The Right Questions with James Victore
The Right Questions is designed to help you get paid to do what you love and stay sane in the process.
The Right Questions with James Victore
Episode 42: Hey Weirdo, Charlie Engel
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What if the very traits society labels as problematic could become your greatest strengths?
Charlie Engel knows this transformation firsthand. A former addict turned ultra-marathoner who's conquered the Gobi Desert, Amazon jungle, Death Valley, and Sahara, Charlie's story demolishes conventional wisdom about addiction, recovery, and finding purpose.
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Hey weirdo. I have a special episode of the podcast for you today, in conjunction with announcing the release of the follow-up to my best-selling book, fect Perfection. We're announcing hey Weirdo, my new book, and it's out now and available now available exclusively through heyweirdoorg and to celebrate that, I am going to share a piece of the audio book, one of my favorite chapters from the audio book, and this chapter is about my friend, charlie Engel, an amazing, amazing guy. I hope you dig this as much as I do. Let's do this Chapter nine, charlie.
Speaker 1:I met Charlie Engel at a conference in Wales. It's called the Dew Lectures. We shared a tent together. We were two of the speakers at the conference and they put the speakers together and everybody slept in tents and I didn't get a chance to meet him much before he spoke at the conference. But he gets up and he's telling his story and he's talking about how he used to be an addict and now he's an ultra marathoner and I, being smarmy and a smart ass, I'm sitting in the audience and I'm thinking well, you just traded one addiction for another. And without missing a beat, he's up on stage and he says and if you think I've just traded one addiction for another. Fuck you. So I immediately fell in love with Charlie Engel.
Speaker 1:Charlie Engel is an addict who runs. He's an ultra marathon runner, an adventurer, whose 2016 memoir Running man documents his races across the Gobi Desert, through the Amazon jungle, across Death Valley and the Sahara. It also expresses how his love for running helped him overcome drug addiction, 16 months in federal prison, and find his passion for life. For Charlie, running has been a lifelong quest to find fulfillment and peace through rigorous physical and mental challenges. It's also given him the power to accept his weirdness and use it to change his life. These are Charlie's words.
Speaker 1:You want to know what I miss about addiction? I miss the fact that I might die anytime. That sounds like a crazy thing to miss, but one of the reasons people don't get sober and cleaned up is their worst fear is that they're going to be normal and boring. It's a terrible fear of the addict brain. The last thing that person actually wants to be is normal. But if they can find in sobriety the same death-defying edginess that they find and nurture and actually need in addiction, then they can go on to live a very fulfilling existence. Then they can go on to live a very fulfilling existence.
Speaker 1:The thing that's lost on many people is that the addictive nature of mine is a gift. If I choose it to be no-transcript, it's the best part of me. So how do I use this thing that's happened to me to make my life better. What sobriety did for me is guide me to the real passions in my life. My passion is travel. It's people, it's cultural experience, it's feeling connected. When I spent the first 30 years of my life, feeling disconnected.
Speaker 1:Obsession is a form of addiction. I've never known a single successful person who was not obsessed, at least for a period of time, with what they're trying to accomplish. To me, addiction is defined in some ways by what's the first thing that pops into your brain when your eyes open or maybe they're not even open yet when your consciousness becomes aware at the beginning of the day. And if, day after day, that thing is running or music or writing or creating or drawing, that's an obsession. Some people would say, if that's all you can think about, maybe that's not healthy. Fuck those people, because what they're telling us is hey, maybe you should get a little balance in your life. They have their own motivations for saying that. Maybe it's jealousy of the success or the passion that they're witnessing in another person and not feeling it in themselves. But balance is way overrated. But balance is way overrated. We view ourselves, of course, through the lens of other people's eyes. We see ourselves as we think they might see us, and if we're obsessed with something and we get up every day and we just can't stop doing it, then there's a certain amount of guilt or shame or some other bullshit that gets embedded in us, especially when we're younger. Obsession and addiction are born in all of us and it's either nurtured or destroyed along the way, enjoyed along the way.
Speaker 1:When I was young, I was the weird kid. I had hippie parents and hair halfway down my back. I looked weird, my ideas were weird and that's how I was viewed. So at a very early age I embraced the label of weird. I recognize that even today in my running and I say it out loud, freely there's a certain part that is based in a great desire to be different from other people. I ran dozens, if not hundreds, of marathons. Then I started running longer. I started running across countries and jungles. I wanted to do things that made me feel different. I like being weird. I hope that someone calls me weird every single day of my life. I want to continue to do that. Embracing that weirdness is the most powerful thing I've ever been able to do in my life. I don't consider weirdo to be a slight or slur. I consider it to be a compliment.
Speaker 1:Putting a voice to what people like me feel and what so many others, who maybe aren't as confident or have progressed as far as I have, is difficult. They're still wondering how the fuck do I stop being so weird? Instead of, how do I drink more of this in and embrace this in such a way that my weirdness fuels the passion that's going to take me through the rest of my life? Why would someone ever want to reach a point where they actually say to themselves okay, I'm comfortable, I completely got this figured out. For most normal people, their greatest desire is to plan out the rest of their lives. I couldn't think of anything worse than that.
Speaker 1:People talk about getting out of their comfort zone. My question is what the fuck are you doing in the comfort zone to begin with? How the hell did you end up here? Because I don't even know where that is. It's not a zip code that I could relate to. I don't get it. To me, comfort equals normal. Why would I want that?
Speaker 1:The point of discomfort is to remind us that not everything is easy and that if you can push past it, then you can learn something. Nobody ever learns from comfortable places. Not only is comfort overrated as a goal, it's incredibly destructive as a way of life. Destructive as a way of life whether it's in business, physically, personally or emotionally. If I'm not doing something that makes me uncomfortable, then it's as if I've given up trying to grow your life. Your greatest purpose cannot possibly be revealed if you sit on your ass on the sofa watching television every day.
Speaker 1:You have to take action on your weirdness if you hope to find a path that will lead you to where you're supposed to go. Whatever that weirdness is, there's no reason behind it until you figure out what you're going to do with it. For me, in my personal weirdness, I want to use it as a tool to teach people about the causes that I believe in Criminal justice, environmental issues and addiction recovery, environmental issues and addiction recovery. My way of trying to sway others is to use my weirdness in a way to help them move towards a position of sympathy, or at least compassion, for things they didn't realize they should be compassionate about, it just comes down to nothing happens for a reason until you figure out what the fuck the reason is going to be, it's up to us, it's not up to anyone else. We'll see you next time.