The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 116 - 100 Days of Swimming

Transcript:

Pete: Hello, Jen.

Jen: Hello, Pete.

Pete: I am fired up. I'm feeling fresh, because I just hit a milestone. I've been doing a little something for the last one hundred days that you know about (that many of our listeners probably don't know about), and that is swimming in the ocean. And I feel like there is an episode in here somewhere that relates to streaks and milestones.

Jen: Yes, congratulations. One hundred days in a row of swimming in the ocean. Let's discuss. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: [clapping] Woo-hoo. Congratulations, Peter.

Pete: Thank you. Thank you.

Jen: I'm so proud of you.

Pete: Thank you, everybody. Thank you, everybody.

Jen: I feel like we've been anticipating the opportunity to record this episode for weeks now. It's like, "How many swims left? How many swims left?" And you did it.

Pete: Each week, you're like, "Can we record the episode yet? Can we record the episode yet?" I was like, "Let me get to one hundred first."

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Pete: So I guess, a little context. We have recorded an episode...actually, that's in the can. It'll come out in the coming weeks on environments. And in that episode, I talked about how I had a bit of an aha moment a year or so ago, and recognized that I could move to an environment that would help me thrive better. And for me, that just happens to be by the ocean, by the beach here in Melbourne. And so since doing so, I have on and off just tried to swim on every other day. I haven't measured it. I haven't thought about it. I just know that if I go and have a swim, I'll probably feel better. And then lockdown happened in Melbourne, lockdown 2.0, where we had a pretty significant lockdown period for about thirteen weeks. And I was actually...I was getting a takeaway burger, funnily enough. And it was late August, and the guy working there who I got friends with said to me, "I saw you going for a swim the other day." And so, this for us was sort of the middle of winter. He's like, "And you actually got me thinking, I'm going to try and do a swim every single day in September. Thirty days, thirty swims? Are you up for it?" I was like, "Sure. Count me in. Let's do it." I've never really thought about tracking it. I just kind of, like I said, I just do it when I feel inspired, or when I feel like I want to swim. Anyway. So, it started off as me and my friend at the burger shop trying to each get to thirty swims in thirty days for September. And from there we can talk about, I went down the rabbit hole of, "Oh, I got to thirty. What if I get to forty? And what if I go to fifty?" And then when you get to that point, you're like, "I may as well get to one hundred." Which I think is, you know, there's a lesson there in momentum. There's a lesson there in targets, and goals, and accountability, I know. But I just wanted to set that context first.

Jen: I have so many questions for you. Can I just interview you?

Pete: Please. Yeah, just do that. Let's just do that.

Jen: Okay, let's pretend like you are on my talk show and you've just completed this major milestone of having swam one hundred days in a row. So please welcome my guest, Peter Shepherd, a giant Australian who just swam one hundred days in a row. Peter, how does it feel to have crossed that finish line?

Pete: It feels...thanks for having me, Jen, on this great talk show. It feels...it's sort of a juxtaposition. On one hand, it feels like quite fulfilling to know that I set a task, set a goal that was a little bit of a stretch, and then I did it. That felt good. And the one hundredth swim felt like every other swim. Like, it was...I think we talked about this in our one hundredth episode of podcasts where you kind of hit the milestone and then you're like, "Huh, okay. So that was just like every other swim, other than the story that I can now tell creates meaning." So, it feels great. And it feels the same as every other swim.

Jen: I'm curious to know, what was the hard part of getting to one hundred? I'm sure there was a mental game that had to be played in many different directions. Like, "It's cold out." Like, "I don't feel like it." Like, "I have all of these things that I'm committed to that people are counting on me for, and I'm just counting on myself here." Can you just talk us through the mental gymnastics there?

Pete: Yeah. I think the gymnastics got easier once the streak got longer. So, the hard part was...I think the hard part was probably the first...in fact, the hard part wasn't the first thirty days because I committed to my friend that we were going to do September. So that accountability, as an Upholder, that felt like it was just going to happen. I was going to get to thirty because I told him I would. The hard part was probably from thirty to forty, or from thirty to fifty days. Because, well, one, it was the middle of winter. And so, I think the coldest day I swam on was four degrees Celsius, which is about thirty-nine Fahrenheit. Does that sound cold to you?

Jen: Oh my gosh. Yes, that sounds cold!

Pete: Okay, that sounds cold. Okay. Yeah. So the hard part was those days where it's like raining and freezing cold, and I'm like, "No one else knows about this challenge really, other than my partner, Tracy, and you." And I was like, "I could just not swim today. That doesn't feel like I need to go and put myself through that." So, I guess it was that middle period. The dip, if you like.

Jen: So, how did you overcome the dip?

Pete: I overcame the dip through accountability, actually. So, there was one day in particular where I wasn't going to go in. I was genuinely, I was like ready to tap out. And Tracy and I, my partner, we'd walked down to the beach. I had my towel. And this was...I think it was one of those days it was four or five degrees. And we looked out into the ocean, and I saw the storm rolling over. And I was like, "You know what? I don't think I need to do this any more." And she said, "I'm going to stand here for ten minutes, and you're going to go and swim." And I was like, "Alright, I guess I'm going to do it." So there was that external accountability on the dips, the hard days, that definitely helped. That eventually turned into a fun game where my dad got on board. And he lives about two hours away, also on the coast. And so, we would start texting each other each day once we'd had our swim. And he got on a little bit of a roll, as well. So, that external accountability was key to getting through the dip.

Jen: Mmm. You and your family come up with all sorts of fun ways to do things, I'm recognizing. The zoom party, the family podcast, the gamification of swimming in the ocean. Come on.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, all of this actually originates from my mom. Who...growing up, there was a sticker on our fridge, which has become a bit of a saying in the Shepherd family. I've since realized that it's a far more common expression than...I always thought my mum came up with it, but I think it's quite common, or commonly understood. And it is, "You'll never regret to swim." And so, I grew up with that like mantra literally on the fridge door. Every single morning when I would open the fridge, that would be staring at me. So, I feel like the genesis of all of this stems back from my mom and that thing.

Jen: So, I'm...there are a couple questions I have that I'm sure the listeners have, too.

Pete: Okay.

Jen: So the first and maybe most important question of all is, do you still take cold showers?

Pete: You know? Not deliberately, but I've taken far less cold showers over the last one hundred days because of this. I think you pointed this out to me not long ago, that this ritual basically replaced my cold shower ritual.

Jen: Yes. Not that I'm against cold showers but, you know.

Pete: I mean, you are.

Jen: Second burning question, did you meet an octopus?

Pete: Disappointingly, I did not befriend an octopus. I did not fall in love with an octopus. And I do not now have a documentary about my journey and my octopuses friend.

Jen: Okay, now maybe a more serious question.

Pete: Mm-hmm.

Jen: Did you get to one hundred and one?

Pete: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm...at time of recording this, I'm at one hundred and two. So, the streak continues.

Jen: Okay, so why not just stop when you hit the milestone? Why pick up the milestone and throw it to the next marker, and then continue to swim toward it? Why?

Pete: The main reason? It's a great question. The main reason is it feels awesome. Like, I feel so good every time I have a swim. You have commented on how I feel, or look more relaxed and calm. Or, you can notice that I've had a swim. When we came out of lockdown and I caught up with a few friends, I had a couple of people who said, "It looks like you've seen a lot of sun. It looks like you've been on holiday." And I'm like, "No, we've been in lockdown. So I can't possibly have been on a holiday." And so there is this, apparently, this manifestation physically of how beneficial this practice has been for me, in that apparently it makes me look and feel and act a little bit more relaxed, a little bit more calm, a little bit more present. So I recognize that, and I just like personally feel great after every swim. So, I don't plan on stopping. It was never about the number one hundred, a bit like what we talked about in our podcast episode. And so the gamification was a fun part of it, but the feeling of being refreshed, having accomplished something, you know, searching for an octopus, all of that is still a benefit that I think I'll keep seeking out.

Jen: Okay, this is a two-parter. So part one is, you are a human periscope. You help people to see things that they can't see. I'm wondering, if you are a human periscope for yourself...through this one-hundred-plus swim, did you see something you wouldn't have otherwise seen about yourself, your future, your journey, your values, your practices? And what was it? And then part two is, what will you do with that information now?

Pete: I think there's sort of different buckets of learnings. One is, like just from a physical training perspective, I have for many, many years been someone who has done, you know...whether it be CrossFit, or high intensity exercise, or HIIT training, or running, or some form of weightlifting, someone who has told himself a story that to exercise each day has to be like intense and grueling and falling on the floor in pools of sweat, because then you feel awesome afterwards. And so one of the things I recognize is, twenty minutes of freestyle in the ocean is just as effective. It's far more calming, it's far better for my body, and actually probably makes me feel better than always defaulting to the high intensity run or the high intensity workout. There it is. There's the aha moment. There's been a learning which ties into this word that I've been thinking so much about lately, which has been "calm". So I've been thinking a lot about, "How might you optimize your life?" Me, but also others. "How might we optimize our lives for calm?" And in this moment, what I'm recognizing is the practice of swimming every day is a version of that, for me. Is, swimming in the ocean is so much calmer than the exercise that I used to do. And I really like that. I really value that.

Jen: So on to the part two, then. Knowing that, what are you going to do with it?

Pete: Well, I'm going to continue the practice, as I mentioned. And I'm going to continue to look for other areas of my life and work where I can optimize for calm. So, where else am I telling myself a story that I need to do things at a certain intensity or at a certain level, without challenging what it might be like to do it with a sense of calm instead? So, you know, I think you and I have talked about (maybe it's been offline) that there has been certainly a story in my head that working really hard and creating frantic energy, it's almost like I associate that with being productive. And so without the manic energy, without the constant to-do lists, sometimes I get caught up in this story of like, "Oh, I'm not doing anything. I'm not doing enough." And so the challenge I'm hearing and learning has been, what if creating that calm was actually the goal? It's not that it's unproductive. It's actually that it's creating the conditions for the life that you want to live.

Jen: Ooh, I love that so much.

Pete: It's a bit nerve-racking being on your talk show. I feel pressure.

Jen: Unsurprisingly, I headed over to the dictionary. Because I kind of had an aha moment when you were talking about this need to be productive. And I'm wondering...so, there are many different definitions of "productive". But one of them is: yielding results, benefits, or profits. Another one is: effective in bringing about. And I wonder if part of being productive is being able to produce a sense of calm, if that is as productive as like checking ten things off your to-do list. Being able to produce the conditions that you want to exist and thrive in, maybe that's the most productive thing of all.

Pete: I love that. Yeah. And I think the other thing that I hear in that, recognizing the one hundred swims, or the one hundred days of swimming has been reducing the friction and the barrier to entry to be as low as possible. So on those freezing cold days, I was probably only in the water for five to ten minutes. Like, the swim range was...the length of time was anywhere between, I would say, five minutes on the worst of the days, right up to thirty minutes of sort of freestyle. And so the productive element, it's sort of like reducing the barrier to entry to be, "It's only five minutes." Like, reduce the friction as much as possible. And what often ends up happening is you get through that first five minutes, and you're like, "I'm going to stick around for another five minutes. Or I might stay, I might do some freestyle. Like, I might actually swim." So there's something in that too, I think. Producing the level of calm in as easy a way as possible, or as frictionless a way as possible.

Jen: Ooh, yeah. That feels important. Was there ever a day when you had that little nagging voice saying, "It's too cold." Or, "I just don't want to." I mean, we know that you went and you did it anyway because you got to one hundred. But was there ever a day when on the other side of the swim you were like, "Yeah, I should have listened to the voice. I shouldn't have gone in."

Pete: Never. Not once. Not once did I regret it. It goes back to the notion that you'll never regret a swim. I actually think of the cold showers in a similar way. Not many people do. But you...in swimming in the ocean, I think you can't help but come out more alive, more alert, fresher. Yeah, you might be like, "Oh my god, I'm freezing." But you're so alert, I think, and probably mindful. Like, you can't check your phone while you're having a swim. You can't be thinking about your to-do lists, really. You're kind of so absorbed in the process of duck-diving under waves or swimming that you don't really think about anything else. So, no, there were no moments where I came out and was like, "Eh, I didn't need to do that."

Jen: Okay, Pete, what is the moral of the story? If I'm someone who wants to start a practice, what is something I have to know ahead of time that you wish you had known ahead of time?

Pete: Hmm. I think the moral of the story, the lesson to keep in mind is that it is inevitable that we will hit a dip. There will definitely be a day where, in my case, the rain was coming in sideways, it was four degrees, I didn't want to go. I got all the way to the beach, and still thought I wouldn't bother. And in that moment, it felt like it was just too hard. Which I think is very applicable to any habit that we're trying to create, the moment where we hit the dip. And what I see now in retrospect, what I see now on the macro having pushed through the other side is, those days, those moments, there was probably two or three of them. Which on the macro, is 2% or 3%. And so just recognizing it's going to happen, and it's going to be such a small percentage of the habit, the ultimate macro practice that you develop. And try to just keep that in mind, especially on those days when you're deep in the dip.

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.