Transcript

Run Toward Discomfort: Nicholas Thompson’s Rule for Greatness

From Ryan Hawk · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 2 min · 12,723 words · 138 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Run Toward Discomfort: Nicholas Thompson’s Rule for Greatness", an episode of Ryan Hawk published November 15, 2025 (1 h 2 min, about 12,723 words). It mentions 35 people, works and ideas, including New York Marathon, Stretch goals / audacious goals, movie test, Scott Thompson, Strava.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Bob Bennett, Dupont Circle, movie test, New York City Marathon
  2. – 20:00: New York Marathon, Philips Academy
  3. – 30:00: New York Marathon, Queensboro Bridge, The Warrior Athlete
  4. – 40:00: Nick Thompson, Amy Lynn Bradley, Loren Powell Jobs, New York Marathon
  5. – 50:00: cocktail party test, Morgan Howell, movie test, New York Marathon
  6. – 1:00:00: Anne Goldstein, George Packer, Strava, Ted Lasso
  7. – 1:01:52: The Running Ground, The Running Ground: A Father, a Son, and the Simplest of Sports

Notable quotes from "Run Toward Discomfort: Nicholas Thompson’s Rule for Greatness"

  • Of the musthaves in that class of storytelling for leaders? Think of it as like the movie test. Can you see it? Can you feel it? That's a really important part of storytelling.
    about movie test · at
  • Nick, man, it's awesome to have you here on the Learning Leader Show. Welcome.
    about The Learning Leader Show · at
  • Scotty Thompson is the kind of young man that comes along only once in approximately 10 years. I cannot recall ever having known a student who possessed the same combination of.
    about Scott Thompson · at
  • Then well He also got I think you or somebody talked to Tracy Bennett, a female graduate student.
    about Bob Bennett · at
  • This. stop picking up people in Dupont Circle, right? settle down.
    about Dupont Circle · at
  • Blessed that this happened to me. it's hard to say that but I am. So in 2005 I ran the New York Marathon in 243 and felt great, right? It was a good time and I had you know I'd run much slower times. It was a breakthrough for me.
    about New York Marathon · at
  • Friend of mine who one of the like most legendary New York City marathoners. He put a note on my Strava. He ran like 20 consecutive New Yorkers, New York marathons at sub240.…
    about Strava · at
  • Why are we reading a book about Scott Thompson? This is supposed to be a book about Nick Thompson. And then like how do you fit the other runners in? like you want to put them…
    about Nick Thompson · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Scott Thompson — Person · 2 mentions · first at
  • Nick Thompson — Person · 2 mentions · first at
  • Bob Bennett — Person · 1 mention · first at
  • Loren Powell Jobs — Person · 1 mention · first at
    And, I read that when Loren Powell Jobs right? This is Steve Jobs widow and David Bradley announced you as the CEO. They said Nick is singular.
  • Amy Lynn Bradley — Person · 1 mention · first at
    And, I read that when Loren Powell Jobs right? This is Steve Jobs widow and David Bradley announced you as the CEO. They said Nick is singular.
  • Morgan Howell — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Would read to envy, but I definitely do, especially reading your work or reading like Morgan Howell or some of my other friends.
  • Tony Ruiz — Person · 1 mention · first at
    I'm trying to give you a sense that like you're reading about Tony Ruiz, my coach, and like you can hear his voice, right? You can feel him, you can see him, right? Even if you've never seen a picture of him,.
  • George Packer — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Surprising number of people are like elite runners in journalism. Like the New Yorker, George Packer, one of my famous favorite writers in the world, ran like a 246 marathon 40 years ago.
  • Anne Goldstein — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Anne Goldstein who ran a copy desk at the New Yorker run like a 310. She was like 70 years old. And like there are a bunch of there are there are things like you are like a little.

Books & papers

  • The Running Ground — Book · 2 mentions · first at
    So I told you before we started recording, but your book, The Running Ground, [clears throat] it's one of my favorite books I've read in years. that's awesome.
  • The Warrior Athlete — Book · 1 mention · first at
    Oh, I love it. I saw that you read a book called The Warrior Athlete.
  • The Running Ground: A Father, a Son, and the Simplest of Sports — Book · 1 mention · first at
    This morning about the reason behind the title, which we can get into get to later, but The Running Ground, a father, a son, and the simplest of sports. By the way, again, from…

Companies & orgs

  • Strava — Company · 2 mentions · first at
  • The Learning Leader Show — Company · 1 mention · first at
  • Philips Academy — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Race. it was a two-mile race. And so I, I had gone to this new high school, gone to Philips Academy, whatever. Great high school, super smart kids. Show up, I'm in a weird dorm. I'm not that popular, like I'm nothing's going that great.
  • Washington Monthly — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Get the most out of different kinds of people. So I actually brought that guy on the Washington Monthly where I worked. We worked in the facteing department. He just like no…
  • Covington & Burling — Company · 1 mention
  • Moses Brown School — Company · 1 mention
  • Sullivan & Cromwell — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

Concepts & topics

Places & events

  • New York City Marathon — Place · 1 mention · first at
    I didn't realize when we booked this that it would be such a big day. You ran the New York City Marathon yesterday.
  • Dupont Circle — Place · 1 mention · first at
  • Queensboro Bridge — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Point, can't remember exactly, maybe it was like mile 14 or 15, maybe it was going up the Queensboro Bridge, I was if I keep trying to like push myself or if I keep trying to like set some goal, if I keep trying to like keep going.
  • Walden Pond — Place · 1 mention

Full transcript with timestamps

two lessons from running. One is that you have to move at an uncomfortable pace. The second is that sometimes you have to really set an audacious goal and then focus.

You're not just the runner, but you're the CEO of the Atlantic. What are some of the musthaves in that class of storytelling for leaders?

Think of it as like the movie test. Can you see it? Can you feel it? That's a really important part of storytelling.

What is it about running that you feel has made you a better leader? You can get a lot of really good things done if you just go and if you just do it.

Running has been taken away from you at one point in your life. They call me up and they're like, "We took out half your thyroid. Turns out you don't [clears throat] have cancer." I said, "Great." And they call me back a week later like, "Sorry, we misread the slides. You do." I felt like I really needed to run again. In fact, I really needed to run fast again.

I would just love to hear the story of your relationship with your dad. the traditional dynamic flipped because I'm the kid and I'm the responsible one and he's the adult and he's the lunatic. Everything you do reinforces your personality and makes you who you are. Uh and so there are a lot of ways being an intense runner helps you in this field and there's some ways where it doesn't. Keep pushing and always work hard and like eventually things will will turn out for the best. Nick, man, it's awesome to have you here on the Learning Leader Show. Welcome.

Thank you, Ryan. I am thrilled to be here. Uh I didn't realize when we booked this that it would be such a big day. You ran the New York City Marathon yesterday. Man, how you feeling?

I feel fine. I uh I I feel okay. I got through it and I'm back at it today. I I did a book event a couple hours afterwards. So, I'm

You're crazy. You are absolutely doing my best. I the funny thing is I had to like hustle back because I thought I was going to have to take my kid to a soccer game. So I like like like speedwalked off the finish to the subway.

You'd think after a marathon you would kind of block the day, but no, it was just like I'll block a few hours and then it's time to get back to regular life.

Time to get back to life. Dude, you're crazy. I I want to jump into your book um specifically. There was a million different places to start, but I read this quote and it blew my mind and I want you to react to it. Scotty Thompson is the kind of young man that comes along only once in approximately 10 years. I cannot recall ever having known a student who possessed the same combination of intelligence creativity energy drive and dedication. He has attempted more, achieved more than anyone we have studied, including some who now hold high office. He is generally conceded among those who have observed the student body since World War II to be the outstanding leader of the era. I think it likely that in the entire history of Stamford campus life, he he has had no near rival since Herbert Hoover as an undergraduate.

Man, who is that guy? Yeah, that was my dad. I mean that's like you know that's the kind of recommendation you want when you're 21 years old right and that was like the Stanford provos writing about my father in his recommendation for the road scholarship I wrote to the roads panel uh when I was working on this book I was like can I see the letters recommendation written for my dad and they're like sure here you are and I was like oh my god like I knew he was a good student at Stanford but that was something else um yeah that was in some ways the high point of my dad's life and career but he had a ton of promise back then

well He he also got uh I think you or somebody talked to Tracy Bennett, a female female graduate student.

Yeah. She said he was flamboyant, gently endearing, annoyingly arrogant, piercingly intelligent, entertaining, and more. I'd never met a man nor had a professor who was clearly so brilliant and at the same time so precariously insecure. So, we hear some of the amazing things about your dad. Now we're starting to hear some of the not so amazing things about him. It would be too broad of a question to say what has he done to impact you, but I would just love to hear in your words to tell more more stories or the story of your relationship with your dad.

Yeah. Um well let me I'll you know he so he grows up in Oklahoma and then you know grows up at like Bone his grand his father my grandfather was initially a missionary and then rose to a position of you know high prominence on the Bone University campus my dad grows up there's not really happy doesn't like his father feels intimidated gets out goes to Andover goes to Stanford where everything is amazing wins a road scholarship comes back all of this promise all this potential and um And then you know his insecurities, his complexities, it's very hard to have a gold star put on your forehead the way he did you know back when he was so young and for everybody you know think you're going to be president of the United States or senator because then when you don't live up to it and when like things start to get unraveled you can feel at like age 27 that you're a failure like this is a problem that a

lot of road scholars have where you know my father was photographed by life magazine when he was 21 years old and he comes back, he's got his PhD, but you know, he's a he's a professor. He's not really publishing that many books. He's certainly not a senator. Things aren't really get going right for him. And I think it leads to a lot of emotional insecurities and he starts drinking too much and he has a lot of problems. Um, I'm born in 1975. My father is in the house. We love playing with him. He teaches me to run.

We go running when I'm five or six. We run around the block. We run a mile. We might even have run two or three miles. I have to I wish he was still here so we could fact check that. But I certainly remember that. And you know then right about that time you have that quote from Tracy. He comes out of the closet, leaves my mother, moves to DC, and it's like everything in his life just becomes a blazing bonfire. He's so smart. He's so interesting. personality that was described in that Stanford letter is always true, but he can't hold on to anything. He can't balance his checkbook. He can't pay his taxes. He's drinking all the time. He's got a crazy sex addiction. Um, you know, his house is absolute madness at all moments. Just stuff being thrown all over the place.

And then as he gets older in his 60s, you you get more madness and less control. So, he'll come to visit me. He moves to Southeast Asia. He'll come back and visit me and he'll show up and he'll just like take his suitcase which is all battered and afraid and just like open it, dump it right on the floor when he comes in and like out pop all these like pill bottles of like stuff he's bought off market in Singapore to like help him go to sleep or help him wake up and like bottles of like moisturizer and like flasks of alcohol and like crumpled bills. You're like, "Dad, like you have a room over here. Like put your suitcase in the room and deal with your room." It was like a metaphor for his life at that point. So complicated man.

Wow. I mean, it's still probably your hero. But then like a lot of people, the more you get to know them, they have their flaws. They're humans. The world's not black and white. It's very gray. How do you combine this thought of him being your hero and the guy you look up to and he's so brilliant and smart and gets letters written like the one we just talked about from Stanford. He's a road scholar, but then he also just made some horrendously bad choices for many, many years.

Yeah. How does that affect I mean, you're still living it. You're you're the It got so strange. It was so weird because

he in some ways he was like my intellectual hero. I felt like he knew everything. Like you could talk to him about any book and he'd have an interesting theory. He had read it carefully. He'd have something smart to say. He had you great taste in art. He loved music. Could identify any piece of classical music. Um, but by the time I was in my 20s, it's like I was the dad and he was the son. I was like, you know, you got to get this done. You got to get this organized. You got to finish this. Like,

you know, stop picking up people in Dupont Circle, right? Like, settle down. And so, I was, you know, we had a we called it a reverse father-son relationship where I was trying to keep them in line. And so in a way the traditional dynamic flipped because I'm the kid and I'm the responsible one and he's the adult and he's the lunatic or he's the he's he was he basically spent his 50s 60s and 70s. passed away when he was 75. Living like he was a 19-year-old college student and um a 19-year-old college student who like wasn't really doing his homework, was partying all the time and you know recruiting guys off Man Jammer non-stop.

He also got you into running and I want to focus a lot on running because the funny thing is I'm not a distance runner. I like running sprints like 110s. I have a football player background. So we our conditioning tests were was 18 110s with like 30 second break. Right. That

What's your what's your 40 time? What's your best 40 time? Uh my best 40 time was in the low 45. So and not bad for a quarterback.

That's good. Yeah. I can't even run remotely close to that right now. But but that was back in my pro. You

still got that low 45 is killer. Have you timed your 40? I there's no way it's under six. But

that's not true. No way. Dude, I run like two two sub 230 marathons. You You got

I know. My sporty time is is garbage. Like I time my kids and I My kids run like 61. I time them all the time.

How How old are How old are they now? 15 11 and 15, right? So they're right around I mean I haven't timed them. Probably this is when they're 10 and 14.

They're big into soccer. Big into soccer. Great soccer players, right? But they can both destroy me in sprints. So I'm I've got like there's no way I'm under six anyway. Maybe in my peak I was like high fives. Okay. I I bet your kids are going to be like mid mid fours coming up as they get a little bit stronger and they're like fast. They're they're And like the middle one just ran a sub five mile. The little guy was 11 just ran a sub six miles, so they're like they're good.

How much This is a This is a crazy question, but how No, it's not. But how how much of running is cuz like you are a more of a slender frame. Yeah. Yeah. How much of running is genetic versus if you're like, "Hey, dude, just get your mind right and you could go out and run a sub3 marathon if you really really wanted to. Like how much is it nature versus nurture when it comes to running?"

So, there's this fundamental thing which is like what percentage of your muscles are slow twitch versus fast twitch? And that's mostly genetically determined and you can shift it a little bit, but my guess is that you're mostly fast twitch and I'm mostly slow twitch, right? And then there's a little bit of your genetic um component which determines like you know basically are you bulky are you skinny right it's related at the fast twitch slow twitch but you know the skinnier you are the more likely you are to be able to run a good marathon the sort of the bulky you are the better more likely you are to run a you know fast 100. So there's that component.

Then there's the component of like how likely you are to break down which is a huge part of marathon training right? you've got to be able to go 16 weeks running 50 mi a week, 60 mi a week, 70 mi a week without your body breaking. And so whether you're like aligned properly and you're is one leg longer than the other. So there's like all kinds of genetic components in that. Um so it's a real and then there's a genetic component of how well you improve which people underappreciate, right? Everybody knows there's a genetic improvement, a genetic component of how fast you are when you start.

But you can have two people who start at the same place, do the exact same workouts, one gets faster than the other, and that's genetic, which is pretty interesting. So, there's a real mix of stuff in there.

Okay, let's let's get more into running. First and foremost, um this is something you've become one of the one of the and the best in the world at what you do, like running long distances really fast. And now in your age gra age age group, you're you're setting records. You're you're winning. And you can get into all of that. What is it about running, right? What is it about the discipline of training? The discipline of getting better, of waking up early and running, regardless of what the weather is or regardless of how you're feeling, you're going to get out there and go. What is it about running that you feel has made you a better leader?

I do think that what I learned in running and it's very much the way I approach work and everything else is if you go out there every day, seven days a week, maybe six days a week if you take Sundays off, but you're out there pretty much every day, couple days a week, you go really hard. And if you do that, you get faster, right? And there's there's no two ways about it, right? And if you don't do that, you don't get faster. And so, like, to improve, you just really have to go out there and push yourself. And it's not like if you go out there and you just sort of jog and relax 5 miles a day, you'll get a little faster, but you won't get much faster. But if you go out there and every day and three times a week, you push yourself hard. It just happens. And so, it's a very good reminder that you can get a lot done and you can get a lot of really good things done if you just go and if you just do

it. And if you like all lot some time to pushing yourself and if you look at your to-do list and you identify what is the hardest thing, what is the thing I don't want to do? And you just start working on it. And you learn that through running to have kind of a stoic attitude towards everything in life. Like I'm just going to go. I'm going to try. I'm not going to complain. And because if you complain, you're like, ah, it's too cold. I don't really want to run. It's too hot. I don't really want to run or you know eh you know you just you you won't get faster and if you go out and you just say you know what I'm going to do it you do get faster and I I apply that to everything in life.

You ran a 1048 your sophomore year and it feels like this was a a pivotal moment an inflection point in your life. How did that 1048 impact you? How did it impact your confidence?

It was the most insane thing ever that race. Um, it was a two-mile race. And so I, um, I had gone to this new high school, gone to Philips Academy, whatever. Great high school, super smart kids. Show up, I'm in a weird dorm. I'm like, not that popular, you know, like I'm nothing nothing's going that great for Nick. And um, winner of my sophomore year, I started as a sophomore, so I've only been there 3 months. I show up and I try out for the varsity basketball team cuz I was captain of my grade school basketball team. I'll make the varsity. They're like, "All right, I'll make the JV. I don't make the JV. I'll make the JV2, right? Of course, I don't make the JV2, right? Like Nick's Nick's not doing very well. And so, you have to do a sport. And so, I'm like, well, I guess the only sport you can still join. It takes a while to get cut from three teams, you know. So, a lot of the teams have closed. So, the only one

that's open is indoor track. I go over there. Coach is like, all right, welcome. um sees that I'm like tall and skinny, puts me in the two-mile, and I run the first one in 11:43, which is not that good, but it's not terrible. Um, and then I run, you know, the rest of the season I'm running like 11:35 and it gets time for the New England Championships and coach enters me, which was sort of surprising, but he enters me. And my goal was to run an 11:30 and my track was 150 m 150 yards a lap. And so I think it was like I had to run between 21 and 22 seconds a lap to run at 11:30. I was like that's what I can do. And then I go to this new track at Moses Brown in Rhode Island, but it was 160 yards. Um and so I go out there and I'm like running the first lap in 21 22.

Um, and I don't realize it, but I'm going a lot faster than I thought I was. Um, so I thought I was chugging around at 545 pace and I go through the first mile and they're like 523. I was like, wait, what? Uh, I didn't quite believe it and I thought I would be in like 10th or 12th place. I was in third place. And so I end up finishing the race in 1048. And a it was a lesson that I've held with me. And sometimes you have to kind of trick yourself into believing you can do something, right? I I if I had known how fast I was going, there's no way I would have been able to go that fast. If I had known that I was running 523s, I would have shut down. I would have been scared. My body would have started to hurt. There would have been all kinds of phantom pains. If I had known what was happening, I wouldn't have been able to do it. And secondly, you know, I succeeded. I ran this time and 1048 is good. It's not amazing, but

it's good. And like suddenly I was cool, right? And there's like an article in the school paper about this sophomore who set the indoor class record and did it despite not having shown any promise yet. And like all the all the like super cool kids in my dorm were like, "Wow, this is awesome." And so suddenly I had an identity, right? And when you're in high school, it's really helpful to have an identity, to have something you're good at, to have something that people know you're good at. And that running was that for me. And then um you know what happened from there is it led to more self-confidence and I started doing better in my classes. It's been true throughout my life like when I run well everything goes well. And I don't know which way that um causation works whether like when things are going well I run well or whether when I run well things go well. But certainly at this moment in high school it was a it was a

situation where running well made everything go well. running has been taken away from you at one point in your life.

Yeah. Um outside of your control, right? A medical diagnosis has has sidelined you.

What what impact not only having cancer, but what impact did it have the fact that you you couldn't run for a bit or at least again it voluntarily sidelined you? that that was a really dark profound and ultimately you sometimes bad things happen to you in life and it turned out to be really good in the long run. This was I'm you know I'm blessed that this happened to me. Um it's hard to say that but I am. So in 2005 I ran the New York Marathon in 243 and felt great, right? It was a good time and I had you know I'd run much slower times. It was a breakthrough for for me.

Right afterwards, like a week afterwards, I go in and see the doctor. He puts his hand on my throat. He's like, "I see something there." And that leads me down this, you know, this cycle, right, where you're like, I don't know if you've been through this, but where you not going to be cancer, they're going to test. Is it a nodule or is it a cyst, right? Okay. And they come and they do a test. It's like, okay, well, it's not what we want, but there's still a chance. Okay. And you go you go through like five or six different steps. And in each one you're like, "It's not going to be cancer, right? It's going to like we're going to see it's not." And then eventually it's like, "Oh, it probably is." And so then they have to do surgery. They open up my neck. They take out half the thyroid. And they call me up and they're like, "We took out half your thyroid. Turns out you don't have cancer." I was like, "Great." And they

call me back a week later like, "Sorry, we misread the slides. You do." And they have to open it up again, take out the rest. Um, and then it's this like you go through radiation treatment, you're on the synthetic hormone. I just got completely wiped out. And it was so tied in my mind to running because I've been so proud of this 243 and so excited and so happy. And so I as I got through it and as I like came out on the other side of the treatments, I felt like I really needed to run again. In fact, I really needed to run fast again. Um, and so I started up and slowly got back and and then amazingly two years later, um, 2007 New York Marathon, I I ran another 243 and in fact ran 13 seconds faster than I had before I got sick. And so it was a it was a it was a pretty profound moment in my life.

Oh, I love it. Um, this idea of setting a stretch goal, a tough goal, a a goal that you're not guaranteed to hit.

Yeah. I think there's application far beyond running. There's again, we're going to talk about your business stuff here in a second, but I I would love to hear what you've drawn from setting stretch goals and hitting them or setting stretch goals and not and how it impacts you again as a leader, as just someone trying to make a difference in the world, someone trying to leave a positive dent in the world. How has setting stretch goals helped you?

It's so important. You know, you have to you have to sometimes say, you know what, we're going to like there are two things that I like to think about. One is like two lessons from running. One is that you have to move at an uncomfortable pace, right? You can't you don't get anything you want by being comfortable, right? And if you're working in a way that feels easy and if you're setting deadlines that everything seems smooth and there's not a problem, you're not growing, you're not learning, you're not getting there, right? And that's like that's a lesson from running and it's a good lesson for work, right?

You know, if I look at what I have to do and I look at what my goals are like, you know, I can do this. Let's just get there. Then what's the point, right? And then the second is that sometimes you have to really set an audacious goal and then focus and say we're going to lock it in and get it right. We're going through that right now at the Atlantic where we're setting like two extremely big goals. One for advertising side, one for the consumer side. And our projections, you know, don't suggest we're going to hit them, right? But the same was true the last time I said we're going to get the profitability and we're going to get a million subscribers and we're going to do that in 3 years. I was like, no, that's that's pretty hard, right? We're losing $30 million a year. wheel, you know, and we got there, right? And sometimes having a really big goal, you know, motivates you, focuses you, and

you end up making all the tough choices you have to make, and you get there. And sometimes it doesn't. Like, you know, I don't know, I had a I had a whole set of goals uh for the marathon yesterday. I made up a whole set of plans based on how I felt and got to say, I missed every single one by a large margin.

Why? What happened? Well, I think yesterday was a weird race. Um, I went in and you my goal at the beginning of the summer was I'm going to run a 230 marathon. I'm going to win my age group. And um, I had these like sort of races along the way. And I hit them all. I hit all my markers. And if you had asked me like mid August, I was like, I'm on track to run 230 with my age group. But ran this 100k during the summer and it kind of fried me in a little bit and I started having some injury problems. So things were a little bit off and then I must have gotten some kind of respiratory infection because um the last two weeks my resting heart rate has been skyrocketed like 15 beats above where it should be. My HRV has been a third of what it should be. My respiratory rate's been like 20% higher than it should be. Like everything has been off. Um and I didn't feel sick, didn't look sick, but something was

wrong in my body. And so when I went into the race, I was like, well, I don't know how off I am, right? I don't and I don't know how it's going to affect my running cuz sometimes you can you you can have a cold, you can feel terrible and you still run great, right? Or you know, Michael Jordan scored 42 points with a temperature of 103, right? Like sometimes that you can play through it. Um, sometimes you can't. And so I made a sort of a set of plans for the race, but like I I basically agreed I was or not agreed, I wrote a plan. And I was like, "Okay, I'm going to run the first 5 miles at 6:30 and I'm going to see how I feel. And if I feel good, I'm going to go faster and faster and try to break 240 for the marathon. If I don't feel good, I'll just hold 6:30 and run 250."

And I ran the first five at 6:30. Next five, ran a little quicker. And then it was like, "Oh god, I'm not breathing right." And so from then on it was I would just say to myself, continuous forward motion, continuous forward motion. And I finished in 306, which was, you know, 16 minutes worse than what I thought the worst case scenario was, but whatever. Still finished.

That's so fast still for, you know, most people, almost everybody. But how do you know when to say, "Oh, I don't know if I got it today." versus, "Nick, let's go. We got to go, man. Let's go. Push, push, push, push." Like, how how do you Because I'm sure you've had days where you you've done that where you're like, "I'm not feeling it, man, but I'm pushing. I'm going to go anyway and you go 243 or do whatever. Like how how do you balance that out in your head?

Yeah. Every other time I've done it, like my finish has been within a pretty tight range of what I expected, right? And I'm always able to kind of push through, push the pain aside and I have a very good sense of my body. Um, yesterday was the first time where I didn't have it, you know, and I tried a couple times, right? So once I start realizing in about mile 10 or 11 that something's off, I tried different strategies and I was like, "Okay, you know, stop looking at your watch. Just like look at that person ahead of you, right? And like stay on that person's shoulder, right? If you can stay on that person's shoulder for the next 5 miles, you'll do great." Well, then like I wasn't able to stay on that person's shoulder for like 20 ft. All right, let's just like meditate, right?

Like I'll sometimes do this thing where I'm like, "Okay, right foot, left foot, right, left foot, right?" And I would try to kind of focus on my meditation pattern and then like that didn't work. And I was like, "Okay, I'm I reset my goals. I'm just going to run 650 per mile." Like I'm so look at my watch. I'm going to run 650. I'm not going to let it fall off from that. And I just couldn't like I couldn't lock into any of these goals. And I just kept sort of sliding back further and further. And you know, um, and then at a certain point, can't remember exactly, maybe it was like mile 14 or 15, maybe it was going up the Queensboro Bridge, I was like, you know, if I keep trying to like push myself or if I keep trying to like set some goal, if I keep trying to like keep going fast, I might not finish. And all that matters is that I finish, right? Like I'm here, I'm going to finish. And so

now my goal is to finish. And so there's a really interesting thing actually in marathon running where in a race if you like what you don't want to do is to like slow down like 10 seconds a mile be like okay I'm running 620s but now I feel bad okay now I'm running 630s now I'm running 640s now I'm 650s now it's 7 710 720 right and you sort of you can see this sometimes in marathon when you look at somebody's like pace chart right it's just like every mile gets worse once you realize you're not going to hit your goal it's better to kind of like make a full drop. Be like, "Okay, now I'm going to run 30 seconds per mile slower, but I'm going to hold that, right?" Like, "Yeize how far there is and identify what pace you can run."

Think of it as like, "Okay, I'm now at mile 17." So, there's like a 9 mile race. What can I run for these next 9 miles? And that's sort of what I did yesterday. I was like, "Okay, I'm just going to run 730s, right? And I'm going to run that for the last 9 miles." And I pretty much held on to that and did okay. So, I had a couple mental resets yesterday that were complicated, interesting, but it was totally new terrain for me.

How do you feel about that? Does that bum you out? Were you upset or is it you just look at as something to learn from? Like, how do you respond to missing a goal like that?

Something to learn from. I mean, it's like I know I can. It's if I if I thought, oh my god, like 50 years old, like man, I've gotten slow. Like I really got slow quickly. But I know that's not the case cuz I like literally I ran a 50-mi race in April where I ran the first 26.2 miles like 15 minutes faster than I ran the whole marathon yesterday. Like

that's crazy. I'm not cooked. Just like it was just a bad day. You're listening to your kids. Dad, you're cooked. That's what my kids say to me,

right? Like I like four or five times this year I've gone off and ran 26.2 miles as part of some workout faster than I ran the marathon yesterday. So like I'm fine.

I just need to get over whatever was wrong with my breathing. So yeah, my son, you know, mocking me.

It's like you got to bury that. Enter another marathon. Um we'll see how I recover. Maybe I'll get out there and do another one before the end of the year.

Oh, I love it. I I uh I saw that you read a book called The Warrior Athlete. You said, "I kept a book called The Warrior Athlete close at hand." What What is it about the Warrior Athlete? How did it help you?

So, I don't even I don't remember a ton about the Warrior Athlete. This is back when I was like 18. Um, I remember a couple things. I remember there's a great line in the book where it was it's like this it's this coach explaining the mentality of people he coached, some of whom like had won Olympic medals. And there's an amazing line in it that will always stick with me where the guy says people sometimes ask me, "Do you meditate do you have your athletes meditate before competition?" And he's like, "No, I have them meditate in competition." And I just loved that. I loved the notion that like when you're competing, you're in a meditative flow state. And um I've held that with me, you know, throughout my life. Um, you know, the the point in the book I was making there, it's, you know, that's a lesson I've held with me, like that is a lesson that like 18-year-old Nick has for 50-year-old Nick. There are a bunch

of other things I did at 18 which were insane, right? I was like, you know, I would uh lose a race and I'd like go run sprints immediately afterwards. Like, don't do that, right? Um, you know, the dumbest thing I did, I guess this was when I was 16, I'm like, ah, you know, I should have better stomach muscles. And so I like I watched Dances with Wolves at home. I think it was over Thanksgiving or something. And I like try to do sit-ups the entire movie, right? And that is a long movie, right? Like Kevin Cosner goes on and on in that movie, but I did sit-ups the entire Dances with Wolves. And then of course I pulled a muscle on my abdomen shortly thereafter. So, you know, I was a pretty headstrong kid, like just trying to like charge through it all. Um, probably like my 15-year-old is now, even though I try to tell him to like chill out sometimes, but yeah.

Uh, you So, I hinted at that I want to talk about your the business side of things, too. You're you're not just the runner, even though, uh, your times and and your how you win. You you you would think maybe that's all you did, but you're the CEO of the Atlantic, right? And, um, I read that when Loren Powell Jobs uh, right? This is Steve Jobs widow and David Bradley announced you as the CEO. They said Nick is singular. Interesting. We've seen no one like him and that he brought quote a surround sound coverage of relevant experience.

Man, that is that is awesome. Uh what did you do to to get Loren Pal Jobs to say Nick is singular? And by the way, what does that mean? Ah, well, I think what it meant for them is that I had a an array of an I had like a mix of talents that was rare or a mix of experiences that was rare. And what they were looking for in the CEO, like there are a lot of people who've been much more successful in business than I've been, right? They've run bigger companies. They've turned things around that were harder. Um, but what I had was I had I had been a real journalist, like a serious journalist.

I'd written I'd worked at the New Yorker for six years. I'd written important stories. I'd written a book. Um, so I had journalism and then I had tech experience, right? I'd covered Silicon Valley. I'd started two startups. I, you know, I understood how Silicon Valley worked. And then I had business experience, right? And it was the combination of those three things that they that they liked. and they hadn't seen I'm sure they had candidates who were stronger in each of those categories, but I don't think they'd seen anybody who had strengths in all three. And so, you know, it's just they wanted someone who could kind of, you know, pitch and play second base and, you know, steal bases, right? Like they wanted like some combination.

They wanted Show. Well, not I mean, not quite cuz Show is like the best in the world at hitting, right? It would be like if show was like a 270 hitter and had an ERA of 420 and stole 20 bases a year. That's what they were like looking for.

Was it by design that you tried to develop all of these different skill sets or was it you just kind of tackled what was in front of you?

It's um it's the way my personality works and it's the always been my strength and my weakness, right? And like you know if you go back and you look at the people who've watched me most closely they have always said including my father including my best bosses like including my college adviserss right like the thing that Nick is best at is you know he has tons of energy and does lots of things and cares about them all right and the thing that we wish we could get him to do is to like really lock in on one thing. Um, and you know, like I had three majors in college, but probably each of my adviserss across those three majors wishes I had like really focused a little bit more on whatever that major was. And so, you know, um, it just turned out that I had like done lots of different stuff and so it worked out well for the Atlantic CEO job.

So, you think that's more of just how you're wired uh to to and you're still this way?

It's it's how I'm I mean like it's it's how I'm wired. I like to you could see it in this marathon, right? Like where um you know I ran a marathon, ran a pretty good marathon, you know, but uh I would have done a better marathon if I really focused on it. My favorite comment after my the marathon was a friend of mine who one of the like most legendary New York City marathoners. He put a note on my Strava. He ran like 20 consecutive New Yorkers, New York marathons at sub240. And he's like, "Nick, marathon gods don't like it if you're not fully focused on the marathon. Even if what you're focused on is promoting a book about the marathon."

So, it's just my nature. I like to do I like to do things. I like to be moving around. I like to talk to lots of people. I like to have lots of different projects. And so, the the trick for me is making sure that I'm putting enough attention into a small number of things that really matter. And so that's something I'm always I'm always trying to trying to get right.

So I told you before we started recording, but your book, The Running Ground, um [clears throat] it's one of my favorite books I've read in years. Uh that's awesome.

And I read books for a living. Uh because I record with authors a lot. Um I could not stop.

That's so cool. I'm so glad to hear that. Did you Did you read in like a day? A couple days. Uh because I tried so hard to make it I tried so hard to make it like readable in a short period of time. Well, it started with you put a an excerpt and a number of friends of mine,

smart, my smartest friends were sharing it on Twitter and other places and I was like, man, I got I got to read this. And the excerpt as I extra as I got in the book was actually different pieces of the book because I like, wait, I've seen this. Oh. So, we pulled different parts and put it all together in one thing, which was brilliantly done. By the way, that that alone is awesome as well. I think it's the first thing you've ever published for the Atlantic. Is that right?

Sure is. is like despite being the CEO never wrote for it. Yeah. Which is wild. But anyway, the reason I love it is because it's written

almost like it's a fiction story, but it's a real story and it's a kind of a memoir and you're very vulnerable, but not like

not like in a cheesy or a weird way to like get clicks, but just in a genuine way. You're obviously a beautiful storyteller, an incredible writer, but I I'd love to hear just what you were thinking and how you did it. What like how you put it all together to to go there and, you know, tell the truth about your dad and about your insecurities as a father and trying to be a good dad, but we're all, you know, trying to figure it out. Like, what was it like as you're trying to put that book together? Because it's so personal.

It's very personal and it was a very hard book to write for a couple reasons. Um, took me five years. Well, obvious because I'm CEO of The Atlantic and I have a busy job. Um, but I would just I would make I would just say like I'm going to spend, you know, 30 minutes on it today, right? I'm going to set a timer and I'll work 30 minutes before my kids wake up and I'll work on it. Um, or I'll work on it 30 minutes tonight after the kids go to bed, right? I'll just figure out how I'm going to get a little bit of just make steady progress every day. It doesn't matter how long this book takes as long as I'm getting there.

It's kind of like running steady progress every day. Totally. Exactly. Right. And that would like I literally like had a box and like how many consecutive days have I worked 30 minutes or more on this book, right? And it was basically every day, you know, for years. Um, what was hard about the book were a few things. One is the structure was really complicated. I knew I wanted to tell my story. And I wanted to tell my story of how I went from being a good runner to being a very good runner. I wanted to tell my father's story about how running helped him escape, you know, or how running helped him hold his life together at a hard time, how he had dealt with his father, how he passed his gift of running to me and then his later chaos.

And then I wanted to tell the stories of some other runners. Um, in part because I wanted to universalize the experience of running. And I wanted to get in people who could teach you things that my life story can't teach you, right? And can show you things that my life story can't show you. But I didn't want to just pick people off Wikipedia or you know, you know, read Runner's World. And I wanted to like find people who my who I knew, right, and who crossed paths with me so that it would fit into my narrative. So the first part of the project was like calling lots of people and talking to lots of different runners and trying to figure out their life stories and figuring out, you know, who I'd pull where. And then once I had that, I had the challenge of how do you put it together in a way that's smooth, right?

And so how do you make it chronological, right? Because my life and my dad's life, if you tell them chronologically, my dad's life all happens before my life. Um, and that doesn't make sense cuz then the reader will get lost. Like why are we reading a book about Scott Thompson? This is supposed to be a book about Nick Thompson. And then like how do you fit the other runners in? like you want to put them in chronologically, but they're born at different times. And so I had this puzzle that took me a couple years to figure out of where I would put the other runners where I put myself. And there were a couple of um couple of decisions I made that made the book work. So one is I decided um that the first chapter would be a description of everything that happened in my mind during one race. And I did that because I wanted the book is really about the mind of a runner and like what goes on in a

runner's head and I wanted to make it clear to the reader that this is not a biography. It's not an autobiography. This is an essay about running and what it means. And so and I wanted them to I wanted to develop I wanted there to be an emotional connection between Nick Thompson and the reader immediately. Um and so that was a very good choice. Then I had a hard time figuring out which race it should be. Like should it be my best race? should it be the worst race? Ultimately chose the 2007 New York Marathon because it tied in so closely with my cancer diagnosis. So I did that and then I then that allowed me to kind of fit pieces together more chronologically. And what I did is I would overlay my life and my father's life. So it's like my dad's time. We went to the same high school in college.

So it was my dad time at Denver, my time at Denver, my dad's time at Stanford, my time at Stanford. And once I'd done that, then the pieces all fit together. And so then I was able to chronologically make a structure. I was able to introduce the characters when they enter my life and then the book worked. And so the hardest part was, you know, writing about my dad was hard. Writing reading his diaries was hard. Thinking through like what it means to expose all the sort of negative stuff of his life is hard. But what was really hard is turning it into a coherent hole.

And that was what I spent the most time on. [snorts] You are an exceptional storyteller. Um, again, you moved me to tears multiple times through the beauty of the written word, which I so admire the craft of writing. I've written some books. I'm always in the process of writing the next one. It's really hard. You question yourself. You wonder, is this any good?

Yeah. Um, you get writer's envy all the time. I I hope you do, even though I don't know how because I don't know who you would read to envy, but I definitely do, especially reading your work or reading like Morgan Howell or some of my other friends. I just love to hear your your overall philosophy on storytelling. Like I know you've done it for a long time, right? You're in this world. You're the CEO of the Atlantic, but just the craft of storytelling. I think this is a skill that leaders need. It's a mandatory skill for leaders to get good at and not enough of them study it and try to improve at it. If you were teaching a class of CEOs or senior leaders and it's just about storytelling, right? So these are like business people.

What what would what what are some of the elements of that class? What are some of the musthaves in that class of storytelling for leaders?

Yeah. So one is like I think of it as the cocktail party test. And if you were to describe the thing you're writing or the scene you're writing and you were to start talking about it at a cocktail party, would people come towards you or would people walk away? Right? And if people would walk away, then you don't have it. And you know, I can start talking about like my 2005 cancer diagnosis and the 2007 New York Marathon and people lock in, right? Um I start talking about my 2009 New York Marathon and no one cares, right? And so like you you you can kind of test with your friends and sort of see like what has emotional resonance, what people both what pulls people in. I also sometimes think of it as like the movie test. Like can you visualize and can you run a movie in your head about what I'm writing about? Like can you see it? Can you feel it? Because that's what's happening when somebody's reading

a book. Like they're they're visualizing it in their mind's eye. And so if you can do that then I'm succeeding. And if you can't well then it shouldn't be on the page. And so those are two tests that I like to use. And then another thing that's so important is every extra word, every extra thought, every extra detail that doesn't propel the story from where you are to the next spot or to the finish needs to be removed. because every like every detail is an opportunity for distraction or an opportunity to leave. And so you have a sentence, you know, or you have a name, right? You have the name of a person that's put in there, right? If that name is not essential, that name is potentially going to lead the other person out of the story and out of where you want them to be. And so a lot of like this book is like 75,000 words long and there's like 60,000 words that I cut. I just went through and I was like,

is this sentence absolutely essential to the story? No, it is not. It's gone. And you know, it went through with the running. Like there are a lot of races I've brought in my life that I care a lot about that mean something to me and like one out of every 20 of them is mentioned. Um

and you're just taking taking stuff out nonstop. Um that's a really important part of storytelling. But really it's like it's that first question of if you're to say it orally, you know, will the people emotionally connect? And let me just say one thing about writer's end because I get that a lot too. There are a lot of writers who I just think are amazing, right? And I wish I could be like and what I do with that is I um I read their work out loud and so I will take a piece by I'll go to a piece by someone who I think is a great writer, right? Let's say it's David Ram. I'm going to say like it's Lissa McFar, right? It's this amazing New Yorker writer. I will like read her stories out loud and think about, okay, what is she doing? How did this work? Um, and then it helps me, I think, become a a better writer.

What about um let's get really tactical. Okay. What are some tactical kind of things somebody could implement? Let's say they're not very good, but at least they have enough awareness that they're willing to work on it.

What are what are a few immediately? I know I'm putting you in a spot, but so if this is not good, we can just But what if what are some tactical I could implement it right now for my next town hall or my next meeting or my next quarterly business review and it will make it more entertaining. It will have the people kind of scooting to the edge of their seats. It'll I wonder what Nick's about to say. You know what? What are some of those things people could do right now that maybe if they selfanalyze they're like ah I don't have it yet.

take whatever you've written and like legitimately look at it and say, "Will people be able to visualize a movie in my mind while I say this?" Right? And like will they be able to

like am I just saying like a bunch of words that you can't possibly visualize? Right? I'm talking about tactics and OKRs and KPIs and like will they have an emotional connection to this? Right? And if they won't, try again, right? If it's important, right? Sometimes you you should just go with your KPIs, your OKRs. And

do you like what do you do when you when you're talking OKRs, KPIs, all these acronyms that not everybody knows even what you're talking about? What what like how do you do that at the a as a as a CEO, as a guy leading leaders? What do you do?

I try to be well, I mean, a like I try very hard to like make sure there's an emotional point, right? Like this is why this matters. Like we are here today, right? because you know we are trying to accomplish XYZ. try to like make it clear this is this is important right this is the magazine that Ralph Waldo Emerson started you to prevent to create conversations to prevent American civil war right and you try to tell a little story the other thing that is so important right and one of the things I do in the book is like if the reader can't visualize it like help them visualize it right so I don't know let's say I'm talking about Ralph Waldo Emerson because I'm trying to make a point about the heritage of the Atlantic right okay well this is you know this is a magazine that Ralph Waldo Emerson started in a little house in conquered right? A little white house in conquered, right? And you can go into

that house today and you can see their Atlantics in the attic. And Emerson, you know, would walk there and he'd walk around Wald and P. You like you kind of like make it so they're there with you and can visualize it, right? And then, you know, you're you're building the movie in their head so they can see it and they can feel it and they can hear it, right? Like when I write about these characters in the book, I'm trying to give you a sense of them physically. I'm trying to give you a sense of the space. I'm trying to give you a sense that like you're reading about Tony Ruiz, my coach, and like you can hear his voice, right? You can feel him, you can see him, right? Even if you've never seen a picture of him,

at least that's what I'm trying to do. And so when I'm talking to the staff, I'm doing a little bit. You don't want to overdo it because then you you're cheesy, right? But you want to you want to be getting across, you know, helping them visualize that what you're talking about and understanding like getting a real emotional connection to the goal. Uh, I could talk about storytelling all day, but you're again, you're also the CEO. And so I'm fascinated by the people that make up a company because they're everything. It is everything. As a CEO, what are some of the musthaves you're looking for someone to hire?

Well, let's say you're a part of the hiring process for any leadership role or any role at all within your company. What are those those must-h have attributes to to say, "Yeah, I want them to be on my team."

Yeah. So, we have like there two like we have this sort of this slogan at the Atlantic. Spirit of generosity, force of ideas, sense of belonging. And the first two are like crucial when you're hiring. Like spirit,

uh spirit of generosity, force of ideas, sense of belonging. Like that's what we try to cultivate here. And spirit of generosity means like can they work with people, right? Can they like are they going to come in here and be territorial or are they going to say like 6 months later actually you know I think the consumer team should report to me [snorts] right or I think that like actually like you know this new unit like that's mine right or are they going to like figure out what's best for the org figure out how to like pick up the slack are they going to work with folks if you don't have a spirit of generosity it's not going to work right and then force of ideas like are you smart are you sharp are you going to bring things and you know I take those two things as a starting point. I think work ethic is so important. Like are you the kind of person who I like people who are just really driven and hardwired and

um it I I want like I I like I like edge, right? I like a little bit of like like a little bit of like anxiety about how we're doing, you I want like you people are

productively paranoid. Yeah. A little bit. Productively paranoid is a very good way to put it. There too many people who are a little too comfortable, right? And who

Mhm. you come to the come to the Atlantic or come to journalism. It's such an amazing prestigious place and you know then they get here and you know isn't it it's doing so well, right? And they're making money and they're owned by a billionaire. Like it's okay, right? like you we're just like you it's going to be fine, right? and it'll take care of me. And no, what I want is like, okay, did this get done? Let's get the next thing done. This get done, it gets the next thing done. And you don't have to work, you know, I don't need people to work 100 hours a week, but I do need

I do need I do need an edge, right? I do need like I and I really like that in people who you just feel it. They're kind to everybody, you know, they're good to work with. Um, but they're not they're not complacent. Um so that's super super important and then um you know teamwork like filling in the gaps like I have an amazing leadership team. We've like almost no turnover in the last three years like came in and there were clearly some situ some people who you know didn't work well with me whether that's my fault or their fault you know so we made a whole bunch of changes and now it's been smooth sailing and that's I think one of the reasons why it's been so successful the last couple years.

Are any of them uh big- time runners? Uh, I don't think we have any other big-time runners here. There are a lot there are a lot of journalists who uh

surprising number of people are like elite runners in journalism. Like the New Yorker, George Packer, one of my famous favorite writers in the world, ran like a 246 marathon 40 years ago. Anne Goldstein who ran a copy desk at the New Yorker run like a 310. She was like 70 years old. And like there are a bunch of there there are there are things like you you are like a little nerdy, a little cerebral and those things kind of overindex and running. They kind

I think you have to be a little nuts to run as fast as you do for as long as you do because that means you have to be insane about your training.

Yeah. I mean there there reasons why there like a couple reasons. So there's certain mental skills that or certain habits of mind that come from running that I think help in journalism and help in life and there's the you know there's kind of the dedication there's the understanding of pacing um there's you know there's a kind of like a mental clarity that comes from being outside all the time and being in your own head there's a little bit of like understanding your own philosophy. There's some like really positive habits and there's some negative ones like if you well a if you run really fast you probably train a lot takes a lot of time and it can also make you self-absorbed.

It can make you selfish right? You like you spend all this time focusing on yourself and um you have to push those things aside. Um so you know everything you do reinforces your personality and makes you who you are. Uh and so there are a lot of ways being an intense runner helps you in this field and there's some ways where it doesn't. Uh, this is something I maybe should not say, but I'm curious to hear from you.

So, I'm like a workout everyday guy. My background's in sports, football, leadership positions as a quarterback. So, I like to lift weights. I like to do running, but in different ways than you.

I want to be in shape. I sometimes struggle when I'm with other leaders or leadership positions of people who don't seem to be that disciplined. they let themselves go physically because I feel like that could you could let yourself go mentally. So maybe they they're they look way out of shape or they're not disciplined with what they eat, whatever. Again, this this is a judgmental thing and I like being curious, not judgmental like Ted Lasso, right? H how about you, man? Like you're psycho. You're you're disciplined.

You're nerdy. You're you're all these things. You're super smart. You run really really fast for very long distances. Do how do you manage that? Or do you do you are you are do you find yourself being judgmental at times when you see people who aren't disciplined like you?

Well, the discipline can come in so many different ways. Like I don't you know I think about some of my best colleagues. I don't know my the guy I work with the most the editor-in chief of the Atlantic you know I has he ever run a mile? I doubt it. Has he ever lifted a weight? Like I mean yeah sure he I guess when he was young and he was he was in the military but like the last 25 years. No. Is he disciplined? Hell yeah. Right. Works all the time, writes all the time. Like puts his life on like focused on every sentence at the Atlantic.

The military background though seems like a guy would have that as a fundamental part of his life.

Yeah. But just doesn't have the physical like the the physical thing is gone. So, I don't mind people who don't worry about their physical discipline as long as they still have the mental discipline.

Gotcha. I think you can definitely have one. And I've had great too. Yeah. So, so do you think they can be completely separate? Like I can be super focused and disciplined here, but over here I'm just

It just I don't I don't care. I don't I don't know. Like what do you think? I think you can. I think in there I think they're definitely people who can be you and also like sometimes you you just need need to get different things from people. So like the most one of the most interesting people I've ever met this guy who was friends with my father of course and they'd met at Oxford and it was this man he's still with us actually in his mid 80s and he had like the most incredible mind. um you know he would read you he'd go to the library and he'd read like multiple books a day speed readad them could remember everything you know could multiply six-digit numbers by each other in his head and could like talk to you about anything right I remember once I wrote a book on the Cold War and I like I read it out loud to him and he fact checked it as we went along he's like no Dean Aerson was not born that year he

was born this year and he didn't work at Coington he worked at Sherman and Sterling or the other way around and like the guy was incredible right and he had the most remarkable discipline for his memory and his mind but he also like couldn't dress himself. He had like one change of clothes, weighed like 200 something pounds and drank only Diet Coke and like you know I went once went to his apartment and like there was just like a mattress with no sheets and like cases of Diet Coke and books, right? And the world is full of people who are different and interesting and like one of the things that I try to cultivate is like being able to get the most out of different kinds of people. So I actually brought that guy on the Washington Monthly where I worked. We worked in the facteing department. He just like no one else in the office could handle him. So we didn't have him come into the office.

He's like too loud and too crazy. But we'd send him every story and he'd just like read it and be like wrong wrong. And he'd always he could knew everything. He was like he he was basically chat GPT in a human brain before we had chat GPT. Um so and I put up with his come over to my dad's house and he would just like there'd be like a jug of Carlo Rossy wine like the stuff you got for like $4.99. And my dad would like buy these jugs all the time and he would just like take one and be like um but you you have pluses and minuses.

Oh man. Um I I love to close with something about parenting. We started with your dad. I'd like to end with you as a dad. You wrote, "Nothing makes me more worried about failure than parenting. Parenting is suffused with regrets, confusion, and mistakes. But when I run by, I know my children are rooting for me to succeed with infinite love and enthusiasm. Man, how does running and parenting go together for you? And how are you striving to be a great dad? Well, I you know, I strive to be a great dad by like really like trying to pay attention to what my kids want and trying to help them out and support them and never push them too hard and never force them and never you try to not make the mistakes that my grandfather made. Try to not make the mistakes that I made. I know I'll make my own mistakes and they'll be intimidated in different ways. You know what my dad gave to me is just like constant love. Like it was chaotic

and caused all kinds of hell. And I sure as hell hope I'm not like bankrupt in Southeast Asia begging my kids for money in 30 years. Um so maybe I'll have different problems. And so I try you have three boys. I try to very much be there for them with running. Two of them run with me. Um you know one of them really wants to run a marathon. Um you know they all I mean the the 15year-old right he's the yesterday I ran that marathon. Everybody else was like, "Great job, Nick. You killed it." And he was like, "That sucked."

Kids are the best at keeping keeping you humble, aren't they? Yeah. He was so funny. He like I come home, he's not there. He's off like practicing. He practices all day. He's up at the park like playing pickup soccer with adults. And he comes back in. He's like, "Whoa, Dad." He's like, "Dad, 306." He's like, "Let me tell you something. Do not put that on Strava. Do not tell anybody you ran." and like you got to go out there tomorrow and run a marathon by yourself and do better.

It's like thanks man. Uh that's the best you know like he's awesome. Like the kids all three of them are just they're amazing wonderful people and I one of the nice things I love spending time with them. Like I just I have so much fun. So that's good.

I love it. Man, I know we got to run but one more before we run. uh you're meeting with somebody who's, you know, just finishing up at Stanford or some other university and they they want to leave a positive dent in the world like you're doing. What are some general pieces of life/career advice you'd say to that person?

Well, you know, for someone who's just finishing up college right now, it's this is like the hardest time I', you know, it's always a hard time to finish up college. The world is always changing. It's always complicated. This is the hardest because of AI and the uncertainty about what the world will look like. You know, my advice is find the things you're passionate in and like really focus on them, right? And like lean into stuff you love. Um, and sometimes it can be hard to determine what it is you love and what you're passionate about. Sometimes it can lead you astray. Um, you know, I spent some time on this in the book, but my 20s weren't great professionally. I found a career I loved, which was journalism, but I wasn't good at it yet. Um, but like find something you love and work at it, right? and like keep pushing and always work hard and like eventually things will will turn out for the best.

Like you know I mentioned this earlier when sort of the stoicism and running but I do feel like this for young people too which is you know find a thing you love and keep going and keep working at it and have faith that over time like what you want to happen will happen and things will be okay.

So good man. Um, the book's called The Running Ground, which there's a great I just learned it uh when I was rereading this morning about the reason behind the title, which we can get into get to later, but The Running Ground, a father, a son, and the simplest of sports. By the way, again, from someone who is not a long-distance runner, the beauty of the writing and the storytelling is why you will love this book. It's one of my favorite books I've read in the last years because of the the craft of the storytelling and how it moves you emotionally. I could absolutely feel that movie in my head, whether it was with you, your dad, your kids, your wife, the characters you write about. It was amazing. So, thank you, man, for being here. I would love, Nick, to continue our dialogue as we both progress man.

Totally. Brian, it was so great to talk with you. I'm so happy you like the book. Love chatting and uh thanks for having me on.

Thank you, man.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "Run Toward Discomfort: Nicholas Thompson’s Rule for Greatness"?

In order: 0:00 Bob Bennett, Dupont Circle, movie test, New York City Marathon; 10:00 New York Marathon, Philips Academy; 20:00 New York Marathon, Queensboro Bridge, The Warrior Athlete; 30:00 Nick Thompson, Amy Lynn Bradley, Loren Powell Jobs, New York Marathon; 40:00 cocktail party test, Morgan Howell, movie test, New York Marathon; 50:00 Anne Goldstein, George Packer, Strava, Ted Lasso; 1:00:00 The Running Ground, The Running Ground: A Father, a Son, and the Simplest of Sports.

What is mentioned in this Ryan Hawk episode?

35 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including New York Marathon, Stretch goals / audacious goals, movie test, Scott Thompson, Strava, The Running Ground. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Run Toward Discomfort: Nicholas Thompson’s Rule for Greatness"?

The episode runs 1 h 2 min; the transcript is about 12,723 words in 138 timestamped sections.

More from Ryan Hawk

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 4, 2026.