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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and welcome back to Coast to Coast. George Nori

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Speaker 1: with you and let me tell you about Greg Everett

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Speaker 1: has coached the Olympic sport of weightlifting for almost fifteen

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Speaker 1: years up to the World Championship level. Was a nationally

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Speaker 1: competitive lifter himself, as now an elite competitor in the

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Speaker 1: Tactical Games. Greg is the author of Olympic Weightlifting, A

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Speaker 1: Complete Guide for Athletes and Coaches and other titles, and

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Speaker 1: the writer, director, producer of American Weightlifting It's a Documentary.

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Speaker 1: His new book is called Tough Building, True Mental, physical,

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Speaker 1: and emotional Toughness for Success and Fulfillment. Greg, welcome to

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Speaker 1: the program. First time for you, I understand it is

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Speaker 1: thank you for having me. Good to have you with

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Speaker 1: us too. How'd you get involved in weightlifting? I bit

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Speaker 1: you did this since you were a kid? Essentially, Yes,

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Speaker 1: started training involve in just about any sport you've heard of,

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Speaker 1: and quite a fee you probably haven't. But I was

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Speaker 1: always drawn to the training aspects of whatever I was doing.

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Speaker 1: So you know, from an early age I was in

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Speaker 1: the garage and doing what I could and you know,

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Speaker 1: this is pre internet days, of course, so a little

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Speaker 1: more difficult to figure out what was going on, and

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Speaker 1: discovered the sport of weightlifting, you know, as a teenager,

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Speaker 1: but of course didn't have access to a coach or

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Speaker 1: you know, a proper facility and equipment, you know, which

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Speaker 1: is very specific to that sport. And I couldn't google

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Speaker 1: weightlifting coach near me, So I kind of figured my

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Speaker 1: way through it for a few years, and then, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, several years later, I just happened to have

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Speaker 1: a great opportunity and ran into a uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: really accomplished coach who became my coach and my mentor

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Speaker 1: and really helped me transition into coaching when I was

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Speaker 1: done lifting. Did you ever get hurt weightlifting? Yeah? Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: That's essentially what retired me. Was I blew out my

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Speaker 1: shoulder at the twenty fifteen national championship. Oh god, that

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Speaker 1: must have hurt. Yeah, that must have heard. Although, to

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Speaker 1: be fair, that sport has one of the lowest rates

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Speaker 1: of acute injury of any Olympic sport. So it's it's

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Speaker 1: one of those those sports that people think is really

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Speaker 1: dangerous and injurious, and it is actually surprisingly not far

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Speaker 1: more injuries and you know field sports like football, baseball, soccer,

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Speaker 1: those sorts of things. I've a friend to owns a

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Speaker 1: gym here at Saint Louis greg and he was weightlifting

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Speaker 1: years ago and he heard something pop, and I guess

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Speaker 1: he pulled out his peck muscles or something by doing that.

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Speaker 1: I guess the weights are too much or something happens. Right,

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Speaker 1: Mine was really just a freak accident. I had never

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Speaker 1: had any shoulder issues, and it really came down to

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Speaker 1: me making a bad decision and fighting to save a

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Speaker 1: lift that I shouldn't have tried to save. And it

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Speaker 1: sounded like green tree branches tearing, and that arm was

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Speaker 1: hanging a halfway off. So it's a pretty extensive surgery

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Speaker 1: after that one super not tell us about your book

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Speaker 1: tough I love this about the hour the mind, which

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Speaker 1: can be applicable to anything, not just weightlifting. Yeah, absolutely

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Speaker 1: it is us. It's really a all encompassing, very broad

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Speaker 1: reaching look into what I consider what true toughness is, which,

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Speaker 1: unfortunately that title is going to be misleading to a

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Speaker 1: lot of people, and so I spend a lot of

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Speaker 1: time early in the book trying to explain what exactly

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Speaker 1: it is. But essentially what I'm looking at is how

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Speaker 1: do we figure out ways to experience our life more

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Speaker 1: with you, more fulfilling, more meaningful experiences, you know, the

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Speaker 1: perspective that allows us to not just make it through adversity, challenges, hardships,

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Speaker 1: but actually use them to our advantage that we come

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Speaker 1: out the other end more capable, more intelligent, strong, or

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Speaker 1: more resilient. All these things that all of us, at

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Speaker 1: least unconsciously seek, right, We seek to be secure and

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Speaker 1: be happy and be confident in ourselves. And so it's

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Speaker 1: really a look at how, but not only what that entails,

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Speaker 1: but how we actually achieve that in the practical sense.

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Speaker 1: When you say tough, what do you mean by that? Well,

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Speaker 1: the short version I break it down into four elements,

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Speaker 1: and that is character, capability, capacity, and commitment. Character is

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Speaker 1: essentially knowing and determining who you are, your your genuine identity,

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Speaker 1: and the corrollary to that is being secure in that identity. Right,

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Speaker 1: so that helps us avoid all the silly, meaningless competition

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Speaker 1: and one upmanship and and you know, desperate validation seeking

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Speaker 1: and that sort of thing that prevents us from doing

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Speaker 1: what's actually meaningful to us, capability is just the broadest

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Speaker 1: range possible and an ever growing collection of not just

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Speaker 1: physical traits, you know, in terms of athletic sort of things,

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Speaker 1: but skills and knowledge. So we're trying to collect as

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Speaker 1: many of those things from a broader range of experiences

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Speaker 1: and disciplines as possible because that is what allows us

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Speaker 1: to be prepared for any possible, unpredictable experience. And it

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Speaker 1: could be toughest with men or women, right, Oh, absolutely, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it has that's the thing is, it's there's there's

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Speaker 1: nothing gender dependent about it. Right. We may have each

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Speaker 1: of us may have certain traits that we're able to

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Speaker 1: develop an express to a greater extent, But that's true.

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Speaker 1: It's in a given sex too, right, Some men are

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Speaker 1: going to be stronger than other men regardless of how

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Speaker 1: they train. Some women are going to be a lot

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Speaker 1: stronger than some men. I coach primarily women in the

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Speaker 1: sport of weightlifting, and they would outperform quite a few

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Speaker 1: men out there. So it's really the sum total of

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Speaker 1: all these different traits, not just a couple specific ones

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Speaker 1: that are exclusive to certain types of people. And you know,

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Speaker 1: I have found that you can be tough and kind

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Speaker 1: at the same time, can't you absolutely? In fact, if

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Speaker 1: you are not kind, it is an indicator that you

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Speaker 1: are not truly tough, because you are very likely, at

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Speaker 1: least unconsciously trying to protect yourself in avoid exposing what

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Speaker 1: you see as vulnerability, and essentially, you know, creating a

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Speaker 1: persona that you believe is presenting a strong, you know,

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Speaker 1: sense to people, rather than simply recognizing that being kind,

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Speaker 1: being generous, being you know, compassionate is not betraying weakness.

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Speaker 1: It is not making you vulnerable or any of these

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Speaker 1: other things that somehow, you know, so many of us

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Speaker 1: have started to believe about that absolutely and to be tough.

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Speaker 1: People can use it in business, you can use it

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Speaker 1: in just about anything. It's just not athletics, right, No,

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Speaker 1: not at all. Athletics is one thing we can do

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Speaker 1: with our lives, one thing we can find meaning in,

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Speaker 1: one thing we can find enjoyment in. But the qualities

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Speaker 1: that you know, the condition of being tough or these

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Speaker 1: things we're seeking and developing, apply to every single aspect

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Speaker 1: of our lives. You know. It comes down to the

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Speaker 1: most elemental experiences. The way that the attitude we have

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Speaker 1: about things, the way that we interpret events, and therefore

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Speaker 1: you know how we feel about them, whether or not

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Speaker 1: we enjoy them, whether or not we're capable of learning

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Speaker 1: anything from them and actually developing as a person, versus

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Speaker 1: kind of cowering in the corner and waiting for the

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Speaker 1: hard times to pass. Our guest is Greg Everett. His

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Speaker 1: book is called tough Building True Mental, physical, and Emotional

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Speaker 1: Toughness for Success and Fulfillment. Is website is linked up

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Speaker 1: at Coast to coast am dot com. You talk about

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Speaker 1: the four c is of toughness in your book, Greg,

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Speaker 1: go through those for us so that I cover the

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Speaker 1: first two a moment ago. So that's our character and

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Speaker 1: capacity or excuse me, capability. The third one is capacity,

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Speaker 1: and that is what most of us you know, typically

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Speaker 1: call resilience. But my issue with resilience is resilience really

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Speaker 1: is the ability to return to our original condition following

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Speaker 1: some kind of traumatic event. And that's a good start.

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Speaker 1: Of course, we want to survive this thing and at

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Speaker 1: least get back to our baseline. But what I'm talking

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Speaker 1: about capacity, what I want to do is actually take

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Speaker 1: advantage of whatever adverse situation we're experiencing and exploit it

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Speaker 1: in any way we possibly can to actually get better

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Speaker 1: from it, right, So we're not just surviving something. We're

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Speaker 1: not riding out the storm in the cellar, we're actually

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Speaker 1: thriving through it and in the wake of it, and

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Speaker 1: we're learning what we can from it. And so that

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Speaker 1: takes that attitude I talked about a moment ago of

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Speaker 1: looking at what can I use this for? What can

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Speaker 1: I do with this? You know, how can I turn

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Speaker 1: this into an opportunity rather than just you know, hunkering

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Speaker 1: down and suffering through it in a more passive way.

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Speaker 1: And then the final one is commitment. And this is

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Speaker 1: a pretty encompassing topic here, but this includes things like discipline,

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Speaker 1: in habit, building, routines, lifestyle, that sort of thing. But ultimately,

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Speaker 1: what it comes down to is that if you have

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Speaker 1: these first three things nailed down, but you do not

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Speaker 1: have the commitment element, you're not willing to actually put

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Speaker 1: these things to use to achieve anything meaningful or significant.

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Speaker 1: So that means that all of those previous things have

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Speaker 1: just become a private fantasy. It's just something you tell yourself,

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Speaker 1: something you tell yourself you can do, something you tell

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Speaker 1: yourself you are. But as soon as those things are

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Speaker 1: actually challenged and you're required to step up and do

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Speaker 1: something about it. You fail to, And so that's the

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Speaker 1: lack of commitments, and that's why that's such an important

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Speaker 1: part of it all. What are some of the things

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Speaker 1: people face where toughness is so important in their regular lifestyle?

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Speaker 1: The death of a loved one, perhaps, a break up

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Speaker 1: of a relationship, what other things? Oh yeah, things like that,

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Speaker 1: but even even the simpler day to day things and

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Speaker 1: simply standing up for your values and what you believe.

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Speaker 1: I mean, think about how many times you've been in

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Speaker 1: a social situation and you find yourself just quietly nodding

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Speaker 1: along to something someone is saying that you vehemently disagree with,

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Speaker 1: but you're unwilling to put yourself out there because you're

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Speaker 1: not entirely secure in that identity and you're not willing

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Speaker 1: to And it's not that you have to fight people

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Speaker 1: on this stuff. It's not a combative adversarial sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: But when you are truly secure in that identity, you

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Speaker 1: have that character thing dialed down, you can express what

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Speaker 1: you think, what you feel in a non adversarial sort

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Speaker 1: of way. You know, to defend it, to stand up

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Speaker 1: for what you believe, you can go out there, you

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Speaker 1: can actually stand up for other people who are incapable

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Speaker 1: of doing that. And it is you know, death of

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Speaker 1: a loved one, difficulties at work, anything that is challenging

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Speaker 1: your ability to enjoy your life, right, is essentially something

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Speaker 1: that the idea of toughness is going to help you

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Speaker 1: through because it's changing the way that you're viewing these things,

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Speaker 1: and it's providing you a sense of agency and this

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Speaker 1: knowledge that you are responsible for the course of your

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Speaker 1: life and therefore you are seeking action to take. Even

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Speaker 1: if those actions are not over physical actions, they may

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Speaker 1: be simply changing the way you're thinking, changing the way

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Speaker 1: you're viewing something, and that allows us to experience these

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Speaker 1: things in a totally different way. That can while it's

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Speaker 1: still going to be difficult, right, Losing someone you care

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Speaker 1: about is never going to be easy, but you can

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Speaker 1: get through that in a way that ultimately is not

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Speaker 1: going to crush you, and you may provide you some

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Speaker 1: value in terms of insight. How do you train someone

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Speaker 1: to be tough without them being mean or a bully

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Speaker 1: or anything like that. Well, first you educate them and

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Speaker 1: explain to them that those things have nothing to do

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Speaker 1: with being tough and again. You know, you look at

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Speaker 1: the classic bully story and if you allow that to

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Speaker 1: actually play out to its logical conclusion, it always ends

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Speaker 1: in the bully being exposed as a coward. Right. It's

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Speaker 1: it's someone who is incredibly insecure. Yes, And they are

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Speaker 1: really overplaying this. What they think is the kind of

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Speaker 1: tough guy persona and they're really not tough at all, no,

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Speaker 1: but they're so terrified of being exposed as cowards, as

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Speaker 1: being vulnerable, as being weak, that they have to put

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Speaker 1: on this show. And so that's number one. Is a

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Speaker 1: truly tough person will never tell you how tough he

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Speaker 1: or she is. They don't have to, first of all,

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Speaker 1: But second of all, they're not interested in getting credit

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Speaker 1: or recognition for it. It's just who they are. It's

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Speaker 1: just like I don't go around bragging about having brown hair.

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Speaker 1: It's just what it is. And so it really is

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Speaker 1: a totally different mindset. And being truly tough is totally

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Speaker 1: incompatible with acting tough outwardly. Well, what has been the

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Speaker 1: toughest thing you've gone through on your own? Oh? Well,

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Speaker 1: you know that you different things, But I would say

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Speaker 1: if I had to actually choose one, it would be

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Speaker 1: dealing with drug addiction in my younger years, and you know,

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Speaker 1: spending quite a few years trying to come out the

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Speaker 1: other end of that because it required a lot of

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Speaker 1: really fundamental remodeling of my life and changing, you know,

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Speaker 1: in entirely how I was approaching my own life, the

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Speaker 1: way I was thinking about things, who I was spending

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Speaker 1: time with, and you know, cutting essentially everybody I knew

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Speaker 1: at that point out of my life permanently. So it

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Speaker 1: was it took some very serious, very extensive change to

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Speaker 1: get through that. How old were you then? This was

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Speaker 1: you know, from my early teenage years until my early twenties,

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Speaker 1: so you know, twenty three twenty four was probably when

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Speaker 1: I finally started wrapping that stuff up. Did you do

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Speaker 1: this on your own to fight it or did you

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Speaker 1: have help? I did it completely on my own, and

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Speaker 1: I don't necessarily recommend that to everybody, but that is

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Speaker 1: what worked for me. That is what I found I

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Speaker 1: had to do. And if people have to remember that

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Speaker 1: there's no shame in seeking help for that stuff or

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Speaker 1: anything else, that is absolutely the best thing to do

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Speaker 1: in so many cases. So you really have to find

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Speaker 1: the structure in the system that works best for you,

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Speaker 1: rather than trying to subscribe to someone else's, you know,

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Speaker 1: whatever system worked for them. And so I don't think,

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Speaker 1: you know, to use the parlance for the night, I

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Speaker 1: don't think I'm tougher than someone else by doing it

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Speaker 1: on my own than someone who, say, goes to a

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Speaker 1: twelve step program or some kind of support group. Anyone

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Speaker 1: who can get through something like that is has my

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Speaker 1: respect for some toughness. What was it that had you

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Speaker 1: hit the bottom, Greg, that made you realize I gotta

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Speaker 1: pull out of this, I gotta change. Well, it's a

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Speaker 1: collection of experiences. I don't know that there was a

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Speaker 1: single rock bottom. It's it's bouncing around a rocky bottom

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Speaker 1: for a while. I think in a lot of cases,

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Speaker 1: you know, things like being incapable of going into my

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Speaker 1: job because I had been up for two days doing cocaine. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it was you know, I couldn't be bothered to

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Speaker 1: pull away from that to go try to you know,

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Speaker 1: keep my job. So things like that, I think it's

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Speaker 1: for many people, maybe it's more dramatic to think of

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Speaker 1: this one awful experience that that finally does it form.

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Speaker 1: But I think a lot of times it really is

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Speaker 1: the accumulation of many experiences over time, and it's just

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Speaker 1: that constantly building burden that you're carrying. And finally, you

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Speaker 1: know the classic straw that breaks the camel's back sort

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Speaker 1: of situation. Well, you're lucky you stopped when you did.

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Speaker 1: You probably wouldn't even be here talking to me tonight.

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Speaker 1: You'd be dead, very likely. Yeah, that is a real possibility.

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Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at

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