when you have a goal, it should make, like you just said, it should cascade down. It should be that filter that you look through and says, okay, my training is going to be easier, my diet is going to be easier, everything is going to be easier because I'm looking through this lens, I'm working towards this, and that can be applied to any area of your life. I think it's such an important vision and again, it's more a goal of vision, long-term vision. Again, going back to the grid, she said it's that vision that's what determined those that became successful professionally from those that did not. It was the vision that they saw and felt in themselves that brought them to that point in the future.

Yeah, the intentionality piece. Earlier you hit on this idea that, and it's so true, and I think parents, the older our kids get, the more we feel it of how finite that time is, how quickly that time goes Really, by the time they're 10 or 11, they're now out in their events and with their friends and there's just less and less time we get with them in those moments. And so I think that that puts this healthy paranoia in me of I have got to be present and I think having a goal facilitates your ability to be present, to be intentional, because I think the biggest thing that we would regret as a parent is looking back and being like man I really missed a lot because I was not as intentional as I needed to be in those moments.

Agreed and look, you brought up kind of the double-edged sword of these things and the reason I quit competing. And this was like eight, actually 10 years ago really. The last year I really competed at a high level was 10 years ago in the cycling space, and then I did some events for a couple years, but what happened was I realized I wasn't being present for the number one thing in my life, which was my family. I would be thinking I'm at this soccer game, but I should be riding my bike right now, for another hour. Or yeah, I want to go out to dinner with the family but I don't want to eat what they're eating because it's going to affect my weight. And it really just started to eat at me internally and I was like, okay, I need to have a different vision for what athletics and competition look like for me. And actually it's interesting. I just got asked by one of my masterminds or one of the masterminds I'm a part of to do a triathlon next year and he's like, come on, man, he's like you could probably do it without training. I was like I could. The problem is I know, ben, that I am not capable of doing that event and not having this shift mentally. I'm like, okay, I'm going to go swim, I got to run, I got to ride, I got to do this. I'm going to go buy. I got to buy a new bike and I got to train this much. I'm going to do more swimming. So that's right, I'm going to have to swim in the mornings, which means I'm going to miss my kids in the morning. So all of a sudden, this one thing that's really not that consequential. It would be neat to do, but really not that impactful for me. It's not really going to change who I am in any real way, shape or form. It's really going to detract from the other things that I have in my life and I think that's part as we become parents. So from an athlete to a dad, to an athlete dad, you have to say, okay, how do I incorporate these? So it's healthy from all levels. And that doesn't mean you can't do that. If you're listening and it's really important to you to compete in an event, I think it is 100% healthy and okay to set that up, okay to set aside time for that, and away from your family, because it's important to be able to explain to your children I am going to go do this because this is something that's important to me and then letting them see that when we were on our family road trip, my wife and I went to CrossFit and the boys came and next thing you know they're doing the workouts with us because they see it and they're like, oh, this is like, this is like what you do and they want to be a part of that. So when you do that, you model that behavior. It spills over. You just have to be very conscious of how it's going to affect the other areas of your life as a parent, in my opinion.

Agreed and I think that you I always say that your ability to balance family and your pursuits is sort of the litmus test of the health of your ambitions. Are these rooted in something that's really healthy or is this rooted in something that is not? And I think that when it's rooted in principles and it's coming from a healthy place, it's a bummer to miss those things, but it almost becomes a very easy decision because your priorities are clear, your values are clear and we can filter them through those things. And I mean, when we think about these three aspects of how we've kind of built the athlete dad of modeling ambition, balancing family and integrating family, none of them are easy and they all blend into each other. Right, like to be ambitious, we have to make sacrifices of time. So then we had how do we strike a balance? And then, okay, well, I don't want to just be pursuing these things in the absence of my family. I would love to integrate my family in them as much as possible. So how do I weave them in in a thoughtful way? That still helps me? And it's, I think, this kind of constant quest to like. I don't think we ever nail it, but I think it's the quest of pursuing balance and ambition and all these things that like, we find a lot of fulfillment and we show up as our best selves.

That's a great point. And, you know, maybe even balance is kind of a misnomer right, because you know it's. It's like homeostasis in our bodies. Our bodies are trying to constantly achieve homeostasis and keep things in quote unquote balanced, but in reality it's never in balance. We're always kind of a little bit off. And that's what resiliency is, which is the ability to get off balance, kind of going full circle, as we talked about, you know, getting our kids out in the wilderness. You get off, you know, off kilter a little bit. How far off kilter can you get and still get back to that point that's healthy and that's what's. I think that's what resiliency is and you know it's. It's like, hey, I'm going to go do this for a while. Can you go spend three weeks on the Grand Canyon and come back and still have a healthy business, a healthy family, healthy relationships? You know, can you do that? Like that's resiliency and that's that's. You know that's not really balanced, but that is what balance is right. It's the ability to have the resiliency in those areas of your life to go and get off balance and come back and be back in balance.

I've never thought of it that way, of the resiliency and the ability Like that. That's what allows you to go out of balance and bring it back. That's a really great way to think about it, and I think that you I agree on the what balance is, and balance is different for everybody but I agree that it's not Okay five minutes of this and then five minutes of that, and then five. It's this oscillation between things and, to your point, coming back and then compensating in certain areas to make up for the fact that we haven't done this. And I think I've learned this from our mutual friend, john Roman, of this idea of, okay, if I'm going to go to this event, then to make sure that I'm striking a balance, I need to invest in my family before the event and I need to make sure I'm intentional about investing in my family after the event, so that I'm investing, I filled our cups, I go to the event and then I catch up afterwards so that, yes, I'm not like at the event, like with my family on the phone, but it's like I'm balancing those things in as best a way I can.

Yeah, that's a great point. And then also being conscientious of the fact that if, like me, you can't do that, at some point you have to say, okay, I need to make some adjustments. So for me, I'm not going. I'm not going to really like, I'll do some events, but I'm really not going to race twice anymore. And people ask me like, do you miss it? I really don't, because I got a lot out of the sport and I miss the competition because I love to compete, but I also don't love who it made me at that time, and that person that I was wasn't really congruent with the best father that I could be. I could be a good spouse, I could be a good business person, but I couldn't do those and be a good father and compete at the highest level, just for who I am. And maybe that's not a good thing. But I think being able to look in the mirror and acknowledge that and then kind of say, okay, well, I'm going to kind of moderate this to a degree, is, you know, that's what we just have to be cognizant of.

This. I see this theme of this very acute self-awareness that is so common in so many of these athlete dads that I speak with, and I wonder how much of that comes from a kind of a benefit of competing as an athlete at a high level, because when you are, you are very in tune with every aspect of your body, your physical, like every part of your body, every part of your mind, and you are just constantly looking at this feedback, and I can't help but wonder if that is a benefit that we bring to how we show up in our life as dad, as spouse. Is that, like, we're looking for that feedback? We're constantly in tune with things and we are, most importantly then, able to know how to pivot to accommodate the new environment we've found ourselves in.

Oh, I think it's. I think it's for anybody that is successful at a high level. You know self-awareness, you know it's a huge thing. Look, if you're a narcissist and you're not self-aware and you can't kind of really understand anything outside of you know your own self-importance, then that's going to hold you back and at some point it's going to lead to destruction in some area of your life. Now, as an athlete, you could probably get away with that for a longer period of time, like it's kind of a you know, a lack of self-awareness. But you know you have to understand as an athlete. Okay, what am I consuming, what am I doing, how am I feeling. So you're constantly looking in the mirror and evaluating. I had a food journal and a training journal and you're always looking at that stuff. But then you also have to look at your competition and say where do I fit inside of the competition? And you know, if you're on a football field and you're built like me and you're like, oh, in my head I'm 350 pounds and I'm just a monster and I run into somebody that's actually 350 pounds, I'm probably going to break my body If I'm again like me and I'm on a bicycle and I don't have the physiologic stats of the best guys out that I'm racing against. I have to be aware of that, I have to train for that, and then I have to develop the skill set and the awareness in the race. So I have to take advantage of the situation in a different way. You know it's like, you know, looking at a chessboard and taking advantage of a player. You know that maybe is a little too self-confident and doing that sort of thing. So, yeah, I think that the best athletes at the highest levels develop that self-awareness and you know that's certainly, again, that's going to be a benefit that crosses over to so many areas of your life. Yeah, I love that.

All this sounds great of go pursue your goals, spend all this time with your kids, you know, be present, all that. But there's this constraint that exists within it and that's like, well, I have to work, I've got to go make money so that I can buy the road bike, so I can take my kids to these things, so I can do all these things right. And you have been very deliberate about building your life and the work that you've done so that you have the ability, both from a time perspective, financially all these other aspects to be able to be present, to show up as the best dad, as the best athlete, the best spouse. Tell me a bit about how you've done that and why you think that that mindset of deliberately designing your job, your finances, that way, are so important for dads, for men, today.

Yeah, look, our business Next Level Income is. The mission is to help individuals achieve financial independence through education. So we have a podcast, we have a blog, we've got a free book that you can get on our website, nextlevelincomecom if you want to check that out but also investments, investment opportunities. So we try to help individuals achieve financial independence. Now, the way I got to this mission and the way I developed it in my own life then was probably a little unfortunate. Like I lost my father at a young age. I think I had a very strong awareness of the finitude right the fact that time is finite. But then my best friend that I mentioned earlier, chris, my training partner that said, hey, you got to train every day. He died in between my freshman and sophomore year in college and, after racing for another year, actually quit. After that my team went pro, I did and I quit and I was like well, I don't want to have regrets Like I want to be intentional about the way I live my life. I don't want to pass up opportunities that are out there, but you have to have money to do that. So when I was 21 years old, I set out on this pursuit of financial independence and figuring out how to achieve that, which is why we built our business around that and why I have the lifestyle I do today. So if you're listening and you have your own business or you're a high income, high stress professional like I was I was on call for 12 years of my career then you have to create a pathway for yourself to have more freedom as a parent, as a father. A great book is Die With Zero. That's out there. It talks about how you can kind of have your cake and eat it too. It's what we do with our coaching program, so we help people make more money, keep more of their money, through tax and legal strategies and also how to grow your money through investments. Everything that we've talked about today is my why. My family is my, why my time with my children is my, why my ability to go out and make an impact in the community is my, why the how are basically real estate investments that generate the passive income to do those things. And again, if you want to learn more about it, you can check us out at nextlevelincomecom. If you're listening today, you can get a free copy of our book there as well. Awesome.

I love that. I wish we could. I hope it deserves its own entire episode of how do we help people become more financially free so that they can pursue those whys. But, Chris man, I really appreciate the time that it has flown by for me and I think we.

I know I'm like wow, it's already. Yeah, we've been going an hour, it's been crazy.

We hit on so many topics and I feel just an amazing sense of gratitude because I feel like I have taken off a lot of really high value things for myself and so just want to express my gratitude to you, and I will definitely share all the many resources we talked about on the show notes, but I am so excited to continue following along on your journey. Keep the conversation going. I just want to say thank you so much again for your time.

Ben, thank you, it's been a blast. I love what you're doing, I love the concept, as I told you when we first connected, and if you're listening today, thank you for spending the time here on the TopGest today.

This has been an episode of the Athlete Dad Podcast. As always, we'd really love your support in helping to get this podcast out into the world. You can do that by sharing it with somebody you care about, who you think would really appreciate the content of what we talk about. You can also like and review on all podcast platforms. So go give us some love. It's much appreciated and it certainly helps us out keeping the show going.