Episode · Mar 11, 2026 · 2 hr 29 min
The Other Side of Hard
with Ken Rideout
Ken Rideout is a husband, father, former finance professional, and runner who talks about addiction, sobriety, and racing.
“You just go in and do it scared.”
Summary
Mishka Shubaly opens by asking Ken Rideout how he feels as the memoir launches, then they revisit the unstable childhood that shaped his relationship with his mother and brothers. Ken describes the mentors who helped him face fear, the hockey ambitions that ended, and his move from prison work to New York finance. Success brought money and responsibility, but he felt unprepared and turned to opioids as his life accelerated.
Ken explains how repeated attempts to stop using led to Subutex dependence before Vivitrol helped him break the cycle. The conversation follows his adoption of his daughter from Ethiopia, his return to running, the distress of quitting Kona, and his response to a bike crash and a passenger’s medical emergency. He and Mishka also discuss Shelby’s cancer, family and friendship, race tactics, his wins in New York and Chicago, and why running can no longer define him.
Show notes
This week I sat down with my editor Mishka for a raw conversation about the release of my memoir, Everything You Want Is on the Other Side of Hard.
I open up about the childhood abuse and chaos that shaped me, the years I lost to addiction, and the long road back through sobriety, endurance sports, and rebuilding my life. We talk about opioid addiction, withdrawals, Subutex dependence, and the moment Vivitrol finally helped me break the cycle.
We also dive into the deeper parts of my story—the mentors who changed my life, the pressure of success in finance, marriage and fatherhood, adopting my daughter from Ethiopia, and Shelby’s battle with breast cancer.
This episode isn’t a victory lap. It’s an honest look at trauma, fear, discipline, and the work it takes to keep moving forward.
Transcript
Made from YouTube's automatic captions and lightly corrected, so a few words and names may be off. Click a time to play the video from there.
Mishka Shubaly
My name is Mishka Shubaly. I'm sitting here with a dude named Ken Rideout. Uh, I guess if people are hearing this, the book is out. It's out. How do you feel?
Ken Rideout
Excited, anxious, nervous, insecure, at the same time confident and all the things that go with a race.
Mishka Shubaly
It sounds like expecting a baby.
Ken, it's a hell of a book. And
Ken Rideout
Thank you, brother.
Mishka Shubaly
I mean, you should. I hope one of the feelings that you have is pride. You really like told an incredible story here.
Ken Rideout
No, thank you, brother. And for uh everyone listening, Mishka is my editor on the book and basically like held my hand through the writing of this and really without Mishka, I don't think the book would be what it is. Um there's a real art and skill to getting this story out of someone and it's not something that I could have done on a solo as a solo project. It just, you know, we all fall in love kind of with our own stories, good and bad, right?
You you you you tend to hold on to the negative things down, at least for me, I tend to make the the negatives bigger than they are and downplay the wins and the successes that I've had. And it's what kind of keeps me grounded. But it all stems from my own insecurities, right? I should be able to enjoy my wins more than I do and not beat myself up over the mistakes that I've made. But I do. And that's part of my DNA and probably what led to the book and kudos to you for being able to like capture the story and get it told in a way that when I meet even strangers who don't really know me, the first thing that everyone says is this book is really in your voice.
And I'm like, you don't even [ __ ] know me. What are you talking about? They're like, I've watched enough of your interviews and seen you on social media to know this book sounds like you're talking to me. And I was like, that's Mishka.
Mishka Shubaly
Well, Ken, you have a very specific voice and the it's it's great to hear that. I mean, that was one of the things that was like super important with, you know, from the first time I met you, I was like, this is the guy, you know, and uh and you know, I felt we had to be true to that.
Um the you know and all and like your story is incredibly touching and you're a great person and the and I cared about you like from the beginning of our friendship you know and dude it's so hard to read about the abuse and neglect that you endured as a child the um you know where are you with your mom your dad Barney you know those those people from your early childhood
Ken Rideout
Yeah unfortunately Barney died but I hope it comes across in the book. Like Barney was a sweet guy when he was like himself. He was like, you know, he was handicapped and had like a lot of insecurities obviously, which probably led to his heroin addiction, but he was a pretty nice guy, but like any junkie, when he was strung out and like on a on a rampage, like you didn't want to be near him. Not as a kid, cuz like I was an easy target. And he wasn't a bully, but he could be a dick when he was when he was in the wrong state of mind.
Um, so yeah, Barney's dead. My grandmother unfortunately passed away a year or two ago. very sad. And uh my dad's in Boston. He's got an awesome wife. My my wife is very close with them. Um my father's wife is a nur PhD nurse practitioner, like really accomplished uh intellectual, super sweet, just the kindest person in the world. And my mom lives in Boston, but I haven't I don't really speak to her. She's uh dealing with her own stuff. So I just keep everything at a healthy distance.
Mishka Shubaly
You know, people talk a lot about forgiveness. I think we fetishize forgiveness, but also, you know, the on a business end, if you forgive an account, you close that account.
That's exactly right.
Ken Rideout
And the other thing I'll say is my two brothers, my my youngest, my younger brother is uh still struggling with addiction, uh, wallowing around in Boston. I think my two brothers live together in my grandmother's old condo, which is crazy to think about cuz they fight like cats and dogs, like fist fight. Um, and my brother Keith, who's a year younger, it's funny when when before they published the description of the book on Amazon, I guess, um, the editors at Simon Schuster called me and said, "Your brother was definitely in jail, right?
Cuz we don't see a record of it." I'm like, "Yeah, but then I started questioning my own sanity." I'm like, "He was in jail, right?" So anyway, I text I sent him a message on um, Facebook. Sometimes he'll send me a DM on Facebook and our relationship is cordial. We just don't really talk now. But I sent him a message. Hey, what's your uh what's your number? And then I called him. No, I said, "What years were you ina the the prison?" And um and also, "What's your cell number?" Cuz I was going to call him.
He goes, "I was in Berka three times. Here's the dates." And uh my cell the first time was J11. And I was like, "No, you [ __ ] idiot. What's your cell phone number?" Dead serious.
Mishka Shubaly
The other cell.
Ken Rideout
So then I called him and he's like, "No, no. I was in this place two years. I went I went here most recently and then he's like in 22 I was I was like you were in jail in 22 and he's like yeah I said for what he's like oh it was [ __ ] some kidnapping charge had a fight with my girlfriend and I was like you know kidnapping can be you have a fight with someone and you like hold them in the house against their will and it's like you kidnapped them and
Uh but yeah so anyway that's where the that's where my two brothers are in Boston uh being roommates
Mishka Shubaly
Whenever I think about you and Keith I always try and think about that moment getting the dirt bike on Christmas morning and you guys just out in the field just tearing it up. Yeah.
You know, it's it's such a beautiful scene.
The um Did you have any other moments of connection like that with you and you know with you and Keith in your childhood of just you know cuz I I feel like you guys are like oil and water from the beginning but you are blood. Yeah. You know.
Ken Rideout
No, we we had we had nice moments here and there. It really like went to [ __ ] when he started like using heroin in in in high school and like really like really like doing [ __ ] that was off-putting to me cuz I was like, you know, as a young guy in that like very intimidating aggressive environment, I'm doing everything I can to stay under the radar or if I'm on the radar, I want it to be for something positive, not my brother getting in a fist fight with the effing principal of the high school, you know what I mean?
Or like, you know, cursing at girl like just it was just a a chaos personified. He was just a ball of chaos and he it I don't even think he meant it. He just couldn't control his emotions. So if the teachers told him to do something, he would just like fly off the handle. Not like a tough guy, like an irrational person. But when I was talking to him about asking him about the dates of the prison, I was like I said, "No, Terry, who is my mother?" I said, "Terry catches a lot of shrapnel in the book." He's like, "What about me?
Did I get murdered?" I go, "Nah, not really. You were kind of a sympathetic character. I think in the long run it was like, you know, more sad than anything. And then I started getting choked up talking to him and then I said, "You know who really gets dragged is that piece of [ __ ] Pandalfo." And he's like, I go, I can't I would love to bump into that guy and beat the [ __ ] out of him. And he goes, you don't have to worry about it.
Number one, I already gave him a beating and number two, he's dead.
Mishka Shubaly
Okay, so you guys are copying the same plot.
Ken Rideout
Yes. He said, I saw him coming out of a liquor store and I beat the [ __ ] out of him and he was like begging for mercy and I was like, good. He was a bully.
Mishka Shubaly
I mean, to look at your life and Keith's life, you're the exception, right? It's not that he disappointed people or let people down. He did the best that he could with the tools that he had at that time. What's remarkable is that you didn't wind up having, you know, just living in the street or, you know, or being dead by now. You guys just had such a like, you know, such a tough lot. Do you ever feel, you know, when you started to become a parent, um, were you paranoid that you were going to start scar your kids the same way that you and Keith had been scarred?
Ken Rideout
No. No, I knew I wasn't. I knew I was never going to do that. But yeah, I mean, I had concerns about everything, but I look at it like the same way I think about racing and everything else. Like when I thought about having children, of course, I wanted to have the life I have now. This is I have everything that I've ever wanted. I like I'm lucky. Like unlike so many really wealthy people, I have enough. Like I have everything that I ever dreamed of.
Would I like more money? Of course I would. But do I need it? No. I I mean it would be nice. I'd ra like Yeah. I'd love to fly private to go on vacation. We don't do that, but I would love it. But I approached my life the way I do like racing is the perfect analogy because I didn't start running to win a marathon. I was it would it was so foreign to me. I would have thought if I can even get in the top three in my age group at a small local race, I was super happy.
And everything in my life has been like that. It's like I didn't go start working in finance thinking that I would run business development at a big institution at a big uh private equity style firm and then I would run my own placement agency and be my own entity. I never but I approached everything one step at a time. What's the next progressive step? It's like when I did triathlon, I was like, "What's the best triathlon?" The Iron Man in Hawaii. Never even I didn't know anything about it.
I was like, "Okay, well, if that's the best triathlon, I'm going to do that one." And maybe this all stems from my childhood and from insecurity and trying to like somehow make my dad proud, which isn't something that I would ever consciously think to do. But I would be naive if I didn't think that that had to plant a seed somewhere because I never was satisfied with being mediocre at running at finance at and especially at parenting. So when you look at the finished product, it's very easy to gloss over the process that it's taken to get to this point and say, "You've done this.
You did it all." I when I was in the throws of my addiction as an average finance guy in my mid to late 30s, I was like, I've [ __ ] my whole life up. I'm a loser. And that's what I hope that people listening or reading the book take away from this is whatever you think is true. If you think you're too old, then yeah, you are. [ __ ] give up. But if you don't think you're too old, I worked with a guy during not with him, but we my firm that I worked at at the Palisades Group, worked with a a placement agent prior to me getting there who was like 70 years old.
And at 70 years old, he had introduced them to hundreds of millions of dollars. And at in his 70s, he went on a run of making like 5 to 10 million a year. All that to say, like as long as you're as long as you're still in the fight with the right attitude, it might sound corny or cliche to say it's not over until you win. But if you really believe that, what do you care about anyone else's opinion? Your opinion of you is the only one that matters.
And when I look at my own life, I just think until I'm dead, I might as well just keep throwing punches because if one lands and you score a big knockout, you're like, "Holy [ __ ] I did that." Like the book. If you told me 10 years ago, I'm going to write a book and people are going to actually buy it and read it and care about it, I would have said, "You're [ __ ] crazy." I I would I would pay any amount to have that place in the world.
And then when it happens, one thing I'm guilty of is not taking a minute to appreciate it. All I can think is like, is it a bestseller? Is it number one on the New York Times bestsellers list? And then I'm like, that's becomes my new focus. And again, be careful what you wish for because people be like, I want to have what you have. Do you? It can be a blessing and a curse. Like I heard Elon Musk say recently like people look at him and all his money and they're like I want to be Elon Musk and he's like you don't want to be me.
And and to a certain extent I wouldn't say you don't want to be no one should want to be anyone else but I would say this mentality and these accomplishment don't come without some baggage and the mindset that it took me to get there. I wish I could have all the answers and say, "Nope, this is how I did it and I'm the happiest person in the world and on Sunday I go to church and everything is good and I'm like rainbows and butterflies." But it's not.
It's like, you know, like anyone, I'm going through ups and downs and when it's good, it's good. And when it's bad, it's not good.
Mishka Shubaly
Yep.
Ken Rideout
Let's do this.
Mishka Shubaly
So there there's Jeff the camp counselor, Tony, your trainer. Um Norman Kennedy, Brendan Dailyaly, like
Ken Rideout
Spooky Bailey.
Mishka Shubaly
You have all these angels in your life and so many of them are men. Yeah.
And they like came through for you in ways that your family didn't. And it, you know, reading this, it's been particularly in chapter 2, I I felt that like the love, support, you um acceptance a child would get from their family, you got in competition.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
Ken Rideout
Yeah. I mean, let's talk specifically first about Brendan Dailyaly, who's one of my like dearest friends. I love him like a brother. I mean, he that guy, the fact that he was willing to like go into a cell and have a [ __ ] steel cage match with an inmate in mystead was like moving to me. But it also reminded me, you're a man. Get in there and behave like a man. There's times in your life where you can be scared. Lots of times. And to try to deny being scared is is a fool's errand.
What you really have to do is recognize, okay, I'm scared, but he's scared, too. They're everyone's scared doing things that are challenging. That doesn't mean you don't do them. You just go in and do it scared. And if you can learn how to do things in your life while you're scared, you'll be shocked at the results. I'm scared every time I sign up for anything. If I do the [ __ ] turkey trot in my local town, I'm nervous because I know the local dads want to beat me and one of them might be a ringer and I'm like, I know I'm not stupid.
I know that I have a target on my back. So I'm like whether it's the Chicago Marathon and the World Championships or the turkey trot, the feeling that I have is the same exact feeling. It's kind of like if if fear or I I I use usually describe it as trauma. If trauma is a room, the most traumatic thing that ever happened to you filled the room. Whether you were sexually assaulted or bullied by a classmate, your your trauma response system knows that the room for trauma is filled.
And if you don't figure out a way to cope with that, it's going to haunt you for a long time. And that's kind of how I think about fear is like whether my son is in fear of getting hit by a fastball in little league or in fear of getting kidnapped on a subway or pick a topic. Fear is fear. So you have to get comfortable dealing with the fear. And that's if anything one thing that I have um done really well and having the guys that you mentioned um from this chapter in my life definitely they all taught me different lessons about fear.
And uh it's funny because when Brendan and I first started working together, I'm playing football at Framingham State and he's playing hockey at like Fitchburg State. So another like state school and they're both like bluecollar schools, right? Okay. So I'm at Framingham and we're having a party and it's like at this dumpy house like a typical like state school college party kegs everything like it's you know disgusting the floor is filthy but it's like everyone's having fun and Brendan who we called Spooky he was a musician he had a band called the Spooky Daily Pride really artistic kid but he comes there with some of his buddies and I'm like oh Spook what's up and we're talking this was my worst nightmare all the time when I had friends that would come to school and I friends at school and my friends from elsewhere, my friends from school would fight
And I'd be like, "Dude, but ultimately like my friends from school, well, friends from school. My friends from home and like Spooky were like my people like I'm like, "Oh my god, I'm going to be alienated from school cuz I'll kill someone to help my friends." And Brendan gets in a fight with a kid on the football team who's really tough and they're like kind of squirted off and Brendan headbutts him and like breaks his nose and drops him and like it was chaos. But he got in a fight a week or two later at his own school and a kid at Fitchburg State bit the tip of his nose completely off.
So literally had to Oh dude, I'm talking gone. He was traumatized. He had to have reconstructive surgery. I mean it was not good. He was a savage though. He
Mishka Shubaly
That gives us like that much more context about what your life was like as a kid.
Ken Rideout
Perfectly normal all those stories to like for those things to happen. And I'm not saying that to say sound like a tough guy. I'm not a tough guy. I'm just a guy who was like exposed to a lot of [ __ ] Those were the people that were my peers.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. Having gotten stomped in the first 45 minutes of a shift. I worked as a night manager. Your story about getting your nose broken like at in the the opening of a shift at the prison. Um I man I felt for you. What's it like to work the rest of your shift with a broken nose?
Ken Rideout
Oh no, no, I didn't have to stay the whole shift. I was a bloody mess. I went to the infirmary and then went home. But that had that had my nose had been broken like at this point three or four times. I was another time I was in Boston with all of my Boston friends. We were at a Harvard bar and we would go to Harvard Square and like end up getting in fights with like smart kids all the time. And uh there was a huge melee and one of my friends standing in front of me, Steve Marshall, we called him Elfie, tall, skinny kid.
And I'm like, "Elfly." And I grabbed his shoulder and he turned right around and cold me right in the nose. Boom. Rolled my nose. Two huge black eyes instantly. And I was like, "Damn you." And then we uh got out of there. But yeah, there was that was my uh cocaine era like late in college, right when I got out of college was like a lot of time with my friends in in bars in downtown Boston.
Mishka Shubaly
See, you know, coke was never my favorite drug and it's been a long time since I've done it.
The but when I read honk some stripes with donkey dust, I'm like, dude, I missed my [ __ ] window. I want to honk some stripes of donkey dust. Like that's the thing about being a stupid kid is that like if it doesn't kill you, it makes for great stories.
Ken Rideout
Yeah. No, that's that's true. I mean, listen, I would I could have done without some of the emotional damage that came with abusing drugs, but um I would be lying if I didn't say some of those times in my like early 20s were like fun and chaotic and just like very um living life in the fast lane, I guess, and very dangerously,
Mishka Shubaly
You know. And right on the heels of that like the you know guys this is my last night doing coke like living that night over and over again and again like as as a sober addict and alcoholic I was like oh man I know that so well.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
Just that you know that feeling where you're like stuck in a loop.
Ken Rideout
Yeah. Well the funny thing is my friends would like all like laugh about it every time because anytime the sun would start to come up I would l I would just look at them like look at you [ __ ] losers. I can't believe you did this to me again. kind of ingest and they'd all stop laughing and be like, you know, you knew this was coming. And I was like, I no damn you.
Mishka Shubaly
All right, let's move on to chapter three. Um, perks of the job.
The, you know, at this point in your in your life, in your career, the I feel like you're really grappling with the death of a dream of greatness. you know that you had so much pinned on a career in the NHL and then when when that evaporated it really seemed like you're just flailing around trying to figure out who you are, where you fit in.
Ken Rideout
I felt like totally unprepared for life. I felt like without I didn't have any like real mentor role model like and again I say that no I I hope it doesn't come across like victim mentality.
I don't feel like a victim. I'm just it's just a fact. I didn't have like my dad was like, you know, he did the best he could, but he was not like, "Hey, prepare like what are you going to do for work?" It was kind of like, "Yeah, you'll figure it out." And I was like left to my own devices, which is fine. I It is what it is. I just didn't feel like I had adult skills at that point. And um I was ruerless. And prior to that feeling of kind of lost at sea, I was, you know, very confident and like optimistic about my future.
And when the reality of life kind of sunk in, it kind of knocked me off kilter for a while and um took me a little while to figure things out. Just like everything I just like being a dad. I wasn't really good at the beginning, but I'm getting better.
Mishka Shubaly
My parents were a big fan of figure it out too. And and it's like we proved them right by doing it, but also like you know I'm I'm 49. I still want somebody to come in and be like first you do this and then you to lead the way.
Ken Rideout
You know,
Mishka Shubaly
We all do, you know, but I think that so many times in this chapter, we see and I mean throughout your life, we see you turning obstacles into opportunities.
Ken Rideout
Yeah. I always looking back, it's easy to see it that way, but when those obstacles popped up, I was like, I'm dead. Like the the the dream is over. Like I'm going to be back home working in the prison full-time. Like I was so close to having to like pull the rip cord so many times. Not that I ever considered doing it, but I was like, well, I can't be homeless. Like, what am I going to do?
Mishka Shubaly
Also, was there a rip cord? I feel like you had no safety now.
Ken Rideout
I could always go live with my grandmother.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
But no, like that those first few years in New York were were precarious the first year really because I very quickly started making money. But even when I took the pharmaceutical job, when I moved to New York, like I knew that my take-home pay wouldn't cover all the bills, you I knew I was operating at a deficit right from the jump, which is crazy to think about now. Like, I don't know what I was thinking, but I just had blind confidence that I'd figure it out.
Mishka Shubaly
The lime green suit.
I I I'm I'm heartbroken that we couldn't find a picture to uh to put in the book of you rocking your uh your lime green suit.
Ken Rideout
I'm probably making it more seem more lime than it was. It was a green suit and it definitely had like a lime tint. It was like something you might you might see in like a magazine, an editorial like photo shoot, not necessarily like in a in a boardroom. But I just I didn't know what I didn't know. I thought it was like the coolest thing. I had a floral tie that might have been appropriate for like a Sunday afternoon wedding. I looked [ __ ] crazy.
I had my Rockport wing tip walking shoes with the rubber sole. I mean, I look like a maniac. And I had a brown belt.
Mishka Shubaly
In my head, you just look like uh Jim Carrey in the mask.
Ken Rideout
Yeah, kind of. I definitely looked crazy.
Mishka Shubaly
Talk about the vertical club. I feel like there's more stories there that we didn't cover in the book.
Ken Rideout
Do you remember in like um the mid '9s, late '9s in New York City, there was a girl called Robin Bird.
Mishka Shubaly
Yes.
Ken Rideout
She had like a show NPR and it was kind of like a strip show. I don't know if she got topless on it, but I think I feel like she did. Anyway, she was like a a a nightlife character in in New York City and like very well known. So, she worked out there. She was an older woman with like big boobs and I I'm pretty sure she got topless on the show, but it if she didn't, there were other people topless and it was on like public access TV in in New York.
Mishka Shubaly
No, I I I mean I think anybody in New York at that time knows Robin Bird reme remembers that show.
Ken Rideout
So she worked out there and it was literally like holdovers from the 80s. So there were all neon signs. I mean, it was a nice gym, but it was like six stories and like it had a lot of stuff going on there. But the crowd in there was like lots of string tank tops on the guys, like male model type dudes, like just really eclectic, but then also like very normal like professional people in there. And it was big. It was busy. It was just, you know, it was like again like anything else.
I was like, "What's the best gym here in this area?" And they were like, "The vertical club's the And I was like, "All right, I can't afford it, but I'm going."
Mishka Shubaly
I mean, your book reads like a movie, but I feel like it would be worth it just for the scenes at the Vertical Club.
Ken Rideout
Oh my god, there's just there's some great stories that I can't share with people here because my wife will kill me.
Mishka Shubaly
At this point in your life, there's this weird thing that's happening where you're continually investing in yourself and betting on yourself and also hating yourself and doubting yourself and just, you know, feeling like such a misfit. How does that all function together? I mean, don't those things negate each other?
Ken Rideout
The hating part didn't start until I like fell into the addiction which came in uh around 2000. Um, so from I don't know, I think I moved to New York in ' 96. So, like for the first 3 years or so in New York, I wasn't really strung out on drugs. I was I was actually doing pretty good cuz when I moved to New York initially, I stopped drinking because I knew if I didn't drink, I wouldn't do Coke. And I now had a job. Like, I couldn't not get up and go somewhere in the morning.
And I was like, Coke didn't mix well with me. If I stayed up all night doing Coke, I would hide under my bed for a week. Yeah.
Like, I would be so depressed. I'd be like, I can't look at anyone. I'm gross. I put a lot of pressure on myself. And um I worked myself into a really good position and then I sabotaged myself by um dabbling in opioids and liking them too much. But again to your earlier point, it's like every time I was hit with like a very challenging obstacle. In hindsight, it had become it ended up becoming like the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. But when it's happening, it was not fun.
And I didn't look at it as a cha as like an opportunity at the time. I was like, I'm [ __ ] Like I have to figure this out. And it was a survi like survival moves and at the same time the things that I thought were great and were everything that I wanted like making money turned out to be like genuinely a non-event. Yeah, sure it was fun to blow a lot of money. It was great. But I mean looking back now I'm like I made so much money and wasted it.
I'm an idiot. Uh the the the discomfort or the fraud complex, imposttor syndrome, the fear that having money and losing it created in me led in part to my addiction. So, I know it sounds crazy, but the money wasn't the answer. The money created more money, more problems. It created problems. But don't get me wrong, I wouldn't I I want to make money. I wanted to make money. I don't regret making money, but I wasn't prepared to deal with it. I was a poor kid who was handed too much money and didn't know what the f he was doing.
And uh it's my own fault. Again, not a victim. I I [ __ ] [ __ ] the whole thing up, but made for a good story.
Mishka Shubaly
I know. That's the important thing. So, I I still remember my first drunk and I remember this like moment of clarity that I was like, "This is who I am. This is what I'll be like. I this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to do this every day. This, you know, this is like my new identity."
Um, tell me about taking Percocet for that first time. And, you know,
Ken Rideout
No, I definitely didn't think that I this is my identity and I'm going to do this all the time. Like, there was definitely a part of me that always knew like taking drugs isn't the answer. Like, what the hell are you doing? But they made me feel so good and I didn't understand the dangers of addiction. So in a lot of ways I was like blindly naive and happy to um continue to like lie to myself which is the which is what you do and it's what I did for even when I was in the throws of addiction trying to get off the drugs.
I kept telling myself like next week that's it. I had one uh drug dealer uh up in Washington Heights where I would buy like 20, 30 perk sets every day, every other day, and they would be like, it was an older woman. She'd be like, "Why don't you just buy like a few hundred?" I'm like, "No, no, no." Cuz every time I buy them, I'm like, "This is it. This is the last time." And I'd be there like four times in a week. It it was in it was insanity.
I would like call her from everywhere in the city like, "Hey, take the subway down here." And you know, to her, I was probably paying like three times more than anyone in Washington Heights would pay. So, she'd come anyway. She couldn't really speak English, so she was It was crazy. She would have been a great character in the book, but I wouldn't uh I want to protect her identity.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah, the We have an abundance of uh great characters in this book. Let's move on to chapter four, Fully Loaded. Dude, reading your description of the first time being dopick again, it just like struck a cord of terror in me because I've been through that and it's it's just horrible. It's horrifying. Do you feel like you have lasting trauma from not just from the years of addiction, but the withdrawal? It's so soul crushing.
Ken Rideout
Yeah. Um, no, I look at it now like, you know, if someone asked me, "What's your proudest achievement?" It's definitely getting sober. It's kind of like look at what I did. Like, okay, I made all these mistakes. I can't change that. But like um I look at that and I'm like I'm proud of that I was able to get off those things and and like power through this because so many people don't and they end up either addicted for life or dead. And like so many of my friends that are characters in the book like two of my closest like five friends are dead from overdoses.
Like well when fentanyl came around it kind of like changed the rules for everyone. But um
Yeah withdrawals I wouldn't wish on anyone. They're not for this is not for if you're a [ __ ] don't mess with drugs because if you can't hand like you don't know what you're signing up for when you sign up for withdraw like when you sign up for that kind of addiction the withdrawals you're going through one way or another even medically assisted like you're going to have to walk through hell and if you're not [ __ ] comfortable with fire don't play with drugs. It's horrible.
Mishka Shubaly
I think, you know, us being kids and seeing the anti-drug messaging and stuff like that, it it's like, oh no, I would never be some like, you know, pasty, sweaty junkie, but the one of the things that's so irresistible about drugs is at first they're your medicine. They're fixing a problem.
Ken Rideout
You should think of it as medicine when you're an addict. That's why they say like, "Oh, I got to get well. I got to get a fix." Like it makes sense cuz you're sick and if you can get drugs you'll be well. I mean it's like I think of that show Get to the Greek when uh what's his name? Russell Brandt is yelling at uh is it Jonah Hill and he's like you're going to get me that heroin. You're going to help me get well. I'm like oh I know that feeling.
I never did heroin but of knowing like dude I will like if I have to rob this pharmacy I'm getting those drugs.
Yeah. Not that I've ever done any I've never like committed any crimes other than buying illicit drugs, but I've never robbed anyone,
Mishka Shubaly
You know. And at this time when you're in London, there's this weird thing happening of like,
You know, one of the things that's so deadly about speedballs is that there an upper and a downer in there and your life is full of uppers and downers where you're like killing it professionally and then just like just going off the rails.
Ken Rideout
Yeah. Speedball, if you don't know, is coke and heroin. Um yeah. Um, and I'm sure that I did coke and percoets many times, but um, and once I found opioids, I very rarely did coke. But yeah, my life was going a million miles an hour. I would be strung out on pills all the time. But my answer for anything was just take some more pills.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
Feeling terrible. Let me just take some more pills. And the thing that sucks about them is, and this is like again I hope that people who are uh considering taking drugs or involved with drugs hear this and recognize that this is not this was not fun. But when you artificially like spike your dopamine and all these pleasure centers in your brain artificially like on demand, that's not how your brain is supposed to function. You're not supposed to just like get to push a button and feel euphoria.
You typically have to do something to create that, meaning accomplish something, be sitting on a beach in like, you know, a vacation spot to get that, "Oh, this is what I would waiting for." When you have destroyed your pleasure center receptors with artificial spikes for years, when you are sober and you go on that beach and you're like on that vacation, you're walking on the beach with your wife or partner or whatever and you feel that like euphoria of like this is awesome. You still kind of know that that's what you're supposed to be feeling, but I would be lying if I didn't say the chemical sensation that you feel in your brain is never the same.
And it's taken I don't want to say never to the people who are considering getting sober, but you're doing long-term damage that is going to be very difficult to undo.
Mishka Shubaly
When I got sober, a lot of people were like, "Oh, you know, um you were addicted to alcohol and now you're addicted to running." And I I always tell them it's the opposite just because of the payment structure. Like when you're if you go out and hammer 10 miles the hopefully you feel good, you know, you feel good and then you feel good afterwards. And it's the opposite with drugs and alcohol where you're like financing it.
So you can punt it to the next day, maybe the next week, the next month, the next year, but eventually that [ __ ] comes due
Ken Rideout
Of course
Mishka Shubaly
With all the fees, you know?
Ken Rideout
Yeah. And I would say the same thing for myself. When people say I'm addicted to running, I'd say, yeah, unfortunately or fortunately, however you want to describe it. Yes, there's definitely an element of that. Like I said earlier, I don't have all the answers. Don't wish to be like me. Um, however, one of my addictions, drugs, had me contemplating suicide and the other addiction has me sitting here talking to you about the book that we just wrote together. So,
Mishka Shubaly
Pick your poison.
Ken Rideout
Exactly. I'm doing, like I said, this is a survival story. I'm like surviving one event to the next and trying to enjoy the journey.
Yeah. As a car guy, I would be remiss in not mentioning the Toyota Tursel with the bologn skin tires. Oh my god, what a piece of crap. I think it was my stepfather's car that he like drove into the ground commuting to some like dead end job for years. And uh I was on a date one time driving with a girl on uh on Route 93 heading in from Stonem into downtown Boston going to like the north end for dinner with this girl and the the shifter when you put it into fifth gear like up into the right.
If I just left it there like normal it would occasionally pop out of gear and all the gears in the gearbox would start grinding like crazy loud like it sound like the engine was going to fall out on the highway. So I had a little rubber bungee cord that I would hook like to the dashboard, wrap it around the shifter once it was in fifth gear and then clip it to the other side. So it was like the it was bungeeed into gear. So obviously if there was an emergency, I'd step on the clutch and the brake and you know I could deal with the shifter in a minute.
But every time I had to shift in and out of fifth gear, I had to unbunge it. But when the girl got in, I'm like, I got to get rid of this [ __ ] bungee code. I can't have a bungee code on the I mean the car's already a piece of [ __ ] And uh sure enough, we get going and I forget driving on the day. The girl like almost jumped out of the seat. It was I was mortified.
Mishka Shubaly
This also s like if you ever come to Phoenix, this also sounds suspiciously like the car I would pick you up from the airport in.
Mishka Shubaly
And you know, then there's that call with your mom where she hits you up for money after having, you know, turned you down for a ride. And
And dude, like reading those passages that the pain is still like I'm like, "What the [ __ ] mom? How could you do this to me?
Ken Rideout
I know some people are going to read that stuff about her not coming to get me at school when she could have and think like what a minor thing and it was. But when it was like the straw that broke the camel's back, there was a lot of [ __ ] like that. Like my dad, they had an agreement to pay my mom and dad had an agreement to pay half each. We're not talking a lot of money. It might have been $6,000 a year to go to school here.
Like so they were each paying half. And I remember after like the first semester or the first year, my mother like crying and telling me she couldn't afford to pay. And I just kind of remember feeling like I'm shocked that you made one payment. Like I don't care. Yeah.
Like pound sand. And I knew I would have to eventually take on the loans. So I took on a bunch of loans, but it's crazy because I paid when I when things started going well in in New York. I paid off the loans so fast. I never really I don't really even remember. I knew I had them, but I don't, you know, it's like such a distant memory. And it was like again like like racing like life. It was like I was in survival mode then in school.
I was just like what's the next challenge? just like ticking things off the box like an inmate crossing days off and I just get to the next day, get to the next event. And um but yeah, my mother unfortunately catches a lot of [ __ ] in the book. And I feel I I I would be lying if I didn't say I didn't feel guilty cuz I know writing about those things people might think like, "Oh, what an [ __ ] He didn't have to tell that story." And you're right, I didn't.
But this is my story and this is what these are the things that had a massive influence on me. And like I said earlier about trauma is like the things that are are traumatic to me might not be traumatic to you. I'm not this isn't a contest. This is my life and I'm recounting impactful moments in my life. And the reason that I felt necessary to tell that story is because it really summarized my relationship with my mother is like this is what I was dealing with.
And if you met her right now and she was here, you'd be like, "Oh, she's really nice. I don't understand this." this and I'd be like, it's easy to be nice to people when they don't need anything from you. And it's easy to be nice to someone when they're in the position of power and authority financially, socially, and otherwise. It's not so easy when like you're responsible for someone and it's inconvenient for you to be like generous with someone. And um you know listen dude there for the listeners there was so much [ __ ] in this book that I took out to spare other people's feelings that would have been relevant to the story but I would ask Mishka like is this going to add to the story enough to justify ruining this person's day?
I mean, you can te testify like I spared a lot of people a lot of pain by leaving this out and I would have been totally justified to be like,
"F you. Tell me that didn't happen." Like that happened. But when I really think about it, I'm like, "Does my book get better? Is my story better because I tell you about someone did something terrible to me?" like not not not terrible to me in an abusive way, but like just heartless or basically behaved badly, but didn't necessarily contribute to my story, but it makes them look terrible. So, anywhere that I could, I spared people's feelings.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
So, as you're reading this and you think I was being too harsh, trust me, this is the [ __ ] toned down version.
Mishka Shubaly
Uh, let's move on to number five, Joy Killers. It sounds like at the end of um you know your sort of using life in London there that it was really the drugs that were doing the job for you or enabling you to be able to do the job.
Ken Rideout
Yeah. When I look back at London it was all like a drug induced haze. I mean I remember the things that happened but it's just so unfortunate that I was like under the influence and not really myself cuz as much as it sounds chaotic and aggressive and all the things that go with it. There were some awesome people there. I love the Brits. I really do. I loved living there. I had some awesome friends, but I was a horrible version of myself. I was way way overly aggressive out of defensiveness.
And I I mean, I was managing a desk of other men and women. And I was not qualified to be the manager of anything. I could barely manage my own life. And now I'm like I've got people with families working like not not Yes, I was the boss. I always felt uncomfortable being like, "Yeah, I'm the boss." I was like, "We work together. Do your [ __ ] job. and I don't ever have to deal like I don't have to talk to you like like a a a good leader just enables people to do their job and hopefully you never have to talk to them and if you do you just realize this person isn't qualified to work with me because I don't want to micromanage people you know so it's not a good fit but when I went there the other challenging part was there was no trading desk for for commodities in London so they were like not only go there find new
Customers and set up a desk and hire like 30 or 40 people. I don't know a single customer. I don't know any of the people that work in the industry. I I was so illprepared and I knew it and the drugs made it a little bit more tolerable. But I hired probably 40 people in a year. So imagine how many interviews that is.
And the funny thing is people would come in.
I remember one time this guy is sitting there, young kid, and he's just profusely sweating and coughing and scared and I was like, "Dude, you know we're not going to fight, right? what the f are you so nervous about? And he's like, I just get nervous about this stuff. And I'm like, what do you want to talk about? Let's not even talk about finance. And he's like, I don't know. I said, pick a [ __ ] topic. Now I'm losing my patience. I'm like, tell me about the weather.
I I just want to talk to you about anything. But again, that's an example of like I just wasn't good at this job.
Mishka Shubaly
But you had the clothes, you had the money, you had the car.
Ken Rideout
I thought I looked cool. I probably looked crazy, but I thought I looked cool.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. As similar as we are, there are a lot of differences in our, you know, in our our background stories and, you know, reading about that Porsche, I'm like, man, that should have been my Porsche. But the, you know, it didn't seem to bring you any kind of lasting happiness,
Ken Rideout
Dude. That when I think about the Porsche in 200, I think it was 2001. I bought a 2002 Porsche right out of the factory and stood drove it back to London. When I think about that car, the only overriding feeling that I remember is like extreme um paranoia about being responsible for such an expensive car. Like it sucked all the joy out of it. All I could think was like, "Oh my god, where am I going to park this thing?" And it was like, "Be careful what you wish for
Cuz I mean it was such a mistake." And I wish that I could even say I had so much fun ripping around in and I was like for the amount of fun that I have versus the amount of money that I lost doing that deal because then I sold it for like 20 grand less when I had to move out of uh London. It was just disaster.
Mishka Shubaly
Well, whenever you're ready for it, I have a 99 Suburban with with your name on it.
Let's talk about Shelby's Granny Flats.
Ken Rideout
Oh my god. It's like she's a fashion misfit. I mean, my wife is the most practical uh dresser in the world. She She looks I mean, thank God she looks beautiful. She's got a great physique. I mean, luckily for her, it doesn't she's got good genetics cuz like
Mishka Shubaly
You're doing such a disservice.
She's such a great person in your life.
Ken Rideout
No, she work she works out, but not like I work out. But I'm always like, I can't believe how good a shape you're in for how little you work out. But she had these outfits and uh I mean I tell this I think I tell the story in there where I was when I first started dating her. She was saying if I had if I got a a lot of money keep like she grew up like her parents I mean they were wealthy but they weren't ostentatious.
All the kids went to private school. She went to Vandy. The sister went to Georgetown. One went to Richmond. One went to Michigan. They all went to grad school. Dad paid for everything cash like. So they were, you know, they had a house in Shelter Island, but they weren't flashy and they were certainly not like paying, they didn't have trust funds and they certainly weren't paying the kids rent. So Shelby was living as an actress in New York City and not making a lot of money and she's very frugal and good with her money, but fashion just she just wasn't like if I there were there were times where I bought her like Jimmy Chu and Manolo Blanik shoes and she's like, "Can I return these and keep the money?" Cuz like and I was like, "Yeah, but what are you going to do about those like granny flats that you're wearing?
Like I don't want I don't want to go out to dinner while you're wearing those. And she would laugh and we'd find a compromise. But I'm teasing her. But she's uh she's very elegant and she knows what's what. But I do tease her if we're going out to dinner. I'll be like she'd be like, "What should I wear?" I said, "Put something on and let me see." And sometimes she'll walk out and I'll be like, "Dude, did you even look? What are you doing with that crazy outfit on?
Get in there." Uh, no, we we have fun with that because as much as I clown about the clothes like with the lime green suit and then going to London and spending tons of money on fancy clothes, like I will like from an emotional intelligence standpoint, I always once I figured out what to do, I knew what to do. If you told me we're going to a black tie event, I would know exactly what tuxedo to wear. And as an example, one of my really good friends is a guy called Thom Browne, who's like a super famous designer.
He's like the equivalent like me. He's won the CFDA, the fashion institute of the year, designer of the year twice. And I mean, the first year he won the competitors were Ralph Lauren and uh George Almani and I think he sold his brand for like 78 $800 million. He's huge. His suits thousands thousand. LeBron James wears his suit. He dressed Michelle Obama for the inauguration one year.
Mishka Shubaly
Wow.
Ken Rideout
So when he first started getting cracking, he was dating my buddy's cousin, this guy Charlie Fagan, who was a big exec at Polo, who's just they were awesome guy. I loved these guys. They in like two early 2000s before I moved to London, I met them. My buddy Pat Figan came down to New York. I was like, "Hey, let's go out with my cousin Charlie and his part his boyfriend Thom Browne." But Tom was like folding sweaters at Club Monaco. He literally worked at a at a retail store.
But there was something about Tom where I'm like, "Dude, this guy is uber creative." And went to Notre Dame, was a swimmer, very reserved. And uh next thing you know, so he's designing clothes like he's making shirts and and and uh overcoats and like really high-end stuff. So I was buying stuff from him cuz I was making money and I was supporting my friends. So he'd make me custom shirts. I bought this um Chesterfield coat, which is like a suit you'd wear over a jacket you'd wear over a suit.
It's like really polished and finished like like a fancy over coat, but not super long or heavy, like slick. And he had like a velvet collar. It was like great, dude. It was so sharp. And recently someone reached out and was like, "Oh, would you be willing to donate the code to like the Fashion Met museum or something?" Cuz it was a handmade thing. I was like, "I wouldn't give this jacket up for $100,000. It might have cost 5,000 at the time. It was handmade. It was gorgeous."
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
And that's the kind of thing like I probably wear it like once every other year. My wife's like, "Why don't you wear that nice Thom Browne coat?" I'm like, "It's too nice. I don't want to ruin it." Which is kind of counterproductive. But when Tom's when they started carrying Tom suits in Burgdolf Goodman when his [ __ ] started really blowing up, I wore his suit in a big photo spread for Esquire magazine with me, Tom, Mark Forester who directed Monsters Ball and Finding Neverland and this um art gallery owner uh from New York and we did a photo shoot at the old Four Seasons restaurant that was like the big media power place where like you know Ralph Lauren would be having uh lunch with like Anna Wintor, like it was super super fancy.
Had a a fountain in the middle of the restaurant. It was like a pool fountain. So, as much as I can joke and laugh about fashion, like when it was time to like turn up and look like I knew what I was doing, I was very good at understanding like basic men's fashion.
Mishka Shubaly
Oh, I'm the same way.
You're a mess. You are a mess. I want to look like a guy who's really, really comfortable. That's my
Ken Rideout
Mission accomplished. I was uh laughing with uh we both have the same agent bird level at UTA and I was laughing with him. I'm like for a guy who has a like small real estate empire, this guy relishes being like the starving artist. It's like he pisses me off. You're like the most frugal guy I know, but it's so unnecessary. I'm like, "Live a little, dude. Buy a nice mattress. Stop sleeping on a futon with your damn wife.
Mishka Shubaly
Grow up." You know, we we we both have that like poverty background or that feeling of like
Ken Rideout
Yeah. You you relish in it. I don't want to go back.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. And we've it's manifested in completely opposite ways for us.
Ken Rideout
That's the other nice thing about working with you. So for everyone listening, we could not be more diabolically opposed on so many social and political issues. But I wish that everyone in the political social spheres could have the same mutual respect for others and be like, I completely disagree with you, but I love you so much I can't even argue about it. I'll just accept your opinion and we're all good. Moving on. I'm not going to change your mind. You're not going to change mine, but I still love you and we want the same things.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. Well, I you know, I have to give you your flowers here because you really showed me that that we can be friends and that like the [ __ ] that we don't agree about. We we have a million other things to talk about and we could we can consciously make the decision to let's talk about that stuff and destroy the friendship or let's stick to the things that we you and I have so much in common, you know, and and you've been such a great friend to me over the years, you know, the
Ken Rideout
Well, thank you, man. But the thing is we can even talk about it without getting angry at each other. It's the same thing with your like attitude on money and clothes. I'm like, dude, live a little. Like, enjoy yourself. Why have three shitbox cars? Just buy one good one and not have to worry about it. But I'm not going to convince you. So now I can laugh about it and you can laugh about it.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Towards the end of chapter five, Subutex comes into your life.
And you know, looking at your story as a student of narrative, it's like it's like Cinderella in that, you know, it's like a horrible thing happens, a great thing happens, a horrible thing happens, a great thing happens. And it just seems like, you know, rereading the book and seeing you discover Subutex, it feels like finally your addiction has been unlocked. And it has, but in the wrong way, not the
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
You know,
Ken Rideout
Subutex is a great drug for some people and it is a it is an excellent way to transition off opioids if used appropriately. If it's taken for more than one to two weeks, you are digging yourself a very deep hole. just the same way you're addicted to opioids, you will be addicted to subutex. And in a lot of ways, the way it was described to me at least, and I'm not obviously not a doctor or a scientist, but that the way it attaches to your opioid receptors or whatever function this these things play in your brain, and this is very like simple in description, but that almost it's like stickier.
It binds tighter to those receptors, meaning it it is a lot harder to get off. That has been my experience. Subutex was harder to get off than the opioids. So when you think the problem is for a lot of people, they cannot stay sober without the subutex. So they're like, "Oh, like subutex, methadone, same thing." So if you're on long-term maintenance method, there is a school of thought that's like, "Well, at least you're not doing heroin." And yes, that's very true. Cuz those kind of drugs, methadone and subutex, they won't have you like ready to rob a bank.
Uh you know, when when I worked in the prison, no one everyone in prison who robbed a bank or robbed anyone was a drug addict. Sober people don't do something so stupid. So when you're on Subutex and methadone, you're not jonesing. You're typically getting it from a clinic and you know, you take it every day, once a day, and it's long lasting. It's not like chasing the uh opioid high. And if you don't use it to simply transition off of the opioids and and and minimize your withdrawal symptoms, you're basically digging yourself another hole of addiction with Subutex.
And it is very very hard to get off. and you don't get high from it. So, it's not like I can't live without that feeling. It's like almost like a a policing system where it's like prevents you from wanting necessarily hero. It like curbs a lot of the cravings, but you've got a new addiction. And when I tried to get off Subutex so many times, there were times I was so addicted to Subutex. I'm like, I'm going to take uh Percoets for a week and try and wean myself off of the Subutex.
And it was just I probably did that for two years. like I do opio I do opioids for a month then I'll do subutex for two weeks then back on it it was horrible and I don't think I'm a dummy so when you're hearing this and you're like what an [ __ ] why is he doing that like yeah no [ __ ] I don't want to do that I'm telling you the [ __ ] vicious cycle I was stuck in and I don't again not making excuses I'm not a victim I'm a [ __ ] idiot I this is what I did to myself this is why at times I struggle with like self-loathing I'm like what an [ __ ] I can't believe I did if if someone else told me they were doing this, I'd be like, "Get your [ __ ] together and stop this." But I couldn't stop myself.
This addiction is so powerful that I don't think I'm a weakling. I think I'm like a pretty tough person and I'm resilient and I struggled mightily. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. And uh but yeah, if you're listening to this and on Subutex, contemplating Subutex, recognize if it's used properly, it does its job. But ultimately, the one drug that saved my life was Vivitrol. And Vivitrol provides no high whatsoever. And all it does is block opioid receptors in your brain from from letting drugs attached to them.
So you can shoot heroin after a vivitrol. You're not going to get high. You might overdose if you take too much be trying to fight through the Vivitrol block, but it ain't happening. Vivitrol is like your internal policing system, and it's a 30-day extended release injection that you get in like in the glute muscle in your ass. And it uh when they took out the needle to give it to me, I mean, it looked like it looked like a liter of fluid. I was I looked at the woman, I'm like, there's no way that that whole shot is going to go into my muscle.
Like, how is it going to absorb all that? I said, my ass is going to be like, it was it was so big. And and I hope that when people are hearing this, they're like, "That sounds horrible." Yeah, it was. The whole [ __ ] thing was horrible, and you shouldn't ever want to be in this position yourself. But if you do find yourself in a dark in a deep hole, stop digging. And that's what I had to do. And this was the only way out of it.
And I would tell you that um I'm proud of getting out of it, but I could have done without doing this to myself. And the long-term damage. And I know it's easy to look at the story now and be like, "You did it. Yay. Good for you." Like, "No, man. I'm carrying [ __ ] trauma and darkness from this period of my life that I'm still trying to get out of. Like, I'm I'm ready to cry right now thinking about it. I'm just so angry at myself.
I gave away 10 years of my life.
Mishka Shubaly
And then you got it back. You got your life back.
Ken Rideout
I'm trying to make up for lost time here. I'm trying to cram it all in. As you've seen the last couple days, it's never stops.
Mishka Shubaly
Chapter six, running through hell. When you started talking about Vivitrol, I was like, "Hold on, buddy. We're not there yet. We got a lot of ground to cover before you get that like break in the clouds." So you're working at Credit Agricole and you have this like combination of bravado and self-doubt and then I think this is the the financial collapse in uh 2008.
Ken Rideout
No, this is post financial crisis financial crisis. I was working at Natixus and I was on a sales trading desk and we we structured and sold synthetic CDOS's collateralized debt obligations.
So all the stuff that blew up in the financial crisis is what we were trading and selling. So we would create these synthetic collateralized debt obligations, sell them to insurance companies, hedge funds. For people listening that know that space like you I don't want to bore if you're not a finance guy. You're never going to understand any of this. I was there and I don't understand it. But we were selling like different cap parts of a capital structure like the equity super senior insurance. Again, I don't want to bore people that aren't in finance cuz it is boring.
But we were trading like incredibly um volatile high cash price instruments like hundreds of millions of dollars trading every day in hindsight. It was so it's it's so crazy like and it was like maybe an eightman operation at one point. I think we went from being up like two or 300 million and I'm thinking we're going to be rich. We're all going to get paid based on the performance. And the funny thing is when you work in finance on a trading desk like that, it would be typical to have like a $150,000 base salary, which you know, yeah, it's a lot of money, but in finance, that's not a a blip on the radar.
And I'm not saying that. I'm just This is just facts. It's not posturing. I don't give a [ __ ] about money. You make like 150 grand, but you might be making $3 million a year, but your salary is minimal. And the way it works is you would get when you sign a contract just like a sports team, you'd have a guaranteed minimum contract, let's say a million dollars. But if we hit these metrics, performance metrics, it could be 3 million. And the way it gets structured at a bank is if you got a $3 million bonus, you would get one to one.5 million, so 30 to 50% upfront, and then the rest of it would vest over a three-year period.
So let's just say it was a $4 million bonus. You could get a million now and a million each year would vest and it would be tied to the equity price of the bank. So every year you could sell another. So if you got $4 million this year, you get a million and 3 million vesting. The next year you get the same bonus. Now you get the million dollar bonus, but you can also sell that first year of vesting. So you would get 2 million. After you've been there three years, the $4 million bonus is actually 4 million because you can sell all the the previous three years vesting schedule.
The reason those deals are set up like that and not to get too deep into finance [ __ ] but the way it's set up like is that they want to incentivize you to stay and have make you have so much skin in the game that it's difficult to leave. So if just like pro sports, if you were then going to go from JP Morgan to Goldman, you would tell the the trader, the hiring manager at the new bank like, "Okay, I have 6 million in unvested equity." in the new bank would typically if they wanted you bad enough they'd be like okay here's the six mill here's the exact same amount in our equity on the same in our stock on the same vesting schedule.
So, all that to say, I have this huge job and I'm thinking like I'm going to get millions of dollars, but my but my contract says 150 grand and a minimum bonus of like 300 and I was so naive. I didn't even I didn't even calculate in the vesting. I was just like, "Oh, at least I'll get 300 grand." Cuz when the crack started to form, I'm like, "Oh my god, I'm screwed." I just got married. I had a kill or um two-bedroom penthouse apartment in a brand new building looking over the Hudson River.
I want to say my mortgage was about $12,000 a month and my take-home pay might have been like six grand, whatever 150 grand is after taxes. It wasn't a lot. I'm thinking, "Oh, that's all right. I'll get my bonus. I'll put a year's worth of salary aside, a year's worth of mortgage aside, and I'm good." But then when the crack started, cuz I think I'm going to get at least a million dollar bonus. And very quickly, I was like, "No, not only are you not getting a million dollars, you're going to get the the minimum guarantee that you had." And by the way, when I realized that that only the smallest percentage of that was being paid now, the rest of it was vesting, I was like, "Oh my god, I'm gonna go bankrupt.
I can't keep I can't afford to keep paying this mortgage." And it like when I tell you it turned on a dime. It went from like feast to famine quickly financially. But just like everything else with my story, I just went into survival mode. I end up getting and I knew the job was over there. So I negotiated. The guy who hired me there, Mitch Levy, was a great guy. And he's like, "Yeah, they're going to probably start firing people." I said, "Do me a favor.
Fire me first so I can at least negotiate a severance and try to like get a couple months like, you know, they might give you six months." And he was like, "All right." So, literally, they came in and fired me like a week later. And like, "Yeah, you'll get we'll pay you for 3 to six months, whatever it was." And thank God I was able to get a job with Caner Fitzgerald for a few months working out of a satellite office in Florida trading corporate bonds.
And the thing that made that interesting at the time, although it wasn't a good career move, it was a great job because during the financial crisis, there was huge dislocation in in prices. Like all of a sudden, these bonds, unlike stocks, don't have like a ticker where you can just go online and be like, "How much is this bond trading for?" A company like GM has one stock price. GM might have 3,000 bonds, maybe even more. So, every company has shitloads of bonds. And the prices are wildly different.
The only way to figure out the price is to call a broker, me, like a trader, and be like, "Hey, I want to sell these GM 5year four and a half coupon blah blah blah. What's the bid?" Uh, you know, let's say they 100 is par, right? So, someone might be like, "Uh, I'll pay 50 cent, you know, 50 for those, half the price." and they were like the seller might be thinking, "Oh, I thought they were worth 80." Then some other buyer comes in and be like, "I'll pay 80 for those." And another seller is like, "I'll sell them for 50." And all of a sudden, you're crossing buying them at 50 and selling them to 80 in one transaction.
And it was literally like that. So the dislocation was so big that while I was in that brief period in my career, when I had the big penthouse and I lost my job, I was able to make a lot of money in that three months and it kept me good on the apartment. But it wasn't without like the most insane anxiety. I was living in Sarasota, Florida, commuting back and forth to New York. Shelby was in New York in the apartment and I'm like, "Oh my god, I'm going to lose my apartment." So, I was working like a savage.
And because of that decision to go there at Caner, I was able to parlay that experience because I had no corporate bond trading experience before the crisis. I just figured that out on the fly cuz General gave me a chance to do this. Howard Lutnik's team who in Howard's always been like a gentleman to me like just super nice guy and another guy at Caner called Danny Levcia who was a [ __ ] lunatic but he was one of the hiring managers and uh at one point when I was in London uh he was involved someone sued him trying to like a broker was leaving and had a contract was like Danny threatened to stab me in the neck with a pen if I tried to leave and I was like it's funny cuz you hear that you're like whoa that guy sounds crazy but I was there and he's like dude if you're coming in here as Z, I'm going to stab you in
The neck with this [ __ ] pen. Like, you know, like we were friends and he's like, "No." He's like, "Dude, listen. It's too much money. I got to go." And he's like, "Oh, you suck." You know, like buddies, like,
But when but when they didn't want to let him go, he's basically told them, "Yeah, Danny said he stabbed me in the neck with a pen." And technically, he did, but he wasn't really going to. Anyway, they gave me that shot. It allowed me to have experience trading corporate bonds. And I I'm telling this story in so much detail cuz it's important to understand how I transitioned from this time where I'm like thinking I'm going to lose my my house. I'm going to go bankrupt to then being like I'm back.
I did it again. I I like reinvented myself. And that's when I went into credit agricult Andy Schaefer who really changed my life because I had no business getting a job trading corporate bonds coming out of the financial crisis. I just didn't have experience. I didn't really have customers. people in that area in fixed income all over Wall Street were losing their jobs. The smartest people in the world were trading correlation, structured credit, all the [ __ ] that I was trading and now they were all fired.
So now everyone wants to find a job doing anything and vanilla corporate ponds were considered very like vanilla. No one want that was not sexy. No one wanted to do that coming out of like Harvard Business School, but now that was the only job if you're in fixed income sales. So, when I went in and met Andy Schaefer, that's the story with the cuff links and the uh Rolex watch. And you know, hopefully if you read the book, you'll know the story. And if you don't know the story, get the book.
Um, but Andy uh hired me right on the spot, which is crazy cuz I had interviewed at like 10 banks like 15 times each. Andy Schaefer was the hiring manager at Credit Agricole, "Yeah, you're hired. When can you start?" I was like, "I'll [ __ ] start right now. I don't even have to go home." That's how desperate I was for a job. Yeah,
Ken Rideout
Oh, yeah. the like I said I was bouncing back and forth between the Vivitrol and uh between the um Subutex and Perks and um 2010 while we were um my wife and I had started an adoption process and um we had been married for 3 years and during the 3 years of marriage we had been trying to have kids um naturally and um no ex uh no explainable infertility fertility issues but she wasn't getting pregnant. So, we eventually went to see fertility doctors like you as you would imagine.
And eventually, we did like seven rounds of in vitro. She got pregnant three times, three miscarriages. And it was starting to get dark and like I always believed she was going to get pregnant and never really felt stressed about it. My wife, not so much. She was not doing really well with this. Like, she was in a bad way. And um so, but we were going to adopt anyway. So we had started the adoption process maybe a year into the marriage. In 2010 we get matched with a newborn daughter.
My my a newborn girl my daughter now tensei and uh we were approved to adopt twins but when they saw this that Tensei was available like was in an orphanage and she was only four weeks old. They're like listen we don't we we knew we wanted newborn. We that's what we wanted to adopt and we wanted to adopt from a place where we could make the biggest difference. um which is how a long story how we ended up in Ethiopia. We would have we weren't looking for an African country, an Asian, we were just looking to make a difference and um that's just there's only so many countries in the world you can legally adopt from to begin with.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
So we get matched up and for whatever reason it just hit me like a ton of bricks like dude it's now or never. I got to get I'm on the subutex but I'm like on the most minimal dose like less than a milligram a day literally. But I could not get off that last bit. And um I went to the out facility called Parallax where they gave me like basically medically assisted withdrawal week and said if you can stay off these drugs for one week, opioids and subutex, we can give you this shot of Vivitrol, but you have to be clean 7 days and pass a drug screening.
Mishka Shubaly
How how long was that seven days?
Ken Rideout
Oh my god, it feels like I [ __ ] had to like walk across Antarctica.
Yeah. and like the Sahara Desert all at the same time. Like one day, one minute I would be in the desert sweating bullets, the next minute I'd be freezing to death and like unexplained. Like my body's ability to manage temperature was completely off. Like my whole nervous system was shot. It was crazy in hindsight like how effed up I made myself.
Mishka Shubaly
You know, one of the things that we always used to say after like getting the first drink of the the evening or the afternoon or the morning that, you know, is um not necessarily the best one, but the most necessary.
And I feel like that applies to to your first run that you did after collapsing, coming clean to Shelby. Talk about that run. I'm sure you remember that.
Ken Rideout
Oh, yeah. that run like so many as one that I'm like running and crying at the same time and like trying to manage my emotions and anyone who would see me would be like what is going on with that lunatic and not running fast. I'm just like in my feelings like just I'm like I'm running but I'm completely somewhere else. And you know it's like I've heard people describe like if you're uh living in the future you're dealing with anxiety. If you're living in the past, you're dealing with sadness, something to that effect.
And versus just living in the present. So, I was trying to through all these struggles, like I always knew what the right thing to do was. It's like I always knew the right road to take. I just never chose the right road all the time. Um, I think it's a movie scent of a woman where Alpuccino's given the rant rant at the end at the private school and he's like, "I always knew which road to take, but I never chose it. I always chose the easy route." He's like, "But not Charlie.
Charlie's here taking the hard road."
And that's kind of how I feel is like I wouldn't say I've always taken the wrong route. I've taken the right route many times. But I always knew with a 100% certainty which one was right and which one was wrong. The one that was wrong though might have been lined with like candy and uh naked girls. And the one that was the one that was hard was lined with like barbed wire and like pitchforks. But at the end of the difficult road was like the beach in Bora Bora.
And the end of the like candy laced the candy lined road was hell.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
But you couldn't see the ends of the road. You could just see what was telling you, come on, this road is easy. Take this one.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. I mean, you know, looking at your life as a whole, it's easy to be like, "Oh, Ken's great at making conversions."
But in the moment, you're like, "I'm dying." You know? So, when you get back from Ethiopia with this new baby who opens your heart and changes your life, the I mean, that's really that's my favorite part of your story is that you didn't you didn't stop using because you killed somebody while you were under the influence. It was love. It was hope. It was a child you'd never met before, you know, and the
But then you come back from Ethiopia and um and Shelby's pregnant.
Yep. the I feel like you are a creature of adversity. You're you're like a good guy in hard times, but that you struggle when you have too many good things.
Ken Rideout
That's exactly right. Tell me about that.
Anytime if someone cuts me off in traffic, I can be an irrational lunatic and seem like a vicious like not nice person. But the minute there's like uh a crisis in like a public place, like I was on a flight um last week to LA and funny enough I was sitting I was sitting in like 1B and one of a guy that I'm friends with through Rich Roll is sitting in 1D. We happen to see each other. He lives in Nashville from LA. Guy Anthony. And I'm like, "Oh, hey, what's up?" blah blah blah.
So, I get up to go to the bathroom and there's a guy sitting behind me in like 2B, older guy, heavy. And um I go to the bathroom and as I come out, I see him steadying himself in the aisle. And as he goes to take a step, I was just like, "Hey." I grabbed his arm and just like instinctively I'm like, "Yo, you all right?" And he looks at me like like with a like empty look and I'm like, "Oh [ __ ] this guy's not all right." And I'm like, "Buddy, you all right?" And like I grab him kind of like not in a bear hug but kind of like I get under his arm and like I'm holding him up and he's unsteady and he's like staggering to the bathroom and like bust through the bathroom door and I'm hanging on to him and he sits on the toilet and then his I don't know if it was an adult son guy
Older than me comes over and he's like oh he's you know he's sick I'll deal with it and the woman the flight attendants are trying to kind of help but they're like the guy's big and she's like do I need medical? I'm like, "Yeah, we need [ __ ] medical. Call a doctor right now." And she's like, "Is there a doctor on the plane?" So, I'm helping. This has happened to me many times where I'm like the first responder and I'm like and I'm thinking and I'm thinking I'm not prepared for this.
Like, I don't want to do this. But in a in a crisis like that, I'm like, I've always been and Shelby will tell you this too for all my flaws. She'd be like, "When there's a crisis, I'm always glad that you're there cuz I know if there's one lunatic that's going to help to the extent that he can, it's you." And but it is being the first responder sucks. I was riding my bike once with Jack McDow who hired me at the Palisades group and we're riding up the uh PCH going to turn on to Lato Canyon up near uh Lar Hamilton and Gabby Reese's house and as I'm going up PCH it's the day it might have been Christmas day or the day before Christmas a guy an older guy is coming uh south on PCH and he gets into he crosses over traffic and gets into the turning lane in the middle of the two lanes and a car comes over the horizon
Also going south in his direction and just runs him over like cleans him out from the back and the guy's like 70 and he gets launched like 100 yards in the air and he has a beautiful old school pinella bike and he lands and just like you know that sound of elbows and knees hitting the ground and he flops down and and I go jack [ __ ] and I throw my bike down. I run across the street. I'm like yo buddy all right and he's like you know can't breathe and I'm like can you move your hands and feet and he's like and then cops come no the kid gets out of the car young kid.
I'm like, "Dude, call a [ __ ] ambulance right now. What are you doing?" And his windshield smashed. Like he he was just a kid not paying attention.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
Cops come and at some point I grab the guy's I I say to him, "Hey, you want me to call someone?" I take his phone out of his pocket. He's like, "Yeah, call my wife." So I'm like, "Hey, this is my name is Ken. I'm riding with your husband. He had a he had a minor accident." And I'm like, cuz there's no sense in alarming, right, dude? While this is happening, they're calling a chopper to come and get Hel. He broke his hip, broke his leg.
But and then of course like any bike riding nerd, he's like, "Where's my bike?" I'm like, "Buddy, the don't your bike is right. It's mangled."
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
But the funny thing is in Malibu, some woman who was there was like, "Oh, I run the dog grooming place. I'll take his bike and leave it in the store." So like I told the wife, but
And again, I'm not trying to paint myself to be a hero. It's just like whenever I've seen things like that, I'm like, "Yo, we got to act like I feel a tremendous sense of community and responsibility to like other people in the in the community. But if you stand in front of me in the line, I'll be the first one to chop you in the throat and be like, "You don't see me here." And my wife would be like, "This is so irrational. You're a nut to someone for the minor in fraction, but when someone's like on the verge of death or someone's threatening to beat someone up, you want to jump in and help them." I'm like, I It's like the same thing with race.
It's like a blessing and a curse. I can't control it. Like you get the good with the bad.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. Yeah.
Let's move into uh chapter eight, win or die trying. Um I want to talk about boxing because I think boxing speaks so much to so many areas of your life. And um how you run, how you race, how you compete, how you interact with people. Um, you know, hockey is a huge fighting culture, too, but there's a, you know, a thing where like you're going to go out there to kill the guy on the ice or you're going to go out there to kill the guy in the ring and then afterwards you have a beer together.
Yeah. You know,
Ken Rideout
Boxing, hockey is less about only the professional fighters, only professional players really get to fight. If you get in a fight anywhere else, you're like suspended for so long, just like any other sport. But boxing really um is a metaphor for life. Like, we're all in a fight. Everything's a fight. Whether you want to label it that or not, it's just some some fights you're not getting punched in the face physically, but you're getting punched in the head like, you know, metaphorically. And um I think everyone should have some experience in understanding how to defend themselves at a at a at the very least.
You shouldn't be out in the world just completely helpless. I mean, you wouldn't see at the end of the day, we're all animals. You wouldn't have a lion out there that like voluntarily takes his claws out. Like at some point you need if you need to like behave like a lion, you should be able to do that. And and that's not to say you're looking for conflict to the to the contrary, but I would rather be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.
Like you should have some basic understanding of defending yourself. And that was my mentality with boxing as as a kid. I was like always scared of conflict and I did a good job of hiding it. But at some point I took a very practical position and was like I need to learn how to like throw throw these hands. I don't want to be like caught. I don't want to get caught in a storm unprepared. I know it sounds crazy, but that was my mentality. And going into that boxing gym, I was scared shitless.
Just like anyone listening to this who doesn't know how to box would think going into a real inner city boxing gym would be scary. Yeah. And it was. But you know what I did? I [ __ ] did it anyway. Just like everything else that I've done that's been hard. I'm scared just like you. I have no special skill or special talent. I just [ __ ] do it anyway.
Mishka Shubaly
And and then after you having the courage to walk in the door alone as a kid, they welcome you with open arms.
Ken Rideout
I wouldn't call it open arms. This wasn't like, "Yay, Ken's here." They're like, "All right, get your [ __ ] on. Let's go." Like, there was nothing nice going on there. But eventually,
Mishka Shubaly
They saw the work.
Ken Rideout
Yeah. It's like being in jail, man. If you walk in there and you're like a punk and you're like a pushover, no one respects that. But you go in there and you carry yourself with integrity and you know, you have some humility, but there's just like every step along the way in life, you get little tests and it's not like a [ __ ] structured thing like let's test Ken and let's uh you know um hide his shoes or something like people do shitty like foolish little things that might be teasing.
It might be accidental, but ultimately everyone's watching your reaction. And that's the thing, like same thing with bullying. It's like human nature. If you let someone get away with some [ __ ] tomorrow the [ __ ] might be a little bit more intense. And at some point, you have to put your foot down and be like, "The [ __ ] ends right now."
And you know what? I tell my kids this.
If the worst thing that can happen to you is you get in a fight with a bully and you lose the fight, I guarantee you with 100% certainty that kid will not fight with you again. No one wants to get into a fight. And the minute that they see you're willing to fight, they'll leave you alone 100% of the time. And guess what?
Most places if you get in a fight, someone's going to break it up in like three seconds.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
So if you think you're going to get in a fight, stop throwing.
Don't wait to I'd always funny. It's always funny to me when people are like bumping chest like, "What are you going to do? What are you going to do?" I'm like, "If you tell me you're going to punch me, I'm going to believe you and I'm not going to wait."
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
And that's what everyone should have the same mentality. And it's not about being a tough guy. Like I said, I'm furthest thing from, but I also have common sense and have been punched in the face enough to know I'm not waiting to get punched in the face. I'd rather punch you and be wrong than let you punch me in the face cuz someone who knows what they're doing punching you in the face. It might not end very well.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. It's, you know, I I feel about fighting the way I feel about making change in my head that like I don't love doing it, but it's a skill that I have ready.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
When it you know, when it's necessary. The Ken, I feel like many people in your life, myself included, are constantly on you to relax a little bit, to take your foot off the gas for one second. You did that in Kona.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
And it and everything went to [ __ ]
Yep. And then now looking in the book you have put a picture of you making the like
Of course you know probably the worst or one of the worst moments of your life heaped with shame and regret something that really galvanized you and and eventually you know you turn the corner on it. But the man where do you have the balls sharing you know a picture of yourself at your weakest moment like that.
Ken Rideout
I mean, this book is not a victory lap. Like, it's easy to look at it and be like, "Oh, Ken [ __ ] won this big race." Like, you think I liked riding about in high school?
My whole high school chanting that I suck. For a long time, that was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. I mean, I couldn't sleep after that happened. I was like, I can't believe that these people just humiliated me like this. I went from being the starting quarterback feeling good about myself to feeling like ostracized by my peers. And talking about quitting in Kona after I got there is painful. But I also use it as a cautionary tale because the minute that you like suffer with your own shame and silence, it's like you're only as sick as the secrets you keep.
I'm like that's not a [ __ ] secret that I went there and didn't finish. But guess what? If you can learn from my failure, you should. And that's why I use that story frequently when I do talks and stuff to say the pain that you will experience from quitting at anything in life will linger with you for the rest of your life. You'll know what it feels like to be a dead dog loser and a quitter. And it sucks. Losing is one thing. I mean, I have millions of losses.
I was telling my kids the other day, you think I just got to show up and win races. You know how many races I had to lose before I got to win one? Yeah.
It's like wrestling or jiu-jitsu. You don't just win. You lose a lot. And eventually, if you keep losing enough and learning, you eventually win. And that's part of the journey here is like, if I didn't go to Kona and quit the first time I was there, I might have finished in like 11 or 12 hours and been like, "Yeah, I did it." But because I quit and lived with that sting, it hurt so bad that I went back and did like a 9:30 the 939 the next year and then eventually became like a better runner.
But that pain of quitting motivated and influenced the rest of my journey in endurance sports and led to the book. I mean without quitting there I don't write a book.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
Cuz I don't probably win a world championship. I don't win the Goldby March. And even when I met Shelby I was like man I would love to write a book about some of the experiences I've had. And she would always be like you should do it. I was like I feel like the book needs an ending. I needs like a culmination. Like what am I doing that's special? I'm like barely surviving life. I'm like, you know, at that time I was like, oh, I was addicted to drugs.
What good is like, she's like, well, you got sober. I'm like, ah, that's like necessary evil. But the the running then gave me something to feel pride in. And I again, it wasn't I didn't set out to win a marathon and write a book about running. I just was running to distract myself from the other [ __ ] that I was dealing with. And very quickly, it became a source of pride and something that I eventually ended up getting good at, relatively speaking. We talked about this last night.
Mishka Shubaly
We didn't, you know, we weren't sure if uh if it was something that um you know, the editors at the publisher did on purpose or on accident, but I think you have your ending to your story and it's revealed there in the pictures that the last picture is not you holding all your medals. The last picture is you training. It's you doing the work. It's ongoing, man. I mean, you and I are both total messes in our heads, you know, and we both manage to be successful at, you know, in our own way.
And the it, you know, you just force yourself to get up in the morning, put your socks on and go to war like anybody else, you know.
Ken Rideout
Yeah. If you think you're doing something, whether it's working, training to get to the finish line, and then when you get there, somehow your life is going to be like almost like you've gone to you you're now in Nirvana. you're very misinformed in probably lying to yourself. The journey never ends until they shut the lights off on you. You you you can be the Olympic or world champion. The next day, you're still going to wake up and have to figure, okay, what's next?
Yeah. And I think that that's what I've tried to explain in the book is like it's nice to have these accomplishments along the way, but at the end of the day, like I talk about with going to onsite and like you said, the the photo editor was brilliant because it ends showing me doing Hy Rocks training. Like I'm going to do some Hy Rocks races for instance, like I'm kind of done what I've had to do in running and just looking for the next chapter. And um that's basically synonymous with where what life is, right?
Like, okay, what's next? And it doesn't have to be training. Like, that's sort of I really hope that people listening or reading the book understand like I'm not telling you go run. I don't I don't even like running, you know? It's like I just got faster. I didn't It didn't get easier. But what I hope people get from it is like find something that you're passionate about that's yours. You're more than a dad. You're more than a husband. Like it's naive to think that because you are a dad, a husband, and all these other things that somehow your life is less important and that you don't necessarily matter.
It doesn't mean you have to be selfish, but it's like you weren't put on earth just to have children. You were put on earth to raise your kids. Part of raising your kids is setting an example. And like I say many times, the kids will believe some of the things you tell them, but they'll believe almost everything that you show them. And what I try to demonstrate to them is discipline. grit, determination, because without those things, it's going to be very difficult. Unless you are a savant or someone has handed you something and you just have very special unique set of skills, life is going to be difficult and you're going to get challenged and you know even when you think everything is Gucci and you've got money and a family and you live in a beautiful house and then my wife gets cancer and I can tell you right now I would give away every single thing I have and I would also take
Terminal cancer to not have to have my wife go through breast cancer. And even though it's curable and all those things, when someone you love gets diagnosed with something like cancer, initially feels like a death sentence. And I'm like, I I I just take me. I please don't do this.
And that helpless feeling. And the point is the [ __ ] never ends. Like be prepared, stay ready, don't get ready in life. And that's kind of what I think that the photo editor in the book captured really well is like there's no there's no like rest. I'm not on a hammock like, "Yay, I did it."
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. Yeah. I feel like if anyone gets through this book and doesn't fall in love with Shelby, we both failed. Um that for those people who are on the right side of history and adore her, tell us that she's okay now.
Ken Rideout
Yeah. Yeah, she's okay now. She um she had a masectomy. She's cancer-free through the woods. All like different treatment things that they did to her are done. and now she um is gets like a reconstructive surgery. And I said, "Look, if there's a silver lining, you'll be 52, a cancer survivor with a new set of boobs. Everybody wins." And uh she I the only way I have ever known how to deal with things like that is to try to make light of it. I mean, even when when they were taking her for surgery, the doctors and nurses thought I was crazy cuz, you know, it's emotional and she's getting ready to go and they're starting to put her give her the anesthesia and they're like, "All right, say goodbye.
We're going to take her." And I'm like, "All right." you know, I don't want to like we've already cried enough. Like we we've we're done with that. So I'm like, hey, you got this. Get in there and kick ass. And I said, "Do me a favor. Don't die." She was like, and of course the nurses and doctors were like, "Oh my god, this guy's crazy." And Shelby was like, "He's crazy." I know. I know.
Mishka Shubaly
Well, I I I have to tell you that your specific band brand of craziness, uh, you know, has shone through in my family. You know, my my sister's a huge fan and my uh my my poor wife has heard us like, you know, two gravel voices like berating each other like so many times that now like when she gets behind on the dishes or something like that, she's like, "All right, no [ __ ] no excuses. I'm going to wash these dishes like a [ __ ] Win or die trying, bro."
Ken Rideout
You know, it it it sounds funny and we joke about it, but there is an element of truth there where like I I I don't know how I come across and sometimes I think people think I'm more aggressive and and ruthless than I am, but there is an element of reality to that what you just described where at some point I'm like, I do not want to do this.
But then I catch myself like taking the easy way out and I'm like, toughen the [ __ ] up. Thank god you can run. I I really do this when like when you were saying last night we were in the working out in my gym and I I forget what you said about your shoulder or like yeah I used to be able to do these heavier weights and I'm like [ __ ] all that so much. So today you can't do what you used to do.
There's someone out there who can't get out of a wheelchair. There's someone out there that can't lift their arms at all. So your weight's not this was like this isn't a contest. You're not in competition with anyone else. It's you against yourself in life. And I'm very good at giving advice. I don't take my own advice as well as I should, but I will tell you that I'm very I I am really good at when someone needs to like I get a kick in the ass of being like, "Yo, what are you talking about?" Like someone reached out and was like, "Hey, I want to talk to you.
I bought your book." And I'm like, "Well, what do you want to talk about?" I try to respond to everyone cuz I mean, I'm super appreciative of anyone that likes me. I like people that like me. He said, "I'm thinking about doing social media, maybe starting my own YouTube channel." I go, "What the [ __ ] are you talking about thinking about it? Just do it. Yeah.
There's no barrier to entry. You know what? You can guarantee if you don't do it, it ain't going to work.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
And if the worst thing that happens is you do it, what's going to happen? People are going to tease you. How [ __ ] old are you? You care about the opinion of a stranger on the internet. Who cares?
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
Get out there and start throwing punches. You never know what's going to happen.
But I can tell you one thing for sure for anyone listening. If you don't try to chase your dreams, you can rest assured they won't come true. And you're either working on making your dreams come true or someone else's. And if you're working for someone else and being underpaid and underappreciated, you're working on their dreams and not your own. And for a long time, I did that. And I can tell you that chasing my own dreams cost me a lot of security and money. I had been offered many finance jobs after I started to get some attention for living the life that I live now.
And I had turned down like, and it this I'm not saying this to be a braggard, as I've described here, money isn't my motivator. But I've turned down millions of dollars to work on a trading desk where I'm like, I would rather not be a slave to like that desk. And I get it. Some people, they want that life. I don't need you to pay my health insurance and guarantee me a salary. I would rather go down swinging and eat what I kill and not make as much money.
But there isn't a day that goes by, even on my worst day working for myself, that I don't think I can't believe I don't have a job. I'm so lucky. I don't do anything. I do a lot of things that I don't want, but not the way I felt when I had a job where I where I had a a salary job where I felt like someone else owned my time. And all I can tell you is when you think when a lot of times when people want to talk to me, they want to know how'd you do it?
What should I do? There's no [ __ ] easy answer. I wish I could tell you how I did it. I prayed to God, clinched up, and just jumped. And it was not easy. And I would say there was a period when I moved to LA where I didn't sleep for like 6 months cuz I was running out of money working in a job at one point when I made the switch to credit agricult um to uh the Palisades Group worker for my dear friend Jack McDow who changed my life more than anyone in my life professionally by giving me a chance to run business development at Palisades Group.
I offered to work there for free for three months. I probably was down to like $30,000 in the bank. My rent was 12 grand. I had four brand new babies and I was living in LA with no we didn't have family out there. And I was like I am going to figure this out or I'm going to go bankrupt and and drive a taxi. I don't know. But I was like out of options and and I was like I would back myself into a corner and I made it work.
Jack gave me a shot to work there and it changed my life. I made the best of the opportunity and now I work for myself and I don't need anything.
Mishka Shubaly
So, let's tackle this transition from life in New York to um you know, I mean, we call the the chapter Escape from New York. Um when you leave for California, I mean, the first question is, can anyone ever really leave New York? The you you're one of the most like New York guys that I know. I was just, you know, out there recently and I I was there for 15 minutes before I was yelling at somebody on the train.
You know, it it like gets in your blood. Were you able to leave it behind at all or
Ken Rideout
Oh my god. And if I never went back to New York again, it would be too soon. Like really, oh, oh, that place is a necessary evil sometimes. I'm like, I got to go to New York. Oh, let's just suck it up and power through.
I don't know. Maybe I'm an old grouch. When as a kid, it was awesome living in the chaos. Go to the Rangers game. Go to the Knicks game. Best dinners. Walk. I loved walking home at night from a dinner back up to like my apartment or in the East Village, wherever I was living. I loved walking in the city. And I do like that part now. But flying into JFK or LaGuardia, taking a longass taxi ride. Even that I'm like so jaded. Usually when I land at JFK, I'll spend the extra 200 bucks and take the Blade helicopter from JFK into like the left side.
But it's crazy. If people don't know, you can take an Uber. Let's just if you take a black car, like a like the high-end Uber, it's 150 to $200 and it could take 60 to 90 minutes easily.
Yeah. blade helicopter 275 or 250 5 minutes from man from the airport to the upper westside helide helport. So I take that every time but even that you know it's like the freaking helicopter's 275 the airplane ticket then you got to stay in a ridiculously expensive hotel cuz everything in New York is impractical and expensive. The hotel room is the size of a freaking shoe box. It's just when I go there, I'm like, this is it's so it's so much effort to get around there.
Mishka Shubaly
I I I call it the big hassle.
Perfect. Because like to do anything in New York, it's like an hour and a half.
Ken Rideout
And if you have a meeting like I I was staying at um on Central Park South. I like to stay near the park to run in the park, but if you have like a meeting in um Madison Square Garden area, it's too far to walk. A taxi is going to take forever. So inevitably like let me take the damn subway and just getting in the subway is always like not that it's dangerous but I always feel like man the train can get stopped between stations for 2 hours.
I've seen it all
And it's just like a crapshoot. That's what I mean. Like
If I'm in here in Nashville and something's going on like oh jump in my car I'll be there in 15 minutes anywhere.
You know everything 15 minutes. But um
Mishka Shubaly
I'm I'm always stoked to go to New York and stoked to leave.
I never get excited to go. Let's let's talk a little bit about parenting because you and Shelby are such radically different people. I mean, first off, I have so much respect for you guys for like the journey you've taken as parents. You know, I think that it takes a certain level of like faith and hope and belief and commitment, you know, to have a child of your own. It's another step to, you know, to adopt um to adopt another baby. and then a transracial adoption. It's a whole, you know, other set of rules and the um and and issues to deal with with your child about where they fit in and who they are and where they belong.
Um h was that Somerville is not the most progressive place in the world. Did you ever have any um were there, you know, was there any issues with adopting a child from Ethiopia or it was just like kid as a kid?
Ken Rideout
No, kid as a kid. I never I never really had racial issues. I mean, I was around a lot of racist people, but I don't even think they were racist as much as it was like
Mishka Shubaly
The norm.
Ken Rideout
I don't think anyone really felt racist. I mean, I'm sure some of them did,
But like people would make racial comments. And I mean, when I was a kid, people used the n-word like
Like a matter of fact. And it was a different time. I never was like, "Oh my god, there's black people here." Like I talk about going to the like freaking welfare camp where I was one of the only white kids, but I didn't think of it like they're black kids. I just thought like, oh my god, we're poor, but these are the really poor kids. Meaning like they were from the inner city projects, but white or black. It wasn't like I was like, oh my god, they're black.
Therefore, they're like worse than the like shitty white kids that I knew from the same background who were like, you know, one socioeconomic rung below me. It was just like, oh my god, I'm here with all the [ __ ] kids.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. Raised. strangers, they they start by threatening you, you know.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
But I never even considered her race when we adopted her and only after we adopted her as she was like when she was a little kid and started to notice that she's different. Um but we never shied away from it. Like we had pictures of her birth mom in her room all the time. We talk about her. My wife talks to Tensei's birth mom all the time on Google Translate on Facebook. She like, "Yeah, yeah, she's a young she's was a young girl when she had her." But we're like we're like in close communication.
We'll eventually go to Ethiopia when Tens probably when she's 18 cuz she's starting to like she's she'll be 16 in the summer. She's starting to like, you know, for a long time she didn't want to hear anything about it. It wasn't that she didn't want to be adopted. She didn't want to be Ethiopian. And the reason is when she would Google Ethiopia, it looked like, you know, a third world country. It looked poor. So to her, she's like,
I don't want people to think that I'm like poor. You know, like in a weird way, in a kid's brain, this is what she saw. Cuz I remember one time she's like, "I'm not going to live here anymore. I'm I'm going back to Ethiopia." Something like that. And I said, "All right, pack your pack your suitcase, but you don't have to take your shoes." She's like, "Why don't I need shoes?" I said, "No, they don't want shoes in Ethiopia." So I typed into Google like tribal people in Ethiopia.
I go, "This is Ethiopia." And she was like, and then of course I was like, "I'm just teasing you." But but you know, she was like scarred by that. But we laugh about it now. But no, she's early on when she didn't like being different. But I had like I wasn't, you know, a DEI expert on understand how to explain the nuances. I just said to her one time and I didn't I didn't think about this. I didn't I had never heard it before. I just said to her like, "Let me ask you something." I'm always very like logical and practical with the kids.
I go, "Let me ask you something. If you cut your arm and you bleed, what what color is the blood?" "Bad." I said, "What color is my blood?" "Bad." I said, "What color eyes do I have?" "Brown." What color does mom have? Green. What color does Jack have? Brown. What about you? Dark brown. I was like, "What about hair?" I said, "Imagine if you didn't like someone because they had red hair or brown hair. You have black hair. You have brown eyes. Your skin is brown." Cuz I said to her I was like, "Was that she I I forget how I said it, but I was like, "Oh, was there another black kid there?" She goes, "Who are you calling black?" Not like not antagonistic.
She goes, "Who are you calling black?" like genuinely like, "What do you mean who who's black?" And I said, "You?" And she's like, "I'm not black." She's like, "I'm brown. What are you talking about? Don't call me black." And I was like, "No, no, no. It's it's it's an it's not literally black, but it was just
I say that to explain the brain of a child who doesn't understand racial bias. She just understands practicality." So to her, she was like, "I got brown skin." So the way I explained it to her was like, "You don't care. You don't judge someone based on the color of their hair. So, you don't judge someone based on the color of their skin. It's as arbitrary as the color of your eyes. Some people have you get what you get and you don't get upset. And I said, "Look," and then I would show her like,
You know, she said to me, she's like, "It's just not cool." And then I was like, "What?" And I bring up pictures of like Erica Badu and Lauren Hill. And I'm like, "You think that these girls don't think that they're cool?"
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
And she's like, you know, Erica, she's like, "Yeah, but who would dress like that?" I said, "Guess what? Whatever you tell people about yourself, they believe you. If you go out there and carry that outfit like you're the coolest, I guarantee you those people think that Erica Badu is cool, even if they wouldn't wear what she wears. And then she eventually got it. And you know, hasn't been without his challenges, though, as she's gotten older of dealing with racial differences. But the one quick thing I do want to say is moving to Nashville was the greatest thing we ever did.
The black families in the neighborhood where we live. Like, as you can, anyone who knows me and who listens to me long enough probably can tell that I'm not like very filtered and I say what I'm thinking and kind of maybe sometimes to my detriment. But some of the black families in our community have been the most kind, impactful people outside of our family on our children that I've ever met. the way that they've like I don't want to say they adopted us like we're a freaking sympathy like we're like someone's pet project but they understand the nuances and and and the challenges of having a black girl even with a white family like I would the guys that I'm friends with from the neighborhood I'd be like listen one of the things that I'm really worried about is you know she gets to college and her black friends are like where the hell did you grow up she knows nothing of black culture the
Way black kids understand culture
Mishka Shubaly
Y
Ken Rideout
You know even like I say even the people that we're friends with in the neighborhood, they're like they hang together. They're like there's there's there's different cultural things that I love, but I don't know about them. I can pretend like you can pretend to know about certain things, but until you're like ingrain that shit's ingrained in you, and I don't want her to have a disadvantage, but the point is these people invite us to their churches. They invite every time they throw a party, they're there and like they're my friends now.
So, they're having a tailgate party at the high school before the high school football game. The high school football team is really good. And the black families get together for a tailgate and I'm at one of the games one time and I see one of the daughters of one of my friends, actually, Ran Carthon who's been on the show. He was the GM of the Titans. I see his daughter who's a student at at Ravenwood. And I'm standing up in the stands and I'm like, "Yo, where's your dad?" And she's like, "Oh, he's outside at a tailgate." I'm like, "What?" I go, "Have you seen Derek Quarrel?
He's she's like, "Yeah, no, no, he's out there with him." my dad and I'm pissed. I'm like, "Yeah, they had a tailgate party and they didn't invite me. Who the hell planned the tailgate party?" And she looks at me, she goes, "The black people." And I go, "Damn it." I said, "I thought I was part of the gang." And she was, "So then after that, I went out told them the same story. So now they invite me to everything." Oh, that's awesome.
They're awesome. I mean, this I will tell you like living in Nashville has been I loved living in Pacific Palisades and Malibu, but the people that have shown us love here is like I'm getting emotional thinking about it. They have been so incredibly kind. And you know, if you look at any longevity and happiness study, all of the data suggests that your long-term health and wellness and everything that goes along with it is tied to your sense of community, your relationships. It's the most important overriding factor in living a quality life.
And we have hit the jackpot living in Nashville with the people and friends that we have. And you're part of that. all my friends, all my people, like
I I honestly I feel like the luckiest person in the world with the friends that I have.
Mishka Shubaly
I mean, and that's been a huge part of your your voyage has been the community around you, whether it's um people on the on the hockey team, people at the boxing gym and the, you know, and then also like in the swimming pool to just hop in and be like, "Hey buddy, how do I do this?" Yeah, you know, it's takes a certain amount of vulnerability and courage and hutzbah to just be like, "Hey pal, can you can you show me?
Ken Rideout
Can you teach me?" What you realize is like what's what is someone going to do?
Be like, "F you." And guess what? If they do take that aggressive, nasty approach with me, I typically am like, "Huh, at least I don't have to waste time trying to talk to that guy again." You know, like, and look, I'm not always the nicest guy in the world. If people ask me to help them with something, I might be like, "Can't help you, buddy. I'm busy with my own [ __ ] But one thing you get used to is if you're if you're like I said earlier, if you're afraid to take shots, you're not going to score goals.
And the worst thing that can happen when you ask someone for help is they say no. And who cares? You move it right along. I didn't know you before I asked and I will never know you again now, so see you later. But when you do show honesty and interest and vulnerability and like sincerity to people, you might meet some of your closest friends in the world. And I have been lucky that at this stage in my life at I'll be 55 in May. I've never been in a better place with relationships.
I have dozens of friends that I genuinely love. I don't have a problem telling people that I love them. I'm like, I don't know. I love people that love me. So, if someone says, you know, but you know, you get guys like friends like Mike Pner who's like super spiritual and always be like, I love you, man. And it like really, you know, as you get older, especially growing up the way I grew up in the inner city with tough guys, no one really talks like that.
So when someone does, I'm like I don't view it as weakness at all. I'm like, man, this guy has real strength of character.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
Cuz it takes a lot of guts to tell guys you love them. But now I'm like to the point where like, yeah, I love everyone. I if I love someone, I'm like, hey man, I love you. And I like when especially with my tough guy friends is seeing how uncomfortable it makes them because then they're like do I say I love you too which no you don't have to.
Mishka Shubaly
When you start hammering marathons you um you go so deep into the strategy and um you know the the sort of little mind games that you do.
And I think that there's, you know, there's two things that I want to ask you about, you know, and the the first is the um you would die before you would cheat.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
But within those lines, the you're like it's the same distance race. I'm just going to make sure I'm in this corral instead of the other one.
Ken Rideout
100%.
Mishka Shubaly
Talk about how that has manifested in your life and maybe might manifest in other people's lives. You know that
Ken Rideout
Yeah. you you you need to understand the rules of the game and like what you're talking about is like understanding like if a raceourse is winding around, right? You want to be like cutting as close as you can to each corner. You don't want to be running an extra 10 20 yards every time the course turns because then you're adding on like 400 meters a lap of the track that's like a minute and a half. It's the best ex analogy or example would be in a triathlon when you get out of the water and you're running to change from swim to bike.
There's no reason that the professional athlete should be able to run through there and put their shoes on faster than you. To me, that was always free time. So, to your point about strategizing, it's like, yeah, I knew exactly where my bike was going to be. I knew exactly how I was going to get there the fastest without getting caught up in minutia. I was going to get there, do what I had to do, get out of there as quickly as I can. You know, obviously all within the bounds of of the rules, but like understanding all the rules and knowing what you're doing is a big part of it.
The same thing with at the start line. We all have to be in this corral, but I don't have to be 50 people behind the start line. I'm going to make sure that I'm standing on the start line or as close to it as I can. Matter of fact, in the Tokyo Marathon, normally later in my career, when I had had some faster marathon times, I would qu you can qualify to race in the first corral, like the very first group of people on the start line.
But for whatever reason in Tokyo, they were like, "No, you're in like the sea corral, like thousands of people back." So, I was like, "Screw this. I'm going to get in the sea and I'm just going to eventually when they separate like eventually you're all separated by ropes then they drop the ropes and it all kind of kind of crowds together but only for like a minute or two. Well, when they drop that I just kind of like wiggle my way as far forward as I can before the gun goes off.
And the crazy thing is in Tokyo the gun goes off and it was the furthest back from the starline I'd ever been and I'm probably 10 people deep. But this is like across like a fourlane highway in Tokyo. There's tens of thousands of people. The gun go and we had to be up there for like at least an hour before the race started. So, everyone standing there. People had like plastic bags that they were peeing in and then dumping it on the side. People had blankets that they wrap around themselves, pee in a cup, and then throw the like
There was no place to pee and you you're hydrated. You're ready to run a marathon. So, and it's like a the crazy thing is it's like a community. So, people would hold up the blankets so someone else could pee. The girls would be squatting down with other girls holding the blankets and it was cold. So race goes off and sure enough all you can hear is that sound of elbows and knees smashing the ground and it looks like when a wave crashes and white water kicks up and all of a sudden you just see ankles and feet up at where the heads are supposed to be and people just toppling in the and the crush of tens of thousands of people coming behind you and you're just like man down and everyone scrambling and jumping and you know getting out of there.
I just remember thinking how quickly things can go sideways. You fly all the way to Tokyo and someone trips you with their trash bag that they're wrapped up in trying to stay warm and now they're just going to throw it down on the ground carelessly. That's the other thing that drives me crazy. You go to those races and people are just like, I'm only concerned about my own [ __ ] I'm going to like drink this bottle and drop it straight down on the ground so someone steps on and breaks their ankle or falls down.
Mishka Shubaly
I feel like there's another life lesson too in how hard you perform, the challenges you set yourself, and then you know a race like that uh New York marathon you did with uh where you met Nev Schulman where
Uh O'Ne was not your best day, it was not your best race. you had thoughts about like ah I'm just I'm not going to show up or I I got my metro card so I can get home the um and you had an incredible day.
Ken Rideout
Yeah, that was a crazy race. Um again, I was super lucky that I had qualified to race in like the local elite category which is basically like the next step after the pros. And in that crowd, they also include um like a like a handful of celebrities who instead of a number, they have their name on it, which was always my dream to have my name on my bib instead of my number. So if someone from New York Road Runners is watching and wants me to run like ceremonial like I'd love to be a celebrity runner.
Mishka Shubaly
I'm I'm saying we still need to do the ride out merch, which is on the back. It's just a target with your name,
Ken Rideout
but that's a good one. So, I I'm standing there and I I don't know if I even recognized him, but obviously anyone who's read the book, I don't take anything to the to the start line except my race kit, shoes, maybe two gels, and I'll have some old clothes on typically. And I think I had a flannel shirt and like some corduroy pants cuz I was like, I'm just going to get warm and then I'm going to [ __ ] can these when the race starts.
So, I'm standing there with me and um I don't like I said I don't think I recognized him and we were just chitchatting and I was like, "Oh, what are you trying to run?" And he's like, you know, we were talking. I go, "Oh, I'm assuming he's in the local lead." I'm like, "What are you trying to run?" He's like, "Man, I'd love to get under three hours." And I was like, "Oh, nice." And he's like, "What about you?" I said, "I'm man, I'd love to get under under two and a half hours.
I ran 229 in in London recently." And he was like, "What? Oh my god." And I'm like, "Dude, aren't you in the like local movie category?" He's like, "No, no, no. I got a special thing in there. I host the TV show." And then I'm like, "Oh my god, I love that show." The He host Catfish on MTV, but he made an awesome documentary called Catfish. And my wife loved the show. I mean, love. She loves Neve. Ne's just like one of those really nice guys.
He was on Dancing with the Stars. Like women love him, guys like him. He's just a cool guy. And uh I'm like, "Oh, dude, I know. I know that show." I was like, "My wife is a huge fan." And he's like, "Send her a picture." I'm like, "How the [ __ ] am I going to send a picture?" I'm like, "I don't have my phone with me." He's like, "You don't have a phone with you?" I'm like, "Dude, we're about to race in a marathon. Why would I carry my phone 26 miles like that?
Even that little bit of extra weight." And he was like, "Oh my god, this guy, you know, looking at me like, this guy's crazy." So he goes, "Here, I have my phone. Let me take a picture. I'll text it to her." I'm like, you know, like this guy's like on TV. He wants to text my wife his phone number. Like, all right, cool. Text it to her. So he sends the picture. Hey, met your husband at the start line. It's Ne. Of course, my wife's like, "Oh, none of this surprised me.
That's like on brand for what Ken would do." Cuz I think like the week before I sent a video to my kids out of the Clair Blue from Julian Edelman, who was a superstar for the Patriots. We were at a uh Sports Illustrated swimsuit party in New York with Neve. And Julian Edelman takes my phone. He's like, "Hey, Jack Cameron and Luke. I'm here with your pops. You guys are a bunch of Boston guys. I'm going to crack you when I see you." you know, take it easy, fellas.
And my my my kids are just like they're like huge sports fans, right? They're like, "Oh my god." You know, aside from Brady, like they couldn't have been happier. Um, so my wife gets crazy messages like this all the time. Uh, not necessarily like that, but I call her and tell her crazy [ __ ] all the time. So, we take off running and I had had a um calf injury going into like a really bad basically my calf muscle like was locked in a spasm.
Like it it it tightened, the muscle contracted and just would not let go. And it hurt on a scale of 1 to 10 like a 15. And it sounds minor and like should be easy fixed, but the muscle wouldn't let go. Just overused. And um I had been doing therapy twice a day with physical therapist, massage, everything. And so on race day, I had it all taped up with chisio tape, but I brought a metro card with me because I'm like, there's no way I'm going to be able to make this.
And if I can't finish, I'll at least jump on a subway. but start running and I mean I feel like [ __ ] Some races you feel magical. You're floating. It's it's all clicking and you're doing your best to hold hold yourself back. This race it was like I was working as hard as I could to run my conservative pace. And you know it starts with a mile uphill run on the Verzano Bridge into like a freaking vicious wind always. And um around mile four it was like magic.
My calf muscle just let go. the muscle released and I was like, "Oh my god, the pain's gone." But now I'm in hell because I'm like, I'm just dying. I had run London maybe four weeks before and it just wasn't enough time to recover. I didn't have the experience that I had years later. Um, but I did the best that I could and I got to the finish line and uh coming up the finishing straight in Central Park and I'm about maybe a hundred yards, 200 yards from the finish and now it's crowded right at the finish of this of the New York Mar I mean it's crowded everywhere in the New York Marathon but the finish line is packed and a small chair starts to go up in the crowd like a small roar of like Yeah.
And I'm like what the hell? I know they're not cheering for me like this, you know, I'm not crazy. And I'm finishing with like, you know, there's a few people behind me in front of me. I'm finishing in like 2 hours and 33 minutes. So, I'm still far enough in the front where it's not like massive humanity crossing the finish line. Like, it's people are crossing one at a time. And they're cheering and I look I just look around and I see Shellane Flanigan closing on me.
And Chellain had previously won the New York Marathon, but because of CO, this is 21. Because of CO, all the marathons had been cancelled, postponed, whatever. So, in the course of like no [ __ ] like four or five weeks, every single major marathon was was held and Shellane ran them all in like honestly in a month. I think it was a month. I'm sure someone can fact check me. There was six major marathons in a within four to six weeks and Shellane ran them all, you know, but she wasn't trying obviously trying to run to win.
She would kill me. I mean, I think she ran like 215 or something. My best in in New York and I ran 233. So, I mean, she was 20 minutes ahead of me, basically. But as I see her coming, I'm like, "Oh, hell no." Like, my insecurity kicked in. But to be fair, even if it was a guy, no matter who it was, I'd be like, "I'm not letting anyone sprint past me." And I start sprinting like a freaking maniac. Arms and legs everywhere. My muscles are all cramped.
And I mean, I must have looked like a nut. Crossed the finish line. Boom. Practically collapsed, throwing up. I mean, just a mess. And for some reason, they didn't post the results. Like when I went to bed, I couldn't see where I finished in the age group or in the Masters division, which I hadn't even considered. The Masters is 40 and over. I was 51 at the time, but I hadn't considered that I would even have a a fighting chance at the Masters title because previous winners were like Olympic champions like Meb Koflesgi, uh Abdi Abdi Rockman, like some of the best runners in the world turned 40, ran this race and ran like 212, right?
I ran 233. But in the morning, I wake up from a text from my my friend Amar Cuchinad, who also I worked with at um when I moved to LA. I was working at a financial technology firm that Amar started. Um I get a text from Mar saying, "Dude, congrats. You're the Mast's champion in New York City." And I was like, "I won the age group, but that's not the masters division technically." And I go online, I'm googling. I'm like, "Oh yeah, I won my age group.
Nice." And then I'm like, "Wait a minute. I [ __ ] won the whole I won every I won all the age groups over 40. I mean, it paid like four or five thousand dollars and I was like, "Oh my god." I was on cloud9 that day. I was so happy cuz everything was over and it was just like an unexpected bonus and I was Man, I was happy still. When I think about it now, it like really makes me feel good.
Mishka Shubaly
Let's um let's talk about on-site.
Ken Rideout
Yeah.
Mishka Shubaly
Because for me, without on-site, there's no book.
Yeah. Because like up to that point, you know, it's like you'd covered, you know, thousands and thousands of miles in the flesh, but your head hadn't kept up and that you had like a lot of catching up to do.
Yeah. The um I mean, it sounds like a pretty brutal experience that you went through there.
Ken Rideout
Yeah, physically it wasn't hard, but emotionally it was very difficult. onsite is uh on-site workshops in um Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee outside of Nashville. And it's a they call it a trauma healing center, but it's basically a 5-day inpatient intense psychotherapy facility. And there's group programs and individual programs. You do a lot of work with a big group of like 40 people. And then I was in an individual intensive where I was just with a therapist for probably 6 hours a day, maybe a little more, you know, maybe six hours with her and then three or four hours with the groups.
And um yeah, I was I was basically at that point I was essentially um sober addict. I was not taking drugs, but I was still had the mindset of an addict. And I was like my marriage was not good. And it was like all things that could be fixed, which was so so frustrating. A lot of times in relationships, we let our egos get the best of us. And you think about it, it's like it all stems from ego. You feel offended. You feel slighted. So then you don't give.
I'm not getting as much intimacy as I want. So I'm withholding emotional support. And it's like sub sometimes subconscious, sometimes very conscious. And it's like a vicious cycle where I'm like, if I give her everything she needs, I know I get what I need and want. and vice versa. But we weren't we weren't getting there. And I was like, I refuse to let this fizzle and fall apart without going down swinging. And I and the thing is what I hope people take from this is when you start trying to fix other people and get people to do what you want and get them to behave the way you want them to, you are fighting a losing battle.
And I have always had enough self-awareness to know my problem with you isn't you, it's me. I if if like I I love my wife so and I know she loves me but I was like I want to strangle you cuz you're not giving me what I want. And I realized I have to think about this from a practical standpoint. If I'm selling you something and I want you to buy it, I need to convince you that like I'm trustworthy and you want to buy it.
And what I did was just say to myself like how can I get her to give me what I want cuz when I get what I want, my marriage is great. And long story short, I knew I'm I'm not going to get her to change. I can't make her go to on-site to fix my problem. So, I went there and it changed my life. And um it was just a massively reflective exercise of looking at all your behavior, looking at what led to the behavior, trying to understand what caused it, and trying to get to the root cause of whatever is ailing you.
And it's not easy because no one wants to go there and be like, "Yeah, hey, I'm [ __ ] up. Here's the things I'm doing wrong." And sometimes you don't even know. Like I went there and thought like I don't have any trauma. And she's like anyone who went through that [ __ ] would have some like emotional damage that they have to like resolve. Doesn't mean you're a victim to go there and identify like hey this happened to me. The the hard thing is a lot of times people don't even realize what's bothering them.
They just know that something is bothering them. And I basically said I'm not going to live like this. It's like with addiction, I'm like, I'm going to take control of this and figure out why I feel like this and how do I get to the bottom of it? And I did. And I went there and it sucked. And uh, you know, I get there, they take my phone, they they give me the key to the cabin that I'm staying. The place was very nice. Like the facilities were I mean, it wasn't like the Four Seasons, but it wasn't a campground.
It was it was nice. And I get to this little cabin I'm staying in. It looked like a nice hotel. like there was separate cabins with like let's say four room four like room/swuite things and I get there and I'm thinking I have my own room and I get there and there's like three double beds in like a quate cottage thing and I'm like what the hell I don't want to spend the next 5 days with three grown men like I don't want to be I don't like I don't even like being around some of the people I'm friends with for that long I don't want to be with strangers but that's all part of the process and I went back and was like I think there's a mistake I specifically Ally asked for my own room and she's like no we don't have our own rooms here like it's not a mistake and uh ended up being the greatest thing.
I met one of my like dearest friends in the world, Eric Decker, who is the only reason I mention him and talk about it is because I've talked to him about is he okay with me sharing the fact that that's where we met and he's uh he's good with him. But man, what a sweet guy. And you know, well,
Mishka Shubaly
That's one of the things that I found with this is that like you are able to take advantage of this like fellowship of men, you know, that like you you seem to to thrive in in AA and just that you know that connection with a fellow addict.
Ken Rideout
Yeah. And Eric Deck, if you don't know, was um insane football player. Played in the Super Bowl with Denver. He played in Denver for years, then the Jets, and then the Titans. Like super handsome guy. I'm like, I've said to him many times, I'm like, "Fucking life is so unfair." I'm like, "You get to be like 6'4, a superstar athlete, like a really nice guy." And the crazy thing is we're at on site and he's like working on his own [ __ ] And he's like, "I need to be happier." I'm like, "Dude, what?
What? You have everything to be happy about." And he's like, "So do you." And I was like, fair point.
Mishka Shubaly
One of the things to me that is a trademark of childhood trauma is um the inability to perceive where we stand in in relationship to other people. Like, you know, I can envy your life, but I can't recognize that my life is worth envying. And the other thing is whenever I hear the words, hey, other guys had it worse. That's always a huge flag to me that whoever's whoever's like saying, "Ah, it's not a big deal." The you know, um there's something there. Yeah,
You know that that people were trying to trying to cover up or trying to escape.
Ken Rideout
Yeah, it was the the experience was eye opening. But I will tell you this, it's like anything else. It's like if you're looking for a magic cure or magic answer, it's not that. It's it's you go there and it's like the first week of sobriety and then you've got to do the work when you leave. It's a never- ending process, unfortunately. And that's not I don't say that to be a deterrent, but I'm just telling you if you think you're going to go there and leave, I'm different person.
Like nothing's going to do that to you. No psychedelic trip, no DMT experience. Did we write about DMT in the book?
Mishka Shubaly
No, but we should have. We'll do that in the next one.
Ken Rideout
Yeah. Well, I did smoke DMT one time. Like I'll post a story about it at some point down the road, but that was an eye openening experience. And again, something like on-site that was so profound, but without followup, it slowly dissipates like anything else and it becomes ineffective. The key to all this stuff is to like in um what's the word? integrate into the integrate that into your day-to-day life and and and implement some of the practices you learn. And but again, dude, this is all part of the process.
Like, we're learning all the time. And I'm learning and figuring this stuff out. And I wish it was easy for me. And I could be like, "No, here's what you do. You go do this." Then the next thing you know, you're on cloud nine and you're the happiest guy at your church and everyone's looking for you for spiritual guidance. Guidance. That's not how it works. For me, it's a constant struggle. But I did an interview once with Lance Armstrong and I was telling him, "Oh, yeah.
I went to hindsight blah blah blah and he's like, "Oh, I just came back from a tuneup." Like, you'd be shocked at the people like I mean, I don't want to tell anyone else's business, but like I've introduced some like
Mega famous people to this pl I'm not trying to be like a dick like I got mega famous friends, but I told some like really like bigname actors, musicians about it, and they're like, "Yeah, I signed up. I went last week."
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. Everybody needs help, man.
Yeah. Let's talk about the hardest race in the world. And we can't talk about this race without sort of how you got into it. The your on-ramp into it. We got to talk about our brother Rich Roll. How did how did you meet Rich? Tell us about your friendship with Rich.
Ken Rideout
My spiritual guru/advisor, Mr. Richard Roll. Yes.
Rich Roll was introduced to me by one of literally one of my closest friends in the world. the guy who I love like as much as I could love a family member and that's Rob Moore who produces Andrew Huberman's podcast. Rob produces my podcast. You know, if Rob told me he needed a freaking kidney tomorrow, I'd give them both. Like, he's my dear friend. And and having those kind of relationships makes all the difference in the world. And it's strange because people will call me and be like, you know, everybody wants to be in business with Hubberman and they know we're friends and they're like, hey, ask Rob if he'll do that, do this, do that.
And I'm like, dude, Rob is my friend, but Rob does not mix business and friendship. Meaning, he has no problem like that. Absolutely not. Even if I'm like, it would be a lot big favor for me. He's like, no, we're not doing. And you could easily be like, what the f Rob didn't do that for you? I'm like, Rob is his own man. He does what he does. If I told him I needed a kidney and he could do it, he'd give you one. But he'd give me one.
But
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah,
Ken Rideout
If I told him I needed Huberman to promote a product, he'd be like, "No, can't do." Yeah.
Like, but and that's why I respect and love him. Anyway, he Rob and I train, we moved coincidentally, we met when we both moved from New York to LA.
He was working in big PR agency. I was working in on a trading desk and now we're both in New York trying to figure out our own way and both like in ma massive transition periods in my in our lives. But he's an insane athlete. He did a sub 9- hour Iron Man. He won the Huntington Beach Marathon the year after I finished second there. The year I moved from LA. I won the Malibu Half Marathon. The year I left in like 20 or 21. Rob won it in 22 almost in like within 10 seconds of my time.
We have been like neck and neck in so many races. So, we were training out there and and Rich had been obviously a big ultra athlete and Rob was friends with Rich through just PR. And Rob's a Rob's a hustler, man. He's just like in a lot of ways we're very similar. He knows a lot of people. People respect him. He he he values relationships and he has a lot of them. I mean, we train hundreds of miles a week on our bikes. On Saturday and Sunday, we'd ride 50 to 100 miles every single day
With Jack, my the guy who from the Palisades. And and all these guys are savage athletes. Like, we will ride like maybe a step behind like where a professional tour rider would ride. Like it would wouldn't be uncommon for us to train with guys like Cam Warf in my two years in a the Tour of France winner lived in my neighborhood and I'd see them training all the time and jump in and like ride with them for a little while. Garrett Thomas and Chris Froom. I mean, this was hardcore cycling and if people weren't hardcore and they're like, "Hey, can I come ride with you?" You know, we'd go along PCH and turn up like Lato Canyon and like within a mile you'd be like, "What happened to your friend?" I'm like, "I told them we were training."
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. Yeah.
Ken Rideout
So, Rob and I, you know, when you're riding for four or five hours every day with someone, you get to become very close. And then we would travel to races together. Rob's like one of the only guys in the world. If we were going somewhere together, if I was with any other guy and was, you know, Rob's like me, wants to stay in a nice place, we would um he'd be like, "Oh, did you get did you reserve your room with Rob?" He's the only guy where I'd be like, "Oh, we'll just share a room.
There's no sense in buying two." Like he's like that. That's the kind of relationship we have. But I don't have to talk to him for like every like I might not talk to him for a month. Yeah.
And then be like, "Hey, what's up?" Oh, okay.
I always tell him his kids are my god. His new kid is my god kid. I'm like, "How's my godaughter?" Uh, but anyway, he um so he he introduced me to Rich and for the longest time was like, "Rich, you got to have this guy on your pod. You got to have this guy on your pod." When I first moved to LA and uh Rich was just like crickets. Wouldn't even respond to the emails. I'm like, then I started to get resentful. I'm like, "F this guy." And uh then I met him and and and Rob convinced him to have me on the podcast.
And when I met him, he's like, "No, man. I was following your stuff and on Straa and Instagram and I was like, "I'm not going to rut train this guy. He's a [ __ ] nut." is like and I'm like I I don't know how I'm giving off that kind of energy. I don't feel like that. I don't train with people and then try and destroy them. I love the camaraderie of training. So did the did the episode with him and then about a year later uh an a friend introduced me to Scott Daru who at the time was the president of Equinox had previously been the dean of bis uh Michigan business school like very accomplished like executive um and was into running and mountain climbing and training and he said he was doing this Gobi March in Mongolia which I had never heard of.
He's describing it to me and I love exotic travel and doing like interesting races, but it really has to like speak to me to get my attention and he's telling me about it and I'm just like, "Dude, I bet you I can win that race." And he's like, "Well," you know, but he was probably thinking, "I called you to get advice, not to invite you to do a race with me." And uh long story short, I sent an email to the race director. They said, "You're in." The race was in like four or five weeks and I did everything I could to get ready in that short window.
I was running with different backpacks. I'd stuffed them full of towels and bottled water to like simulate the 20 lbs roughly that I knew I needed. You had to carry all your own supplies of food, everything you needed except water. And they would give you a you could sleep in a tent that they'd put up. But you need a sleeping bag, extra clothes, and food for a week. So, you know, I'm burning like 10,000 calories a day on the high end, but I only have 2500 a day predetermined of, you know, MREs, like freeze-dried food that you would add hot water and it would, you know,
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
Turn into food.
Mishka Shubaly
The thing that's so crazy to me about Gobi is that this whole time you had your eye on the marathon masters. Is it the the the ma marathon majors division?
Ken Rideout
World Marathon Majors which is is a series of races that consists of Boston, New York, Chicago, Tokyo, Berlin and London. Those are the world major those are the marathon world majors and Abbott Labs is the sponsor. So it's called the Abbott Mar World Marathon Majors and they have an age group world championship kind of race within a race for a for athletes ages 40 and over and it goes in five year increments 40 to 44 45 to 49 you have to qualify to get into that race and so at each race you sign like you sign up for the Boston Marathon like and you register for the Abbott it's free you register for the AVID age group race and you get points So once you get a certain amount of points and I don't
Know what the system is but if you win your age group in Boston you automatically qualify for like the world championship race which moves every year in this in this particular year in what' I say 23 did I win so yeah 23 I was in Chicago but in 21 I had registered for the London marathon and coincidentally it was the age group world championships and I had qualified at at CIA California international where I ran 228 that had qualified applied me for the age group World Championships in London, unbeknownst to me.
So, I signed up for I think I then signed up for London. I don't think I signed up because it was the World Championships. But either way, I'm in I'm in I'm going to run the London Marathon and it also happens to be the age group World Championships. And I thought like, oh, who knows? Maybe I could win this. But I didn't seem that realistic. It wasn't like I wasn't completely preoccupied like I'm going to win the World Championships. But there was a part of me that was like, oh [ __ ] maybe I can win this.
Yeah. Yeah. So when I get to London, I I I I get to the raceourse and we have special numbers to designate us in this field and we have our numbers that pin on the front and back of us so you can see who's in your age group and we had our own distinct start area. So the race starts with three distinct start corral, but unlike New York where they're all over the bridge above below, these are like several blocks away from each other for for logistical reasons just cuz there's so many people.
And the three areas start at the same time and then around 3 miles they merge together on one road. So you can't see the other areas. But I know that all the people in my area are in the age group world championships in different age categories, but everyone's marked what category they're in. So I'm standing on the start line. I just kind of bully my way up there. And when the gun goes off, we take off and you know, you always get a couple maniacs that sprint like a freaking lunatic out front, which drives me crazy cuz I'm like, you have no business being up here.
And god forbid you trip and fall and like clean someone out like just to say like I was leading for a minute. It's just like running on the field like being a streaker at the Super Bowl. You're like, "Look at me." And I'm like, "Dude, get out of the way." Like people trying to get [ __ ] done here. Sort of [ __ ] clown time. And uh take off and like within a mile I'm leading. So now I know no one in my age group is in front of me.
And around three miles we merge. And now you merge in with people that are running the same pace. At that point I'm running like a 525. I'm running like a 225 pace. Well, you know, I'm running fast like 540 530 a mile. So, we merge. So, the PE there's people obviously in front of me like pro runners and different there was a college category. So, there are like some good runners. But like when I tell you I can see five people in front of me and when I look back there's three people behind me.
It's so spread out because this is where people are running fast. And so I'm going along maybe a throughout the course of the race when you're running that fast after four miles. It's not like unless you start to fall apart or start picking it up and other people fall apart, you're not passing more than like 20 people and more than unless you're struggling five or 10 people aren't passing you. So you're like locked in. I mean, you could see the same person for like 20 miles if you're running the same pace and you're consistent.
So, coming into the finish and I'm like, you know, I'm I'm getting close to finish. I know I'm it's going to be really close to be under 230, which is what I desperately wanted to do. I'd only done it once before when I ran 228 in in Sacramento. So, I see that the I I I'm like, this is going to be close. So, I start like stepping on the gas and now I could have gone harder, but I want to get there under 230. And I'm trying to be strategic with the time because I'm w like to me, I'm winning.
I'm going to win. I don't want to go too hard and get past and blow up,
Cross the finish line. And I'm like, "Fuck yeah." $229 and change. I'm on Cloud9. I run back to the Four Seasons at Hide Park Corner where I'm like splurging to stay comfortable. Grab my [ __ ] and I'm like racing to Heathrow. Like I'm on the plane like 3 hours after the race finishes. And um as I'm driving to the airport, I call my coach Mario Frei and uh who best coach in the world. And I'm like, "Hey dude, I think I won the age group." And he's like, "No, I'm looking at the results.
You were second." And I'm like, "No, no, no, dude. That's there's no way. here's what this it's. It's impossible. And he's like, "No, this dude is uh finished in first." I'm like, "What?" As it turns out, the guy was in a different start area. I know what he did. He knows what he did, but no one else is going to care. And he runs the first three miles in 5 minutes flat per mile, which is makes no You're not going to run five minute flat per mile and then hang on to run 229 low.
He beat me by less than a minute. But by doing that, he technically hadn't broken any rules because they didn't, it was a new category. They hadn't like etched it in stone. And the guy beat me and won the World Championships. And I was like, so when it came around again in Chicago, I knew what it was. I was ready to go. And uh I came into Chicago like locked in, ready to go, and ran 229 there. And you know, like the story, I think it's the best story in the whole book about how the whole race played out.
So, I don't want to like relive it and spoil it for anyone that's going to read or listen to the book, but my whole life played out in the course of that race of just different analogies of not giving up, fighting to the last step, doing just enough to win. The guys, the two guys who I beat in Chicago, if I raced them 10 times, they're winning nine. No question. They had both run like 225 that year. 228 is the fastest I'd ever run. And I ran 229 in Chicago to win.
And that was
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. That that one time you did
Yeah. On that day, they couldn't beat me. I did everything I had to do. And um what's what's bananas to me about your showdown in Chicago is that you didn't mention to Shelby that this was the big anchilada.
Ken Rideout
I I didn't I didn't intentionally not mention it to her. It's like, dude, my racing is like my business. And it's not like I keep it from her, but it's like she loves that I'm doing what I want to do, but like if I try to tell her like nuances of race, I'm like, "Here's what I'm going to do." She's like, "I don't care about this." Like she cares cuz I care, but I'm not going to like, you know what I mean? I'm just I tell her I She knows I want to win every race.
So, it's not like I really want to win this race. I feel that about the turkey trot.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
I'm like dialed in, you know, sleeping extra for the next for the three nights leading up to the turkey trot. Same way for Chicago. That race in Chicago though after after London was in 21 going into 23. I went and won the age group in Tokyo and then Chicago was that October and in the in the middle is when I talked to Scott Daru in around May and he told me in June he was doing the Gobi March and uh again the Gobi March the whole experience of being in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia is similar to like the stories of my life.
There's like a million different things played out in the desert and it was um it was it was crazy and uh that's a story that people should definitely read or listen to in the book because I can't do it justice in like 2 minutes.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah. You know 5 years ago running was your escape. It was you know something transformative like first it was punishment for you and then it became something you enjoyed and then became you you turned it into your job.
Yeah.
How do what's your relationship like with running these days?
Ken Rideout
How do you feel about it? Yeah. No, that's a good question. I've really taken a big step back over the last um two years. I've only run like a race, one race a year just to keep myself honest. But a big reason for that was that exactly what you just described. It was starting to feel like a job and it was starting to feel very performative and I didn't want my life and existence to be tied to runner running.
I'm more than a runner. Like it's almost insulting when people are like, "Oh, you're a runner." I'm like, "Dude, I'm not a runner. I'm a dad. I'm a husband. I'm a freaking full-time savage. Like I'm I'm like doing everything. I have like multiple successful businesses. Like I'm doing it. Running is like, you know, I like I used to practice guitar and then I got a a record contract and now I'm like by default you become a musician, but it's like I'm not just a runner. I run, but I'm not I would
Mishka Shubaly
The things you do, not the one thing.
Ken Rideout
Exactly. And I did feel like I don't want to lose sight of the fact that this was a hobby and something that I was doing for myself and I don't want it to be hijacked by others or by some crazy desire to feel validated. I don't need running to validate me even though I do get caught up feeling like that. And you know the last couple years I I I did some HYROX races which I really enjoyed which whole the freaking were transformative. I mean you talk about hard physically hard to go from running all the time where I would get could get like relatively skinny and then doing a HYROX.
I remember when I was training for HYROX I came out of the basement gym one day and my my wife and kids were in the kitchen and uh my middle son was like dad you got big muscles. And I and and and I did I mean I posted some content on Instagram where I was training for HYROX and I look at them and I'm like holy [ __ ] I got muscles but I never really lifted heavy weights for years while I was running all the time and now I'm now um you know when I was training for HYROX I'm lifting weights like a savage and just sprinting.
There was no zone two really. It was all like mad intensity.
Mishka Shubaly
One of the things that's really interesting for me, you know, rereading this book after this journey that we've taken together is that um I think you finally start to get it at the end that like you're your nemesis. Of course, you know, the whole time you thought you were trying to beat these other runners, you know, and and beating addiction was part of that, but at the end of the day, like, you know, it's in so many
So many different avenues. You have a boot on your own neck. you know, what's your relationship like with Ken Rideout these days?
Ken Rideout
Yeah. No, I'm I'm glad you asked that because the whole goal in writing this book is really to kind of be an example to others, especially other men, and say, "Hey, here are some things." This isn't like me telling you, here's how you do it. Here's a tutorial. It's like, hey, here are some of the self-inflicted wounds, some of the [ __ ] that's been like that I've had to deal with. Like I said, some of it self-inflicted, and here's how I dealt with it. And more than what to do, it's how I thought about doing it and how I used mindset and this like [ __ ] it attitude of like, dude, just get out there and start moving attitude.
And well, that's what I'm hoping people get from it. And and recognizing that we are our own worst enemies for everyone. Like you're in a battle against yourself. You can create your own enemies and you can tell yourself that other people are trying to kill you at a race, which is what I usually do. But at the end of the day, just like I talked about people are looking to kill me, I tell you I have friends that would do anything to help me. At least I think they would.
And I have friends that I'd do anything to help them. And if you can have a few people like that in your life, you're winning. But if you expect everyone to treat you the way you want to be treated in the way you would treat them then you are being naive. You the best thing a lot of times people ask me how do you have these friends? How do you how did you build this network of friends? And I always say the f the best thing that you can do to have good friends is be a good friend.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
And sometimes when you're a good friend it can be feeling vulnerable because there are a lot of people out there that will take advantage of your kindness. And that's one of the skills you develop after living a long life is you develop an ability to kind of see through [ __ ] And I always tell my kids when they're dealing with any challenge in life. I'm like, "Listen to me. I know you think that I never went through what you went through. You think I'm old, but imagine if you could talk to someone that's been doing something that you want to do and they've been doing it for 30 or 40 years.
How much they're going to know." That's what I'm trying to convey to you. It's like, I know how this plays out. I know if you don't do your homework and you f around and you spend too much time looking at your phone, I know what's going to happen in life. You have to pay your rent. You have to pay your dues. You could pay them now or pay them later, but everyone's going to pay. And if you pay them now, your life can be really comfortable.
If you pay them later, you could be paying over a very long time. Don't take that road lined with the candy land [ __ ] versus the road with the barbed wire and like arrows. Take a few arrows right now because at the end of the candy lane
Mishka Shubaly
Is bazookas. Yeah.
Ken Rideout
And then they don't discriminate.
Mishka Shubaly
Yeah.
Ken Rideout
Don't pay. You'll pay when you get there. At the end of that road, there's do payment due. Take the hard road now or you pay all upfront.
Yeah. Do you feel like you've eased up on yourself a little bit? That you're able to sort of like yourself a little more, have a little more empathy for yourself, have a little more generosity, you know, for yourself? The process of writing the book has definitely been a huge help in that process, but I would say I'm far from uh at the finish line. That's part of the journey that I'm on. And it's like that's what I'm saying about be careful what you wish for or watch out for like who you're admiring.
Recognizing that we're all in the same struggle. We're all on the same journey trying to get to the same place. You can have wins along the way, but like very few people are in that state of nirvana that we all fantasize about. The sooner you realize that you need to figure out a way to enjoy today and the struggle is the sooner your life will be much more fulfilling. And I don't profess to have the answers and I don't always do it right. But I can tell you that the journey is where all the magic happens.
It's not the finish line. I've been to the finish of a lot of races and had a lot of different types of success. Relatively speaking, I don't get there and think like the work's done. I'm I've done it. It's over. No. It's like on to the next one. But what you do to what you do accomplish in in setting these challenges and achieving them is that you become callous to the idea of giving up of taking the easy road. You develop this skill for overcoming difficulty and it does make everything a little bit easier.
And we're none of us are getting out of here alive. You got to figure out a way to enjoy the struggle.
Mishka Shubaly
Ken, thank you so much, my brother. This has been such a wild trip we've taken together and uh it just feels so good to be here.
Ken Rideout
Well, thank you, brother. I love you.
Mishka Shubaly
I love you, too.
Ken Rideout
Thanks. Thanks for being with us, guys. I hope you enjoyed the book and uh if you did buy the book, I want to tell you how much I love and appreciate you. Thank you. Boom. All right, guys. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. Please take a quick minute to subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening. This is a new show, so subscribing makes a huge difference. Please also take a minute to give it a review and leave a comment on Apple Podcast and on Spotify.
Ken Rideout
Or again, go into the other sideofhart.com. There's multiple links there where you can find all the retailers carrying the book. Thanks a lot for being with us and we'll see you next
Key takeaways
- Fear can be present without deciding what you do next.
- Small forward steps made major career and athletic goals feel possible.
- Sobriety required a treatment that blocked opioids after repeated cycles with Subutex.
- A race result is shaped by preparation, judgment, and how an athlete responds to setbacks.
- Running matters to Ken, but it does not define his roles as a husband, father, or friend.
- Build close friendships by being a good friend and showing up for people.
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