#052 – Husband, father, and founder of Team Believe 923, Nelson “Runaway” Diaz, talks about the power of mindset and how it impacts all aspects of your life. Nelson shares his life journey, successes and failures, and his philosophy on that internal battle that we each have with ourselves.
Topics Covered:
- Winning the mental battle to achieve your goals
- Importance of celebrating wins before setting a new goal
- Not waiting for a diagnosis or crisis to make a change
- Helping others in need while you are on your journey
Today’s Guest
Nelson “Runaway” Diaz
Nelson is a husband, father, and founder of Team Believe 923.
Follow Nelson:
- Instagram – @nelsonrunawaydiaz
- Instagram – @teambelieve923
Additional Resources:
Listen to Inspire to Run Podcast:
Richard Conner 0:00
Hey everyone, welcome to episode 52. Today we’re going to talk a lot about the power of mindset with coach and athlete Nelson Diaz, and the role it plays in helping you change your life. Nelson shares his life journey, successes and failures and his philosophy on that internal battle that we each have with ourselves. Hope you enjoy.
Intro/Outro
Welcome to Inspire to Run podcast. Here you will find inspiration. Whether you’re looking to take control of your health and fitness or you’re a seasoned runner, looking for community and some extra motivation. You will hear inspiring stories from amazing runners, along with helpful tips from fitness experts. Now here’s your host, Richard Conner.
Richard Conner
Hi, everyone, welcome to inspire to run Podcast. I’m here today with such a special guest. Nelson Diaz, also known as Nelson “Runaway” Diaz. He’s a husband, father and founder of Team Believe 923. Nelson, welcome to the show.
Nelson Diaz
Hey, appreciate the invite man, super excited to be here.
Richard Conner
I’m excited that you’re here as well. And just to kind of kick things off for the listeners, I just want to share a little story about how Nelson and I met. I think as many of you know that I’ve been running Spartan Races for a number of years. And last year, I tipped my dipped my toe into Spartan Decker races. And one of the races I went to and Nelson was my judge. And I tell you, it was just an awesome experience. And I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, at the end of the day, people won’t remember what you said or did, they’ll remember how you made them feel. And Nelson made me feel like a winner. Like I could do it like I could reach my goals. And ever since then I’m like, You know what, I have to have him on the show. And unfortunate enough that here he is today.
Nelson Diaz
I remember that day, I remember that day, it was one of the DECA road shows in Jersey and you were in the middle of a battle. You versus you. And you gave me the opportunity to encourage you and cheer you on and give you some tips along the way to make your experience something you’d be proud of. And at the end, I think you were I think you were very proud. You did amazing.
Richard Conner
It’s funny, you use the word battle because that accurately describe what I was going through at that time. Because I think in the races leading up to it, I may have hit my PR but not my target time. Or maybe I didn’t even PR I was just going through a lot. I was like I gotta get it together. And in that race, I did both I PR and a hit my target time. And I remember telling you asked me what’s your target time I was like, This is my time. I don’t know what it was like 31 minutes or something. This isn’t my time. And it all through the ratio like you’re gonna do it, you’re on track, you’re on track to hit your time. And I’m like, I could do this. I could do this. So anyway, just super excited to have you here today.
Nelson Diaz
Now it was amazing, man, you got it done. Kudos to you. I mean, like in any battle, physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, whatever you you choose when to bow down, and you chose not to, you chose to run through, crawl through, push yourself through. But you got through. So that’s amazing, man.
Richard Conner
Very cool. So you know, our mutual friend, Kevin Gregory, aka bubbles, Kevin’s a beast, Kevin’s a beast. He’s been my trainer for a few years now. And he was able to connect us so super excited. And you know, Nelson, what I’d like to do is on aspire to run podcast, we focus on three pillars, mindset, movement, and motivation. And again, you had the right mindset and the right encouragement and the right words during that race. And I just wanted to bring that voice your voice to our listeners. But you know, before we get into that, let’s learn a little bit more about you. Let’s you know, give us the your background, your story and kind of what led you where you are today.
Nelson Diaz
You know, I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes version of it. It was a pretty start, then it got ugly, real quick, you know, raised with both parents in the home till certain age and then they split up and then things just started to turn for the worst. For me, I can’t blame them so much. I just decided to make decisions that didn’t favor my, my future to well. So somewhat misguided somewhat with poor decisions. I found myself leaving jersey to clean record going to the southwest and coming out of that situation with everything except the clean record. So a lot of failures along the way. But through all those all those failures, all those challenges by the grace of God, I was always surrounded by people who cared about me, even if just enough care just enough to reach out and say, hey, you know what to try to reel me back in to towards the roots that my family when we were all together kind of where they planted me in, you know in the community of believers and people who are more focused on the eternal and the long lasting things and the things that are immediately in front of us. So that’s it in a nutshell. and just throughout my life’s journey, my love and passion for music led me to a path where I was managing r&b and rap artists from Arizona, Cali, New York In New Jersey for a little season. And then I ended up becoming one of the artists myself because I felt there was a better way to a cleaner way of reaching, reaching the youth with our messages. Now, the message wasn’t always positive. But something as simple as cleaning up the lyrics would be more accessible. And of course, there’s the business benefit of that right when you don’t have to push parental advisory stickers on your stuff. Parents are a little bit more inclined to purchase your product. So yeah, and then just fast track, you know, moving through life discovered obstacle course races and was very attracted to those started with tough motors found out there are races where you can actually run in mud 10 miles. And if you’re lucky, you get electrocuted, going through their obstacles. For some reason, I was attracted to that self professed and had the opportunity to use it as a vehicle to raise funds for people with disabilities, including paralyzed rockers football player, Eric Grant. And eventually, we had some folks from the spinal cord injury community and their friends reaching out saying, hey, we’d like you to take us through these races with you. And one of them Tim Morris, who I’ll speak his name often, as often as I can just an amazing human. He became a Certified Strength and conditioning coach after his paralysis. And he taught us how to work with people with different levels of spinal cord injuries. And then we had some visually impaired athletes. So we essentially now team believe 923, as you alluded to, we are on Instagram. But what we do now is we essentially train people with different levels of ability to conquering bucket item lists, if they want to do an Ironman, for example, they want to do a Tough Mudder a Spartan Race is something that’s something that’s going to take a team, a structure team to get you through, we kind of help kind of facilitate that. So very passionate about that. And as you mentioned, you know, husband, father, those are important roles, most important roles in my lifestyle, and a servant when I get the opportunity to love helping people,
Richard Conner
for sure, for sure. Well, thank you so much for sharing that and just, you know, a wonderful life journey and congratulations for, you know, working through it sounds like a challenging childhood, and getting to where you are today where you’re in a position were able to give back right and help others and it feels like this is your mission. So really, really love that. And, you know, tell me a little bit about runaway because Is that related to your obstacle course races love for obstacle course races? Or is that something different?
Nelson Diaz
The origins were the streets. So I used to run with some MCs back in the day and they were more stable, they’re more level headed me The streets were still calling and I was still answering that time. So one time I just met up with them. And one of them just casually says, Man, you’re upstate, you downstate, you’re in state, you’re everywhere you move like a runaway, it’s hard to keep track, you move like a runaway, well, where are you, you know, and then the other ones like, that’s, that’s, that’s your name, runaway. And it just stuck from there. Back then it was more so because of what I was running from. But now is what I’m running to. Either way, still running. So runaway stands and the name sticks. And obviously with my love for movement, you know, just being able to move by myself or with adaptive athletes, you know, just being able to move and keep running, the name makes even more sense. So
Richard Conner
Well, thanks for sharing that. And And as I’m thinking about your journey, and I’m thinking about how you kind of overcame some of these challenges and barriers through your life, and, and you’re in a great place today. And I’m wondering for our listeners, a lot of people are dealing with something, right? Maybe it’s different than your story or my story. But everybody’s dealing with something, what would you say in terms of mindset or mindset shift, that you think it helps someone just kind of take a step back and say, really evaluate where they are in life, and think about where they want to go and really making a commitment to get there. But what are your thoughts on that maybe based on your own experiences?
Nelson Diaz
Yeah, that’s really all I can speak on my own experiences, but, but I do know that it resonates with a lot of people in different segments of society. As far as mindset and the Battle of the mind, there’s nothing like it. You know, in the physical, you defeat somebody. And let’s say it’s a you know, in combat sports, let’s keep it friendly. You defeat somebody in the ring in whatever arena, you’re having that physical conflict and you defeat them and that’s essentially it. The victory is there. You can hang your head on that you can celebrate you can move on through life looking for the next victory. It’s good in that sense, but when it comes to our mind means we had the tendency, I have the tendency of winning, beating myself in something a self doubt and insecurity, something. And then I allow myself with the pressures or other people to bring it to fit in that same area, I just, I just had victory. And I’m not quite sure if I’m expressing it the way it’s flowing in my head. But you know, just the battle is never ending. And I always tell people in and I’m not sure if I mentioned it to you, but I typically tell people when they do something physical, that’s, that’s difficult, and they overcome it. Hey, we got five seconds to celebrate, let’s go all out. Let’s celebrate this moment, let’s embed it in our memory banks. You know, take your selfies, take your picture, make your post, as soon as you hit Send or post, it’s done. That’s the history. The focus is now on on the present and the future. What are you doing to conquer your, your new present, and the future that you’re, you know, heading into, but with the mind, we make that forward advancement, and then something that we allow things to happen, and usually happens because we don’t know who we are, or who’s we are, we forget some of the, you know, fundamentals. And we allow, like I said, peer pressure and all types of other stuff from from outside to affect us and drag us back into battle that we had victory in. And then this could apply to anything. Mentally, it can apply to you’re doing something physical, but there’s a mental battle, you’re going through it, we can apply it to that. But then there’s also just that stuff that you battle with on your own that no one else in the world may know or have an idea, you’ve done a great job of hiding it. Because you don’t want to burden others with it. Okay, that might be the reason, you don’t want to be pitied. You don’t want to be looked at a certain way. So you, you hold it and whatever it is, you know, but for those battles, you know, I find that’s what’s happened. That’s what happens as well. You overcome it for the moment. And then, you know, sun goes down, or a certain song, you hear a certain song, you see certain people, you’re on social and of course, everyone’s life is amazing on social media, no one has any rainy days. Something happens, you see, hear smell, taste something, touch something, and it brings you back into battle. That, you know, you had one before. And I’m not sure if I’m kind of rambling on the same thing here. But you know, just in thinking about this as we’re talking is really a heavy thing. The great, the amazing thing is, there’s always one fight worth picking. And that’s your fight. That’s for you, the fight to better yourself to improve yourself, to prove yourself wrong when you had doubts about yourself, and maybe you’ll prove others wrong, but who cares. And that’s all distraction. It’s all about that, that fight that you have to do, man that fights always worth picking. So as long as you’re willing to pick it up, like a scab, when you pick a scab, there’s some pain, there’s some blood that still comes out, you know, same thing, when you pick a fight, you know, within yourself, it’s kind of it may be hurtful, bring up some negative negative memories that you’re gonna have to figure out how to process properly in order to grow from it. But um, my goodness, mindset is everything. You don’t need money to have the right mindset. You don’t need friends to have the right mindset. You don’t need followers on social media, to have the right mindset. You just have to be willing to pick a fight.
Richard Conner
And I really love that because you know what I’ve seen or read through my conversations, I’ve seen folks that will make that change or start to make that change when something happens in their life. Right? If there’s some sort of life change, if they receive a diagnosis as an example, or some something else. That’s the point in time where they make the decision. But you know, you have that opportunity at any point in time to better your life. And it’s completely up to you, right? It’s not us saying, These are the things that you need to do. You need to make that decision for yourself. But you can do it. You don’t need to wait for you know that life change to do that. And I love what you said about it’s a battle with yourself because it absolutely is. And just thinking back to the race that I ran we’re talking about last year. That was definitely a battle with myself. Because even before the race or even during the race, I’m thinking, Gosh, can I really do this? Can I this? This is hard. You know, I don’t know if I could really do this. I don’t know if I could run like these other runners and I’m watching as I’m waiting to get to the starting line. Right. So so totally understand that. That that is a battle with yourself.
Nelson Diaz
You know, I’ll say this, you know, there’s always a starting point, and it’s different for different people, right. As you mentioned for somebody may be a life or death situation or crisis, illness, something major, something massive. It’s understandable for somebody else, some in different, the main thing that I found is every decision we make trains our brain to respond a certain way, under the certain set of circumstances. Excuse me. So with that, I mean, if it’s a crisis, that allowed me to flip a switch, and pick that fight, and give it all that I got, you know, that’s great, what happens is, sometimes until we hit the next crisis, we forget that we can make this a way of life a way to victory in our in ourselves, you know, so the crisis might be the first domino. But that mindset, whatever you apply to that crisis, because you knew you had to it was either, you know, go through it, or die, you know, put up a fight, or just lay down, you know, and you weren’t going to lay down for whatever that thing is in your life. I mean, you know, we laid out for a lot of stuff, we’re not for everything. So we just have to remember, hey, whatever I stood up for, I need to apply whatever little bit I had to that situation, no matter how major minor that situation was, I need to apply that to all these situations, as a starting point, as part of my being, this is who I am, no matter what the situation is major or minor, I’m going to respond with this attitude. And if I’m not going to win, I’m gonna go down fight, and it’s gonna be ugly, but it’s gonna be a battle, it’s not gonna be a landslide victory. On the negative side, you know, and it’s not easy. I hope my words don’t make it sound like it’s easy. I mean, if we, if we had seven days straight to talk nonstop on, on your podcast, I go over failure after failure after failure, just to just to prove that I know, it’s not easy, because my life is just full of that, that roller coaster, you know, some some pain from the outside in, but the majority self-induced created by me, manufactured by me, invented by me. And that’s what we do sometimes, right? We invent things, because we’re stuck in our, in a mindset, that’s not beneficial. But listen, it’s time to move on. No matter what you’re going through, it’s time to move on on the physical, it’s easy, it’s easier, I should say, all you got to do is commit to move in and start moving five people around that are willing to move with you, I got a community of people movement, so at least you’re moving to be crawling or run, at least you’re moving, you’re moving in the right direction. But when it comes to that mindset that you need to have, where we’re no matter what you’re up against, you’re able to form a resistance and help train others because of your experiences good, bad, or indifferent. You know, there’s a song. Man, I’ve known this for almost all my life as a quarterback, but he says something like we’ve been indoors. Because it weeping is just for the night indoors for the night. But joy comes in the morning, you know, and I had a buddy who was a singer, Craig Routh, man, as a kid and his singing, he used to sing a song and he’d say, I never seen a rainbow till after the rain. I never felt God’s healing power, till after the pain. And it went on a couple more examples like that. So hey, you’re in the thick of it, you’re in the middle of it. That’s how you know you’re alive. Now keep living, keep fighting, keep choosing, and look inside, because the majority of the solution, the majority of the solution is inside, just like the majority of your problem is inside.
Richard Conner
Right. Right. It’s self inflicted, as you said, so, you know, give me You mentioned you have you have a lot of examples. And, you know, can you give me an example of, of maybe one of those failures, or one of those moments, where you really had to think deeply about what it is that you wanted to accomplish and kind of overcome some of those internal barriers? And you know, maybe it’s related to fitness or, or otherwise, do you have an example of that?
Nelson Diaz
You know, mindset is crazy. There’s so many different ways I can a different examples, I’m going to use this one just because I don’t share this one often enough, going back a couple of years when I was heavy into music and I finally changed my life around from negative music after I really understand the impact that music and sound waves have in people’s lives right and how it was affecting my life and by the grace of God was able to do a 180 and you know, now I’m running running towards a different direction right? I was still I was doing music and it was all positive clean Rick lyrics is focusing on encouragement and and and I had opportunities to open up for some B level artists in nightclubs and I’m kind of getting full of myself because I was receiving a really favorable response. You know, some can fill them out. I’m like You okay, okay, what I’m doing is on par it’s being appreciated being acknowledged the relationship being built this that the other and then I’m thinking okay, so when, when when am I going to get to that next level? This is when I was chasing, you know, I guess I guess some fame or some recognition, definitely some money, maybe record contract, whatever, a sizable one. And I can’t remember exactly where I was with you, but I’ll tell you this as are a homeless person. And, man, I’ve seen homeless people in my life, I’m an inner city kid, I was homeless myself at a certain time, on the streets, self induced situation and and, but for some reason, I saw this homeless person. And it brought me to tears. And everything made sense in that moment. My mindset was, I’m heading towards money, recognition, respect, amplify my voice to a broader audience. And it’s a good, it’s a positive message I’m pushing forward. So, you know, all that made sense to me. But then in that moment, when I saw that particular homeless person at that place, I don’t remember the details around it. I understood and I simply said this, okay, God, if I’m focusing on performing, in sold out arenas, and who’s going to reach him, who’s going to reach the people who can’t get into that arena. And what that did for me, is it reminded me that I strayed mentally, I took my eye off the prize. By the grace of God, I have a very valuable message, because I’ve failed so much. And I know how not to fail that I can help others. So I have that message. And I want to share it, share it, share it, but I got caught up on the business side, that I started to neglect, really getting that message to whomever needs it. And it may not be the exact mindset answer you were looking for. But it’s one on a different level, that reminded me that even when you’re out to do good if your mind is not trained up, to focus on the things that matter, your mission, your purpose, why you were created, who you belong to, you know, and all that stuff, you will stray, you can stray, and falling, missing, the Mark doesn’t always look horrible. Some people miss the mark and become millionaires, I believe. Some people miss the mark, and they have the homes that they’ve always dreamed of. They have the relationships that they value, they have some success and notoriety, and that’s failing, but they don’t know it. They’ve traded their purpose, a true purpose, the things that matter. They got distracted, and settle for something that they wanted, not something that they needed, nor the people that nor what the people that they have access to needed. So pardon my rambling if I went a little hard left on that one. But as the mindset mindset is beyond, it’s beyond the the woe is me, I can’t get past this mindset battle is also the wow, I’ve gotten past this, I’m on my way to the stars. When you know, that’s, that’s really not what you’re supposed to be on the way to, he’s supposed to be on the way to the slums to rescue somebody that’s supposed to be on the way to a expensive meal with a bunch of millionaires, he’s supposed to be out there, hands to the plow, hands dirty, reminding somebody why they should put that fight, pick, pick that fight, and live beyond that moment. My bad?
Richard Conner
No, I love it. Don’t apologize, this is a great message. And you know, you’re, it’s great when you said purpose, because that’s exactly what came to my mind. And, you know, really thinking about our purpose, and you know, kind of bringing it back to health and fitness. You know, you may not, we may not say start running, because you want to become an elite level athlete and start winning races around the world. Know, your purpose is whatever your purpose is, maybe it’s to serve your family or it’d be successful in your career, or whatever the case is, but you need your health, in order to do that, right, you need to be in good health in order to do that. So maybe, you know, kind of taking control of your health and fitness is an enabler for you to reach your purpose. Right. So I really love what
Nelson Diaz
you said about taking control of yourself, taking control, taking initiative, taking control of yourself, it’s great when the people around you to come up and rescue. But what if there’s nobody around you to rescue? Or what if you’re not in the frame of mind to accept the help? The majority of the solutions are within us, I firmly believe that just like the majority of our problems are also within us. So yeah, take control, which like Vinci said do it.
Richard Conner
Very cool. Very cool. And, you know, let’s pivot a little bit and talk a little bit about movement and the races that you’ve done. I know this is an exciting topic for you. You know, I’ve heard some of your other conversations about you know, what excites you about obstacle course racing and quite honestly, what excites you terrifies me, so I’m going to live vicariously through your stories. But just you know, let’s just talk for a couple of minutes about that. Like, what are those exciting moments in those races and what do you feel like you get from by doing this?
Nelson Diaz
So the first thing is, when I was grade school when I was a kid, even in high school, I was okay as a cross country runner, you know, inner city, I had no chance that any other sport I tried every sport almost drowned trying out for the swim team. I’m horrible than 99% of sports out there. But running for some reason, distance running, you know, I can I could hold my own to a certain degree and I was, you know, had a respectful, very short lived career because it was discovered I had a heart murmur. So then, you know, that stopped, you know, my freshman year, but years later as an adult, a buddy of ours, and I kind of mentioned a portion of the story earlier on, he discovered Tough Mudder. And, you know, he said, Man, I just did this amazing race, and this is what happened, you get electrocuted when you go through certain obstacles in this house. That sounds crazy. Let’s do some research. Let’s do the next one together. For summary, I have no idea why I was drawn to it immediately. But I was able to corral some other like minded fools. Go ahead and get our toes in the water. And we enjoyed it. And we were able to immediately start using it as fundraisers for Eriko grant. That’s how we actually started with the fundraisers by doing those obstacle course races. And then one time, me and my two brother in law’s I said, I said, a shout out to the outlawed in laws, that’s what we call ourselves. But I said, Look, man, you know, we all had some sports in our background, and we’ve never had the opportunity to go all out. Because we’re with a team, we’re helping adaptive, we’re advancing the mission of team believed 923, you know, just reminding folks, everything is possible. For those who believe. And, in finally, we just had a date to ourselves to do a race and we’re like, Hey, man, let’s just see what’s in the tank. We’ve never done it before, let’s just go all out. And then the three of us qualify for the World Champion for the world’s toughest monitor the 24 hour championship. And we like, it’s crazy, we got something in us that for for decades, we haven’t let out because of life. You know, we’re married, we have children, we have responsibility. And, you know, um, and then, for me that that just, I just never stopped. And I was just looking for the next thing. And then eventually were introduced to Spartan Race. And when I say oh, I need to do some research on Spartan Race. And first thing that jumped out was Death Race. And I kind of went from Spartan Race research to Death Race research, and ended up getting my butt handed to me at Death Race. And for those who are unaware of Death Race, that I think the way for us to say something like, you may die, you’re acknowledging that you may die, I think the website was you may die.com. And essentially, it’s a multi day event in the mountains of Vermont, you don’t know anything, they a couple days before the event, they send you an email with a gear list that’s required, and what time it starts where you need to be at that’s it, and it can go for three days, five days, you don’t know, you just got to be prepared to go. No sleep, no rest is work, work work mind games. And for some reason, all those brutal processes and I never completed one of those, neither of my three attempts, I have three DNF did not finish. But some of them in that journey. In that process. I enjoy them, I enjoy myself, I still don’t know where the root of that is, you know, I do know that we all need outlets. And my outlet is not every day of my life. When I’m away from my kids, when I’m working when I you know, I’m focused on other things. So I don’t necessarily have that Nelson time to let all this nonsense out, let all this whatever. So maybe that’s part of it. You know, maybe just that outlet, you know, I get to just just bleed, leave it all on that battlefield. And smile, knowing that I’m walking away from it at the same time, then you’re crying because I DNF and it’s an emotional Oh, that’s another thing, which is an emotional journey. Some people we’re wired, how we’re wired for somebody based on where they’re at. That emotional journey may be maybe triggered by a 5k by something that others may be like, Oh, that’s you know, that’s such a small thing, you know, competition. Small competition. That is for me when it gets deep, dark and ugly. And I’m just bombing miserably feeling and it’s just cold Vermont rain on you and you’re going into almost frozen pond and you’re lugging 80 pound log and you have like 40 or 50 pounds of gear on your back with your food with your axe with stuff that you don’t know why they asked you to bring it like porcupine quills, three feet of buckskin you’re like why am I bringing porcupine quill and they have a reason for everything on their gear list. But for some reason. Ah, this is gonna sound stupid, but I feel I do feel alive. I do feel like I’m in something valuable. Even though I’m just being dragged through the mud being brought to my lowest points emotionally, physically, psychologically every other way I can think of so you have a beast coming up that is a Spartan beast for those who are unaware. That is a that is a half marathon. 13.1 mile I believe Even with 30 obstacles in the mountains of New Jersey, on my birthday October 1, you have less of the score with 13.1 or more miles with 30 obstacles. Where if it were to go down today, where are you mentally today,
Richard Conner
mentally today, I’m as ready as I can be for this race. You know, I’ve been training all year, mostly for half marathon road races. So I just finished went up a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been training, training with coach Kevin on kind of, again, overcoming my fears and some of those mental blocks and trying to get better at these obstacles. But I tell you what, for the two races, two or three races that I’ve run already this year, I’m in a much better place to do this beast than maybe it was two, three, four years ago, four years ago, I would have never thought I could do anything like this ever. Like that is not what I’m all about. You know, Fast forward four years later, here, I am ready to do it.
Nelson Diaz
Hey, you put into work, you signed up. Only thing left to do is the toughest thing, which is show up. And then just get it done one foot in front of the other. Sink or swim, fail an obstacle, completed obstacle, just go through the process of that process, do what it’s supposed to do for you physically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, celebrate. So you post that that finished picture, then the celebrating is done. And it’s answered to the next challenge to the next victory. Don’t stay stuck in a
Richard Conner
lot of celebration, you my friend.
Nelson Diaz
So we lost to celebrate, that’s for sure.
Richard Conner
Yeah, for sure. No. So I totally love this conversation, I really appreciate you sharing your life experiences, your philosophy just in life and helping others and it’s just really, really wonderful for listeners just to hear, you know, to hear this and really kind of think about where they are in their life and what they want to accomplish. And really kind of focus on that mindset to, again, make that commitment, take control of their life, whether it’s health and fitness or something else, but make the change that they want to make in their own lives are really, really appreciate you, you know, spending some time with me and, you know, kind of as we wind down and wrap up here, I’d love to hear from you, you know, what is the one thing that you would say to our listeners to help inspire them to to run and really kind of take control of their health and fitness?
Nelson Diaz
Wow, the one thing,
Richard Conner
the one thing
Nelson Diaz
I will say, I will say, and I’m and I’m probably gonna regret saying this, but there’s some value in saying this. This is the one opportunity where you can actually be selfish about yourself for yourself. And be right. Your health, within your control, mental health, physical health, spiritual health, emotional, all that stuff. This is the one time I think that’s one thing that comes to mind this, Hey, you can actually be selfish and it’s good to be selfish in this regard. So take advantage of that. Everything else you’ve been selfish about, cut it out, stop it, okay. But for yourself, your benefit your growth, positive outcome, and to inspire those around you because it as much as it is for you. It’s also for those who see you hear about you. And even for those who don’t like you. I’ve had some people in the past who don’t necessarily like me, but at a certain time they’ve reached out because of something that they’ve seen or heard. And it’s helped them be inspired somehow. That’s how I know there’s a guy because taking my uglies and making them into good somehow. But yeah, be selfish with your health. Do something about it, do something. whoever’s listening, Richard, tell him to do something. Start moving, find a group. Get a hold of Richard, make him run more, make him run further. Make him sign up for an ultra, maybe a Death Race.
Richard Conner
Words of Wisdom. Thank you so much, Nelson. You know, I love that you’re helping so many people and the work that you’re doing. I’d like to know how can we help you? How can our listeners find you support your mission? And yeah, follow your journey online.
Nelson Diaz
Honestly, I think it’s the first time anybody’s ever asked me that in an interview Wow. I would say number one, pray for me. I’m nowhere near where I need to be. The good news is I know I’m nowhere near where I need to be. So I’m not settling. But definitely keep in your prayers. Give me your thoughts. You can find me at Nelson runaway Diaz on Instagram. I’m horrible with social media as far as posts go, but I do respond to all my messages. And if you find some inspiration in what I’m doing with Tim believe training adaptive athletes you do not have to be a trainer or full blown athlete yourself to be a part of the journey to help someone who can’t complete something without your help without our help. Hey, sign up for the journey at team believed nine two Three on Instagram, let us know you want in, we’ll find it an adventure in your neck of the woods with some differently abled bodies that you can help get through. And I’m still very involved in the music because I do use music, not as a career path, but as a way to get positive messages out there, especially to the youth. You know, I do that with rapping, and I get along and whatever else. So follow the musical journey if it inspires you and you want to be a part of that, hey, reach out to me, I could certainly use some some support there when it comes to people’s creative abilities and helping advance positive messages further faster. I can’t do it all on my own so
Richard Conner
well, that’s great to hear and, and it was genuine and you know, authentic on my side. And again, I really appreciate your time here on on our podcast inspired to run podcast and I will share all of that information in the show notes. And once again, Nelson I just want to say thanks and have a great day and I’ll see you soon.
Nelson Diaz
Stay inspired to run God bless and keep running my friend.
Intro/Outro
That’s it for this episode of inspired to run podcast. We hope you are inspired to take control of your health and fitness and take it to the next level. Be sure to click the subscribe button to join our community. And also please rate in review. Thanks for listening
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Hey everyone, welcome to episode 52. Today we’re going to talk a lot about the power of mindset with coach and athlete Nelson Diaz, and the role it plays in helping you change your life. Nelson shares his life journey, successes and failures and his philosophy on that internal battle that we each have with ourselves. Hope you enjoy.
Intro/Outro
Welcome to Inspire to Run podcast. Here you will find inspiration. Whether you’re looking to take control of your health and fitness or you’re a seasoned runner, looking for community and some extra motivation. You will hear inspiring stories from amazing runners, along with helpful tips from fitness experts. Now here’s your host, Richard Conner.
Richard Conner
Hi, everyone, welcome to inspire to run Podcast. I’m here today with such a special guest. Nelson Diaz, also known as Nelson “Runaway” Diaz. He’s a husband, father and founder of Team Believe 923. Nelson, welcome to the show.
Nelson Diaz
Hey, appreciate the invite man, super excited to be here.
Richard Conner
I’m excited that you’re here as well. And just to kind of kick things off for the listeners, I just want to share a little story about how Nelson and I met. I think as many of you know that I’ve been running Spartan Races for a number of years. And last year, I tipped my dipped my toe into Spartan Decker races. And one of the races I went to and Nelson was my judge. And I tell you, it was just an awesome experience. And I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, at the end of the day, people won’t remember what you said or did, they’ll remember how you made them feel. And Nelson made me feel like a winner. Like I could do it like I could reach my goals. And ever since then I’m like, You know what, I have to have him on the show. And unfortunate enough that here he is today.
Nelson Diaz
I remember that day, I remember that day, it was one of the DECA road shows in Jersey and you were in the middle of a battle. You versus you. And you gave me the opportunity to encourage you and cheer you on and give you some tips along the way to make your experience something you’d be proud of. And at the end, I think you were I think you were very proud. You did amazing.
Richard Conner
It’s funny, you use the word battle because that accurately describe what I was going through at that time. Because I think in the races leading up to it, I may have hit my PR but not my target time. Or maybe I didn’t even PR I was just going through a lot. I was like I gotta get it together. And in that race, I did both I PR and a hit my target time. And I remember telling you asked me what’s your target time I was like, This is my time. I don’t know what it was like 31 minutes or something. This isn’t my time. And it all through the ratio like you’re gonna do it, you’re on track, you’re on track to hit your time. And I’m like, I could do this. I could do this. So anyway, just super excited to have you here today.
Nelson Diaz
Now it was amazing, man, you got it done. Kudos to you. I mean, like in any battle, physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, whatever you you choose when to bow down, and you chose not to, you chose to run through, crawl through, push yourself through. But you got through. So that’s amazing, man.
Richard Conner
Very cool. So you know, our mutual friend, Kevin Gregory, aka bubbles, Kevin’s a beast, Kevin’s a beast. He’s been my trainer for a few years now. And he was able to connect us so super excited. And you know, Nelson, what I’d like to do is on aspire to run podcast, we focus on three pillars, mindset, movement, and motivation. And again, you had the right mindset and the right encouragement and the right words during that race. And I just wanted to bring that voice your voice to our listeners. But you know, before we get into that, let’s learn a little bit more about you. Let’s you know, give us the your background, your story and kind of what led you where you are today.
Nelson Diaz
You know, I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes version of it. It was a pretty start, then it got ugly, real quick, you know, raised with both parents in the home till certain age and then they split up and then things just started to turn for the worst. For me, I can’t blame them so much. I just decided to make decisions that didn’t favor my, my future to well. So somewhat misguided somewhat with poor decisions. I found myself leaving jersey to clean record going to the southwest and coming out of that situation with everything except the clean record. So a lot of failures along the way. But through all those all those failures, all those challenges by the grace of God, I was always surrounded by people who cared about me, even if just enough care just enough to reach out and say, hey, you know what to try to reel me back in to towards the roots that my family when we were all together kind of where they planted me in, you know in the community of believers and people who are more focused on the eternal and the long lasting things and the things that are immediately in front of us. So that’s it in a nutshell. and just throughout my life’s journey, my love and passion for music led me to a path where I was managing r&b and rap artists from Arizona, Cali, New York In New Jersey for a little season. And then I ended up becoming one of the artists myself because I felt there was a better way to a cleaner way of reaching, reaching the youth with our messages. Now, the message wasn’t always positive. But something as simple as cleaning up the lyrics would be more accessible. And of course, there’s the business benefit of that right when you don’t have to push parental advisory stickers on your stuff. Parents are a little bit more inclined to purchase your product. So yeah, and then just fast track, you know, moving through life discovered obstacle course races and was very attracted to those started with tough motors found out there are races where you can actually run in mud 10 miles. And if you’re lucky, you get electrocuted, going through their obstacles. For some reason, I was attracted to that self professed and had the opportunity to use it as a vehicle to raise funds for people with disabilities, including paralyzed rockers football player, Eric Grant. And eventually, we had some folks from the spinal cord injury community and their friends reaching out saying, hey, we’d like you to take us through these races with you. And one of them Tim Morris, who I’ll speak his name often, as often as I can just an amazing human. He became a Certified Strength and conditioning coach after his paralysis. And he taught us how to work with people with different levels of spinal cord injuries. And then we had some visually impaired athletes. So we essentially now team believe 923, as you alluded to, we are on Instagram. But what we do now is we essentially train people with different levels of ability to conquering bucket item lists, if they want to do an Ironman, for example, they want to do a Tough Mudder a Spartan Race is something that’s something that’s going to take a team, a structure team to get you through, we kind of help kind of facilitate that. So very passionate about that. And as you mentioned, you know, husband, father, those are important roles, most important roles in my lifestyle, and a servant when I get the opportunity to love helping people,
Richard Conner
for sure, for sure. Well, thank you so much for sharing that and just, you know, a wonderful life journey and congratulations for, you know, working through it sounds like a challenging childhood, and getting to where you are today where you’re in a position were able to give back right and help others and it feels like this is your mission. So really, really love that. And, you know, tell me a little bit about runaway because Is that related to your obstacle course races love for obstacle course races? Or is that something different?
Nelson Diaz
The origins were the streets. So I used to run with some MCs back in the day and they were more stable, they’re more level headed me The streets were still calling and I was still answering that time. So one time I just met up with them. And one of them just casually says, Man, you’re upstate, you downstate, you’re in state, you’re everywhere you move like a runaway, it’s hard to keep track, you move like a runaway, well, where are you, you know, and then the other ones like, that’s, that’s, that’s your name, runaway. And it just stuck from there. Back then it was more so because of what I was running from. But now is what I’m running to. Either way, still running. So runaway stands and the name sticks. And obviously with my love for movement, you know, just being able to move by myself or with adaptive athletes, you know, just being able to move and keep running, the name makes even more sense. So
Richard Conner
Well, thanks for sharing that. And And as I’m thinking about your journey, and I’m thinking about how you kind of overcame some of these challenges and barriers through your life, and, and you’re in a great place today. And I’m wondering for our listeners, a lot of people are dealing with something, right? Maybe it’s different than your story or my story. But everybody’s dealing with something, what would you say in terms of mindset or mindset shift, that you think it helps someone just kind of take a step back and say, really evaluate where they are in life, and think about where they want to go and really making a commitment to get there. But what are your thoughts on that maybe based on your own experiences?
Nelson Diaz
Yeah, that’s really all I can speak on my own experiences, but, but I do know that it resonates with a lot of people in different segments of society. As far as mindset and the Battle of the mind, there’s nothing like it. You know, in the physical, you defeat somebody. And let’s say it’s a you know, in combat sports, let’s keep it friendly. You defeat somebody in the ring in whatever arena, you’re having that physical conflict and you defeat them and that’s essentially it. The victory is there. You can hang your head on that you can celebrate you can move on through life looking for the next victory. It’s good in that sense, but when it comes to our mind means we had the tendency, I have the tendency of winning, beating myself in something a self doubt and insecurity, something. And then I allow myself with the pressures or other people to bring it to fit in that same area, I just, I just had victory. And I’m not quite sure if I’m expressing it the way it’s flowing in my head. But you know, just the battle is never ending. And I always tell people in and I’m not sure if I mentioned it to you, but I typically tell people when they do something physical, that’s, that’s difficult, and they overcome it. Hey, we got five seconds to celebrate, let’s go all out. Let’s celebrate this moment, let’s embed it in our memory banks. You know, take your selfies, take your picture, make your post, as soon as you hit Send or post, it’s done. That’s the history. The focus is now on on the present and the future. What are you doing to conquer your, your new present, and the future that you’re, you know, heading into, but with the mind, we make that forward advancement, and then something that we allow things to happen, and usually happens because we don’t know who we are, or who’s we are, we forget some of the, you know, fundamentals. And we allow, like I said, peer pressure and all types of other stuff from from outside to affect us and drag us back into battle that we had victory in. And then this could apply to anything. Mentally, it can apply to you’re doing something physical, but there’s a mental battle, you’re going through it, we can apply it to that. But then there’s also just that stuff that you battle with on your own that no one else in the world may know or have an idea, you’ve done a great job of hiding it. Because you don’t want to burden others with it. Okay, that might be the reason, you don’t want to be pitied. You don’t want to be looked at a certain way. So you, you hold it and whatever it is, you know, but for those battles, you know, I find that’s what’s happened. That’s what happens as well. You overcome it for the moment. And then, you know, sun goes down, or a certain song, you hear a certain song, you see certain people, you’re on social and of course, everyone’s life is amazing on social media, no one has any rainy days. Something happens, you see, hear smell, taste something, touch something, and it brings you back into battle. That, you know, you had one before. And I’m not sure if I’m kind of rambling on the same thing here. But you know, just in thinking about this as we’re talking is really a heavy thing. The great, the amazing thing is, there’s always one fight worth picking. And that’s your fight. That’s for you, the fight to better yourself to improve yourself, to prove yourself wrong when you had doubts about yourself, and maybe you’ll prove others wrong, but who cares. And that’s all distraction. It’s all about that, that fight that you have to do, man that fights always worth picking. So as long as you’re willing to pick it up, like a scab, when you pick a scab, there’s some pain, there’s some blood that still comes out, you know, same thing, when you pick a fight, you know, within yourself, it’s kind of it may be hurtful, bring up some negative negative memories that you’re gonna have to figure out how to process properly in order to grow from it. But um, my goodness, mindset is everything. You don’t need money to have the right mindset. You don’t need friends to have the right mindset. You don’t need followers on social media, to have the right mindset. You just have to be willing to pick a fight.
Richard Conner
And I really love that because you know what I’ve seen or read through my conversations, I’ve seen folks that will make that change or start to make that change when something happens in their life. Right? If there’s some sort of life change, if they receive a diagnosis as an example, or some something else. That’s the point in time where they make the decision. But you know, you have that opportunity at any point in time to better your life. And it’s completely up to you, right? It’s not us saying, These are the things that you need to do. You need to make that decision for yourself. But you can do it. You don’t need to wait for you know that life change to do that. And I love what you said about it’s a battle with yourself because it absolutely is. And just thinking back to the race that I ran we’re talking about last year. That was definitely a battle with myself. Because even before the race or even during the race, I’m thinking, Gosh, can I really do this? Can I this? This is hard. You know, I don’t know if I could really do this. I don’t know if I could run like these other runners and I’m watching as I’m waiting to get to the starting line. Right. So so totally understand that. That that is a battle with yourself.
Nelson Diaz
You know, I’ll say this, you know, there’s always a starting point, and it’s different for different people, right. As you mentioned for somebody may be a life or death situation or crisis, illness, something major, something massive. It’s understandable for somebody else, some in different, the main thing that I found is every decision we make trains our brain to respond a certain way, under the certain set of circumstances. Excuse me. So with that, I mean, if it’s a crisis, that allowed me to flip a switch, and pick that fight, and give it all that I got, you know, that’s great, what happens is, sometimes until we hit the next crisis, we forget that we can make this a way of life a way to victory in our in ourselves, you know, so the crisis might be the first domino. But that mindset, whatever you apply to that crisis, because you knew you had to it was either, you know, go through it, or die, you know, put up a fight, or just lay down, you know, and you weren’t going to lay down for whatever that thing is in your life. I mean, you know, we laid out for a lot of stuff, we’re not for everything. So we just have to remember, hey, whatever I stood up for, I need to apply whatever little bit I had to that situation, no matter how major minor that situation was, I need to apply that to all these situations, as a starting point, as part of my being, this is who I am, no matter what the situation is major or minor, I’m going to respond with this attitude. And if I’m not going to win, I’m gonna go down fight, and it’s gonna be ugly, but it’s gonna be a battle, it’s not gonna be a landslide victory. On the negative side, you know, and it’s not easy. I hope my words don’t make it sound like it’s easy. I mean, if we, if we had seven days straight to talk nonstop on, on your podcast, I go over failure after failure after failure, just to just to prove that I know, it’s not easy, because my life is just full of that, that roller coaster, you know, some some pain from the outside in, but the majority self-induced created by me, manufactured by me, invented by me. And that’s what we do sometimes, right? We invent things, because we’re stuck in our, in a mindset, that’s not beneficial. But listen, it’s time to move on. No matter what you’re going through, it’s time to move on on the physical, it’s easy, it’s easier, I should say, all you got to do is commit to move in and start moving five people around that are willing to move with you, I got a community of people movement, so at least you’re moving to be crawling or run, at least you’re moving, you’re moving in the right direction. But when it comes to that mindset that you need to have, where we’re no matter what you’re up against, you’re able to form a resistance and help train others because of your experiences good, bad, or indifferent. You know, there’s a song. Man, I’ve known this for almost all my life as a quarterback, but he says something like we’ve been indoors. Because it weeping is just for the night indoors for the night. But joy comes in the morning, you know, and I had a buddy who was a singer, Craig Routh, man, as a kid and his singing, he used to sing a song and he’d say, I never seen a rainbow till after the rain. I never felt God’s healing power, till after the pain. And it went on a couple more examples like that. So hey, you’re in the thick of it, you’re in the middle of it. That’s how you know you’re alive. Now keep living, keep fighting, keep choosing, and look inside, because the majority of the solution, the majority of the solution is inside, just like the majority of your problem is inside.
Richard Conner
Right. Right. It’s self inflicted, as you said, so, you know, give me You mentioned you have you have a lot of examples. And, you know, can you give me an example of, of maybe one of those failures, or one of those moments, where you really had to think deeply about what it is that you wanted to accomplish and kind of overcome some of those internal barriers? And you know, maybe it’s related to fitness or, or otherwise, do you have an example of that?
Nelson Diaz
You know, mindset is crazy. There’s so many different ways I can a different examples, I’m going to use this one just because I don’t share this one often enough, going back a couple of years when I was heavy into music and I finally changed my life around from negative music after I really understand the impact that music and sound waves have in people’s lives right and how it was affecting my life and by the grace of God was able to do a 180 and you know, now I’m running running towards a different direction right? I was still I was doing music and it was all positive clean Rick lyrics is focusing on encouragement and and and I had opportunities to open up for some B level artists in nightclubs and I’m kind of getting full of myself because I was receiving a really favorable response. You know, some can fill them out. I’m like You okay, okay, what I’m doing is on par it’s being appreciated being acknowledged the relationship being built this that the other and then I’m thinking okay, so when, when when am I going to get to that next level? This is when I was chasing, you know, I guess I guess some fame or some recognition, definitely some money, maybe record contract, whatever, a sizable one. And I can’t remember exactly where I was with you, but I’ll tell you this as are a homeless person. And, man, I’ve seen homeless people in my life, I’m an inner city kid, I was homeless myself at a certain time, on the streets, self induced situation and and, but for some reason, I saw this homeless person. And it brought me to tears. And everything made sense in that moment. My mindset was, I’m heading towards money, recognition, respect, amplify my voice to a broader audience. And it’s a good, it’s a positive message I’m pushing forward. So, you know, all that made sense to me. But then in that moment, when I saw that particular homeless person at that place, I don’t remember the details around it. I understood and I simply said this, okay, God, if I’m focusing on performing, in sold out arenas, and who’s going to reach him, who’s going to reach the people who can’t get into that arena. And what that did for me, is it reminded me that I strayed mentally, I took my eye off the prize. By the grace of God, I have a very valuable message, because I’ve failed so much. And I know how not to fail that I can help others. So I have that message. And I want to share it, share it, share it, but I got caught up on the business side, that I started to neglect, really getting that message to whomever needs it. And it may not be the exact mindset answer you were looking for. But it’s one on a different level, that reminded me that even when you’re out to do good if your mind is not trained up, to focus on the things that matter, your mission, your purpose, why you were created, who you belong to, you know, and all that stuff, you will stray, you can stray, and falling, missing, the Mark doesn’t always look horrible. Some people miss the mark and become millionaires, I believe. Some people miss the mark, and they have the homes that they’ve always dreamed of. They have the relationships that they value, they have some success and notoriety, and that’s failing, but they don’t know it. They’ve traded their purpose, a true purpose, the things that matter. They got distracted, and settle for something that they wanted, not something that they needed, nor the people that nor what the people that they have access to needed. So pardon my rambling if I went a little hard left on that one. But as the mindset mindset is beyond, it’s beyond the the woe is me, I can’t get past this mindset battle is also the wow, I’ve gotten past this, I’m on my way to the stars. When you know, that’s, that’s really not what you’re supposed to be on the way to, he’s supposed to be on the way to the slums to rescue somebody that’s supposed to be on the way to a expensive meal with a bunch of millionaires, he’s supposed to be out there, hands to the plow, hands dirty, reminding somebody why they should put that fight, pick, pick that fight, and live beyond that moment. My bad?
Richard Conner
No, I love it. Don’t apologize, this is a great message. And you know, you’re, it’s great when you said purpose, because that’s exactly what came to my mind. And, you know, really thinking about our purpose, and you know, kind of bringing it back to health and fitness. You know, you may not, we may not say start running, because you want to become an elite level athlete and start winning races around the world. Know, your purpose is whatever your purpose is, maybe it’s to serve your family or it’d be successful in your career, or whatever the case is, but you need your health, in order to do that, right, you need to be in good health in order to do that. So maybe, you know, kind of taking control of your health and fitness is an enabler for you to reach your purpose. Right. So I really love what
Nelson Diaz
you said about taking control of yourself, taking control, taking initiative, taking control of yourself, it’s great when the people around you to come up and rescue. But what if there’s nobody around you to rescue? Or what if you’re not in the frame of mind to accept the help? The majority of the solutions are within us, I firmly believe that just like the majority of our problems are also within us. So yeah, take control, which like Vinci said do it.
Richard Conner
Very cool. Very cool. And, you know, let’s pivot a little bit and talk a little bit about movement and the races that you’ve done. I know this is an exciting topic for you. You know, I’ve heard some of your other conversations about you know, what excites you about obstacle course racing and quite honestly, what excites you terrifies me, so I’m going to live vicariously through your stories. But just you know, let’s just talk for a couple of minutes about that. Like, what are those exciting moments in those races and what do you feel like you get from by doing this?
Nelson Diaz
So the first thing is, when I was grade school when I was a kid, even in high school, I was okay as a cross country runner, you know, inner city, I had no chance that any other sport I tried every sport almost drowned trying out for the swim team. I’m horrible than 99% of sports out there. But running for some reason, distance running, you know, I can I could hold my own to a certain degree and I was, you know, had a respectful, very short lived career because it was discovered I had a heart murmur. So then, you know, that stopped, you know, my freshman year, but years later as an adult, a buddy of ours, and I kind of mentioned a portion of the story earlier on, he discovered Tough Mudder. And, you know, he said, Man, I just did this amazing race, and this is what happened, you get electrocuted when you go through certain obstacles in this house. That sounds crazy. Let’s do some research. Let’s do the next one together. For summary, I have no idea why I was drawn to it immediately. But I was able to corral some other like minded fools. Go ahead and get our toes in the water. And we enjoyed it. And we were able to immediately start using it as fundraisers for Eriko grant. That’s how we actually started with the fundraisers by doing those obstacle course races. And then one time, me and my two brother in law’s I said, I said, a shout out to the outlawed in laws, that’s what we call ourselves. But I said, Look, man, you know, we all had some sports in our background, and we’ve never had the opportunity to go all out. Because we’re with a team, we’re helping adaptive, we’re advancing the mission of team believed 923, you know, just reminding folks, everything is possible. For those who believe. And, in finally, we just had a date to ourselves to do a race and we’re like, Hey, man, let’s just see what’s in the tank. We’ve never done it before, let’s just go all out. And then the three of us qualify for the World Champion for the world’s toughest monitor the 24 hour championship. And we like, it’s crazy, we got something in us that for for decades, we haven’t let out because of life. You know, we’re married, we have children, we have responsibility. And, you know, um, and then, for me that that just, I just never stopped. And I was just looking for the next thing. And then eventually were introduced to Spartan Race. And when I say oh, I need to do some research on Spartan Race. And first thing that jumped out was Death Race. And I kind of went from Spartan Race research to Death Race research, and ended up getting my butt handed to me at Death Race. And for those who are unaware of Death Race, that I think the way for us to say something like, you may die, you’re acknowledging that you may die, I think the website was you may die.com. And essentially, it’s a multi day event in the mountains of Vermont, you don’t know anything, they a couple days before the event, they send you an email with a gear list that’s required, and what time it starts where you need to be at that’s it, and it can go for three days, five days, you don’t know, you just got to be prepared to go. No sleep, no rest is work, work work mind games. And for some reason, all those brutal processes and I never completed one of those, neither of my three attempts, I have three DNF did not finish. But some of them in that journey. In that process. I enjoy them, I enjoy myself, I still don’t know where the root of that is, you know, I do know that we all need outlets. And my outlet is not every day of my life. When I’m away from my kids, when I’m working when I you know, I’m focused on other things. So I don’t necessarily have that Nelson time to let all this nonsense out, let all this whatever. So maybe that’s part of it. You know, maybe just that outlet, you know, I get to just just bleed, leave it all on that battlefield. And smile, knowing that I’m walking away from it at the same time, then you’re crying because I DNF and it’s an emotional Oh, that’s another thing, which is an emotional journey. Some people we’re wired, how we’re wired for somebody based on where they’re at. That emotional journey may be maybe triggered by a 5k by something that others may be like, Oh, that’s you know, that’s such a small thing, you know, competition. Small competition. That is for me when it gets deep, dark and ugly. And I’m just bombing miserably feeling and it’s just cold Vermont rain on you and you’re going into almost frozen pond and you’re lugging 80 pound log and you have like 40 or 50 pounds of gear on your back with your food with your axe with stuff that you don’t know why they asked you to bring it like porcupine quills, three feet of buckskin you’re like why am I bringing porcupine quill and they have a reason for everything on their gear list. But for some reason. Ah, this is gonna sound stupid, but I feel I do feel alive. I do feel like I’m in something valuable. Even though I’m just being dragged through the mud being brought to my lowest points emotionally, physically, psychologically every other way I can think of so you have a beast coming up that is a Spartan beast for those who are unaware. That is a that is a half marathon. 13.1 mile I believe Even with 30 obstacles in the mountains of New Jersey, on my birthday October 1, you have less of the score with 13.1 or more miles with 30 obstacles. Where if it were to go down today, where are you mentally today,
Richard Conner
mentally today, I’m as ready as I can be for this race. You know, I’ve been training all year, mostly for half marathon road races. So I just finished went up a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve been training, training with coach Kevin on kind of, again, overcoming my fears and some of those mental blocks and trying to get better at these obstacles. But I tell you what, for the two races, two or three races that I’ve run already this year, I’m in a much better place to do this beast than maybe it was two, three, four years ago, four years ago, I would have never thought I could do anything like this ever. Like that is not what I’m all about. You know, Fast forward four years later, here, I am ready to do it.
Nelson Diaz
Hey, you put into work, you signed up. Only thing left to do is the toughest thing, which is show up. And then just get it done one foot in front of the other. Sink or swim, fail an obstacle, completed obstacle, just go through the process of that process, do what it’s supposed to do for you physically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, celebrate. So you post that that finished picture, then the celebrating is done. And it’s answered to the next challenge to the next victory. Don’t stay stuck in a
Richard Conner
lot of celebration, you my friend.
Nelson Diaz
So we lost to celebrate, that’s for sure.
Richard Conner
Yeah, for sure. No. So I totally love this conversation, I really appreciate you sharing your life experiences, your philosophy just in life and helping others and it’s just really, really wonderful for listeners just to hear, you know, to hear this and really kind of think about where they are in their life and what they want to accomplish. And really kind of focus on that mindset to, again, make that commitment, take control of their life, whether it’s health and fitness or something else, but make the change that they want to make in their own lives are really, really appreciate you, you know, spending some time with me and, you know, kind of as we wind down and wrap up here, I’d love to hear from you, you know, what is the one thing that you would say to our listeners to help inspire them to to run and really kind of take control of their health and fitness?
Nelson Diaz
Wow, the one thing,
Richard Conner
the one thing
Nelson Diaz
I will say, I will say, and I’m and I’m probably gonna regret saying this, but there’s some value in saying this. This is the one opportunity where you can actually be selfish about yourself for yourself. And be right. Your health, within your control, mental health, physical health, spiritual health, emotional, all that stuff. This is the one time I think that’s one thing that comes to mind this, Hey, you can actually be selfish and it’s good to be selfish in this regard. So take advantage of that. Everything else you’ve been selfish about, cut it out, stop it, okay. But for yourself, your benefit your growth, positive outcome, and to inspire those around you because it as much as it is for you. It’s also for those who see you hear about you. And even for those who don’t like you. I’ve had some people in the past who don’t necessarily like me, but at a certain time they’ve reached out because of something that they’ve seen or heard. And it’s helped them be inspired somehow. That’s how I know there’s a guy because taking my uglies and making them into good somehow. But yeah, be selfish with your health. Do something about it, do something. whoever’s listening, Richard, tell him to do something. Start moving, find a group. Get a hold of Richard, make him run more, make him run further. Make him sign up for an ultra, maybe a Death Race.
Richard Conner
Words of Wisdom. Thank you so much, Nelson. You know, I love that you’re helping so many people and the work that you’re doing. I’d like to know how can we help you? How can our listeners find you support your mission? And yeah, follow your journey online.
Nelson Diaz
Honestly, I think it’s the first time anybody’s ever asked me that in an interview Wow. I would say number one, pray for me. I’m nowhere near where I need to be. The good news is I know I’m nowhere near where I need to be. So I’m not settling. But definitely keep in your prayers. Give me your thoughts. You can find me at Nelson runaway Diaz on Instagram. I’m horrible with social media as far as posts go, but I do respond to all my messages. And if you find some inspiration in what I’m doing with Tim believe training adaptive athletes you do not have to be a trainer or full blown athlete yourself to be a part of the journey to help someone who can’t complete something without your help without our help. Hey, sign up for the journey at team believed nine two Three on Instagram, let us know you want in, we’ll find it an adventure in your neck of the woods with some differently abled bodies that you can help get through. And I’m still very involved in the music because I do use music, not as a career path, but as a way to get positive messages out there, especially to the youth. You know, I do that with rapping, and I get along and whatever else. So follow the musical journey if it inspires you and you want to be a part of that, hey, reach out to me, I could certainly use some some support there when it comes to people’s creative abilities and helping advance positive messages further faster. I can’t do it all on my own so
Richard Conner
well, that’s great to hear and, and it was genuine and you know, authentic on my side. And again, I really appreciate your time here on on our podcast inspired to run podcast and I will share all of that information in the show notes. And once again, Nelson I just want to say thanks and have a great day and I’ll see you soon.
Nelson Diaz
Stay inspired to run God bless and keep running my friend.
Intro/Outro
That’s it for this episode of inspired to run podcast. We hope you are inspired to take control of your health and fitness and take it to the next level. Be sure to click the subscribe button to join our community. And also please rate in review. Thanks for listening
Transcribed by https://otter.ai