Manders Mindset
Are you feeling stuck or stagnant in your life? Do you envision yourself living differently but have no idea how to start? The answer might lie in a shift in your mindset.
Hosted by Amanda Russo, The Breathing Goddess, who is a Breathwork Detox Facilitator, Transformative Mindset Coach, and Divorce Paralegal.
Amanda's journey into mindset and empowerment began by working with children in group homes and daycares. She later transitioned to family law, helping people navigate the challenging emotions of divorce. During this time, Amanda also overcame her own weight and health challenges through strength training, meditation, yoga, reiki, and plant medicine.
Amanda interviews guests from diverse backgrounds, including entrepreneurs, athletes, artists, and wellness experts, who share their incredible journeys of conquering fears and limiting beliefs to achieve remarkable success. Hear real people tell how shifting their mindsets—and often their words—has dramatically changed their lives.
Amanda also shares her personal journey, detailing how she transformed obstacles into opportunities by adopting a healthier, holistic lifestyle.
Discover practical strategies and inspiring stories that will empower you to break free from limitations and cultivate a mindset geared towards growth and positivity.
Tune in for a fun, friendly, and empowering experience that will help you become the best version of yourself.
Manders Mindset
From Couch to Triathlete at 73: Aging Fearlessly with Dorothy Erlanger | 124
Feedback on the show? Send us a message!
In this powerful episode of Manders Mindset, host, Amanda sits down with the remarkable Dorothy Erlanger, an unstoppable force who proves that age is just a number and mindset is everything. At 73, Dorothy completed a triathlon, but her journey began decades earlier with no athletic background, a limb difference, and a life-threatening cancer diagnosis. Her story is a masterclass in resilience, reinvention, and rising above limitations.
From navigating the corporate world as a trailblazing woman to becoming a nationally ranked triathlete, Dorothy shares the mindset shifts that changed her life and how anyone can do the same, regardless of age or starting point. This episode is packed with wisdom, motivation, and practical tools to help listeners step into their power and pursue bold goals.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
• 🧠 How mindset can be your greatest tool for transformation
• 🚫 Why ignoring naysayers can be the key to breakthrough
• ✈️ What it was like to say yes to a major career move in Brazil with no roadmap
• ⚡ The role of calculated risks and how to make tough life decisions
• ♀️ How Dorothy went from a “couch potato” to a national triathlete
• ❤️ The healing power of community, accountability, and movement
• ✅ Why it’s never too late to start and how to take the first step
Timeline Summary:
[2:26] Growing up with a limb difference and learning to adapt early on
[6:14] From med school dreams to a bold pivot into the corporate world
[12:05] Saying yes to an unexpected opportunity in Brazil and silencing the naysayers
[23:18] Surviving cancer and finding healing through triathlon training
[27:30] The crushing disappointment of failing her first Ironman and why she came back stronger
[34:05] The power of community, group support, and coaching in personal transformation
[42:30] Why creating connection (even virtually) is vital to personal and professional growth
[48:03] Advice for anyone considering their first triathlon or big life goal
[52:00] The mindset and nutrition secrets behind endurance
Ready to shift your mindset and transform your life? Subscribe to Manders Mindset for more inspiring conversations that prove you're only one mindset shift away from changing everything.
To Connect with Amanda:
~ linktree.com/thebreathinggoddess
~ Instagram @thebreathinggoddess
Follow & Support the Podcast:
~ Instagram: @MandersMindset
~ Join the Manders Mindset Facebook Community HERE!
Welcome to the Manders Mindset Podcast. Here you'll find both monologue and interviews of entrepreneurs, coaches, healers and a variety of other people when your host, amanda Russo, will discuss her own mindset and perspective and her guest's mindset and perspective on the world around us. Manders and her guests will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to Mando's Mindset, where we explore the power of shifting your mindset to shift your life. I'm here today with Dorothy O'Langer and I am so excited to delve down her journey. She completed a triathlon at 73 years old and I was so fascinated when I heard that and I am so excited to delve down her journey and her story and all of the mindset shifts that she went through to complete that. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me, Of course, so can you tell us who Dorothy is at the core.
Speaker 3:I think at the core I'm an overcomer, I'm a warrior, I'm somebody that will take on a challenge, no matter what, no matter when, and it just relates to many things in my life, and so when I took up my very first very short triathlon after 50, coming from being a basic couch potato it intrigued me and I loved it.
Speaker 2:So you were a basic couch potato. Can we backtrack? Can you take us down memory lane a little bit? Tell us a little bit about upbringing a little bit.
Speaker 3:Tell us a little bit about upbringing. Well, where it really all started is I was born with a limb length difference and I had very little use of my right hand. So from early, from literally from infancy basically I had to kind of figure out my own way of doing things. I used to play basketball with my brothers, Go figure, I just had to learn. When I first started swimming, I literally swam in circles and almost drowned, and so I had to kind of figure that out and nobody could really explain it to me. I just had to figure it out on my own. So I just grew up and that became very natural to me and so as challenges came along, I would just find my own way through it or around it.
Speaker 3:And that applied to career. I mean, I took a challenge where I had a very successful corporate career and I was offered a position in Brazil as an expat executive and there were no women working in the industry and my response was absolutely no-transcript one. And on other major decisions of that sort is, I will always ask myself what's the worst case scenario, and if I can manage that, then set it aside. So if you think about when I left the corporation to go do consulting, which nobody expected me to be able to do anything with. I said, well, what's the worst case scenario? The worst case scenario was, if it didn't work out, in about six months I go back and get a corporate job. That was 30 some years ago. So that's one of the basic questions is to ask yourself that, and if you can live with it it depends on where you are in your life too. Then just don't stop thinking about it. Think about other things and move on.
Speaker 2:I like that. If you can live with it, then move on. And I want to backtrack a tad. You mentioned playing basketball with your brothers. How many brothers did you have? I had two of them. I had two of them brothers.
Speaker 3:And I'm the youngest of four. So I had to fight for my position, so to speak, in the family and I just grew up very independent. And I think the other thing that happened is, unfortunately, my father had a disabling stroke when I was three and died when I was eight. So people weren't particularly focused on me, little Dorothy, they were focused on other issues, and so I kind of did my own thing.
Speaker 2:You were young, I was old, and did that change like even living situation for you, or what did that change for you?
Speaker 3:Really not much. Thankfully, my parents owned their house and my mom, who had not been working, did go back to work, but originally only part-time because I was still in grade school and she was also very independent. Independence runs in women in my family, and adventuresome, my mom had a master's in biochemistry. So when she went back into she went into research and she was able to support the family. But I will say this and this is another curveball, I suppose, but in reality we all were particularly me youngest of four. My mom had already put other kids through college, to the University of Chicago, and what paid for it was my grandfather's Nobel Prize money, which was the most appropriate use of those funds. So that was the only time my mother would touch.
Speaker 2:that was for education, and how was schooling for you.
Speaker 3:I always like a challenge. I ended up going to a six-year day school on scholarship because we really didn't have any money in St Louis, and it was a school that really challenged you. There was none of this. Oh, it's not cool to be smart and that sort of thing and you don't even realize when you're going through it just how much you're picking up in terms of your ability to communicate and reason and so on. As a matter of fact, in my case, my entire high school English class were merit finalists, so that was a bit of an interesting environment. So I went on from that.
Speaker 3:I thought my whole idea is I want to be a doctor. My father was a doctor, my grandfather was a doctor, my uncle was a doctor, so on and so forth, and it wasn't from family pressure. It was that I felt that's what I wanted to do. But as I went through college I thought I'm not 100% sure. Do I really want to get on that up escalator that is medical school and internship and residency, that goes on forever, and so I decided to do something then that people do a lot now and it's basically a gap year. Nobody had heard of it. Then Dorothy figured it out, and so I gave myself a year. I worked in a research environment partly research, partly clinical environment to see what it would be like, and at the end of that year I came up and said I don't think I want to go this direction, but it's all that I had prepared for, and as many people do.
Speaker 3:At that particular time of life, I was living with three roommates in a condo type of a situation, and one of my roommates that I was talking with about it said you know, and I did not want to go back to school, and the other option is go back to school and get a master's degree in something I had no interest whatsoever at the time. And she said you know, if you want to go into something related to industry without a lot of experience, go in through sales. And so that's what I did, and I caught it at a time when they were really just beginning to hire women in professional field, selling for various industries, and it was perfect. I built it from there. I moved from sales into marketing and then into international marketing. I'd always had an interest in that. I already spoke Spanish when I started that, and so I just had a and I traveled a little bit, not a lot, and so I got into the international division and that resulted in the Brazil position. So that was kind of where that came up.
Speaker 2:And how was that? I feel like that's a pretty big transition from, like, doctor, medical, that's a shift. How was that shift for you?
Speaker 3:I didn't really think it through the way I would today in terms of a process and decision making and so on. I just had gotten to the point where I knew that it was not going to be the right thing for me and I needed to do something else. And then it was a matter of asking people and I always say that ask the people around you that you respect and who are going to be what I would call wise advisors not necessarily a mentor, so to speak, but who know more than you know about the area that you're thinking about and then delve into that and reach out and see what you can do. And so I really I had a couple of women who were roommates, who worked in sales, and so that was really my basic source of information. They referred me into a recruiting agency. That agency just happened to have a brand new assignment to find professional women for sales. And I ended up in Minnesota and it was fantastic. It was just great. I'm an adventurer.
Speaker 2:I liked how you mentioned a wise advisor. I've never heard that term, I like that. And you said not a mentor, a wise advisor, and you said not a mentor, a wise advisor?
Speaker 3:Yes, because mentor I mean. People say, oh, find a mentor, but a mentor is on one specific track. What if you decide to diverge from that track? Is that person still going to be the best person for you to go to? Maybe not. So I tend to look at it and say who are the people that I would turn to, who have, instead of finding a mentor to take you all the way through, whatever is to say, who is or who are the best people for me to really understand more about this, to help me make a decision, who can fill in the blanks, so to speak, and that's often not one person you know, even like there's coaches for everything today.
Speaker 3:Precisely, and you don't reach out to a business coach for a personal issue. That's the same. That'd be a great comparison, actually.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's like there's a coach for every aspect of life but you're not going to. There's certain topics like you might touch upon it, but like they're only going to be able to help you with it so much. You know, your personal life might affect fitness, but they are only going to be able to do so much with that.
Speaker 3:Well, and the other thing that I would say and this is really important is ditch the naysayers. And here's I'll give you a perfect example. I made the decision to take that position in Brazil essentially on the spot. I was sitting in Brazil, I finished up a business trip there, I was talking with the general manager and I suddenly realized that he was putting me through a job interview and seriously, it was like a late Friday afternoon, I had a midnight flight back to the States and so on, and he asked me a question. He said I thought I was being very good. I said, well, I'm studying for my MBA in night school and I'm going to go for a finance MBA. Give me an understanding of numbers. What I thought were all the right things. And I saw him sort of sit back and go and I'm like what did I say wrong? And he sat forward and he said what would you do if you were offered a position here now? And in almost a split second I said I'd take it in a heartbeat.
Speaker 3:And then I came back to the States and everyone was saying you can't do that, you shouldn't do it. You're going to be the only woman there. It won't work. You know everyone around me, my business environment. My boss was trying to talk me out of it. I think he didn't want to lose me, the people that weren't my mother, she was all for it. She was waiting to come visit me already and a few other people that I had who were in my environment, and I just had to fundamentally ignore the naysayers and get with the people. Now, it doesn't mean you ignore a negative comment if it's well thought out. Now, it doesn't mean you ignore a negative comment if it's well thought out, but if it's not going to help you, then just drop it. Just don't go there.
Speaker 2:Is there anything that helped you be able to just drop it?
Speaker 3:I had a very strong sense that this was the right thing to do. So I had my own personal very strong feeling that this was the right thing to do. It would have been pretty hard to push me off of that. I think that if I had any doubts, I would have looked for a bit more of a risk-benefit type of an analysis and did I talk with people about taking on a position in Brazil, the only woman in the industry? Sure, I did. Of course I did, but I just didn't let it shake me. I think that's the difference Get a reality sense, but if you are moving towards a shift, get the information, know the downsides, but don't let it shake you if you still feel this is what I need to do.
Speaker 2:Have you always been able to not shake the shift or do what you still wanted to do?
Speaker 3:It varies. I mean it depends on the situation and how certain I am. Sometimes it's very clear, and when it's that clear like it was with that position that was just super obvious for me Back when I was making the decision to move off into industry. I wasn't going to get convinced to go on to medical school. I'd made that decision, but I really had no sense of where I was going to go, and so that one was very shaky for quite a while until I got settled into the actual position that I ended up in, and then I realized it was definitely the right thing to do.
Speaker 2:I gotcha, so how was?
Speaker 3:that it was, oh, it was fantastic. First of all, when I got there, I did not want to end up speaking what is commonly called Porto Añel, which is a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish. So for the first year I refused to speak Spanish at all. I refused to speak it, read it anything, because I knew I would never sort the two out. And I subscribed to the local language newspaper and my maid I would have her serve me dinner on a tray while I watched this program that is for the analfabetos, which is the illiterates. So it was very basic, like watching Sesame Street, but a lot drier. I used to watch that because I would pick up on the languaging and the differences. And then I started watching the soap operas. You want to know a great way to pick up daily language Watch the soap operas or the novellas. So that's what I did, and then I ended up speaking Portuguese perfectly.
Speaker 3:But the other side of it is, you know, I really find and this is true in a lot of instances it really didn't matter that much. I brought in an expertise that they didn't have and that they wanted, and a perspective that they didn't have and that they wanted. They honestly didn't care if I was black, white or green. And the other thing is I was not a threat to anyone in that organization because I wasn't Brazilian, so I was not going to be vying for the next two levels of positions. I think it would have been worse or more difficult or more challenging for a Brazilian woman to move into that position, at least at that time Wouldn't be so much so now. Moment, to move into that position, at least at that time, wouldn't be so much so now. So that was the other side to it is I got the support I needed because I was bringing something they wanted and needed and that I was going to leave. They knew I wasn't moving to Versailles permanently.
Speaker 3:I think those two pieces made it pretty easy, and also my attitude. I mean, I just enjoyed the people. I learned the language, which I think is also a matter of respect for the people with whom you're working, and because they don't speak English, and so I think those factors made it not that difficult as you look at it. Was it challenging? Of course it was. I mean, I would go home in the first couple of months and I would be absolutely blotto, exhausted, from trying to work in a language that I was struggling with in an environment that I was just getting used to, it was, you know, that sense. It was difficult, but you get past that.
Speaker 2:Now, how long were you in Brazil working for? I was there for about three years, and what made you leave three years later?
Speaker 3:Oh, I was offered a position back at the headquarters In back. What had happened was is I had hit the proverbial glass ceiling in that company. I was the highest ranking woman in the company at that point, across divisions, and I wasn't going anywhere. And so about nine months later and the other thing is this, and companies have a very bad habit of this there was zero respect for the experience that I'd gained in Brazil. When I did my interview, they were asking about my sales job in Minnesota. And that's when I knew I had a problem.
Speaker 3:A friend, a colleague of mine, who had worked in the company, had left. She'd moved to Asia with her husband. She'd started a business. She came to me when she came back to the US and this is another one where I made an instant decision and I just knew it was right and she said I really would like to have you. We'd worked together, we had a lot of professional mutual respect and she said I really would love to have you join me and anchor the US end of the business. And I made a decision almost on the spot Because I had to leave. First of all, I wasn't going anywhere and it was very frustrating. I thought that was where I made that decision. If it doesn't work out six months, I go back and find a job.
Speaker 2:I love that mindset, you know, because so many people are afraid to do anything, whether it's launching a business, quitting a job, going wherever because of the what, if. But it's like you can make another choice if it doesn't work out how you want it to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but it also depends on where you are in your life. If I had been a parent with two kids in school, would I have done that? No, it would not have been a smart decision because it was risky, but the only person I was putting at risk was me. So there are times for decisions and there are times to not do things. You always have to assess where you are in your life, what your responsibilities are all of those things before you go jump off the cliff.
Speaker 2:I get that. I get that 100%. I like how you mentioned. It was only a few months back. I went to Bali actually and yeah, it was insane, and I received an opportunity to go on this retreat last minute for free and my job wasn't going to let me go. So I quit the job to be able to go to Bali. Yes, there you go. But you know, the thing is, I'm young, I'm single, I don't have any kids and that was another factor I was able to financially afford the plane ticket and I'm like you know, 10 years from now, even if this were to happen, I might not be in a circumstance where I can actually go to Bali for 10 days. That's right scenario. Like I have a college degree. I'm not stupid, it is what it is. Now is the time for me to do this. I've got nobody that's counting on me. I'll make another decision if it doesn't work.
Speaker 3:Exactly, exactly so you have. You do have to look at where you are in your life and your family and other responsibilities. You can't just always go swanning off into the blue on something like this and you may be able to do it at another time or do something else that also represents an opportunity for you. But that's where each person has to assess the risk level and also your own risk tolerance. Some people would look at what I did and go are you crazy or what? But that wasn't. That's not who I am and it's not that I do crazy risks, but I do calculated risks, I guess be the way I would put it.
Speaker 2:With tolerance. That's interesting. I've never heard that term, but it makes sense. You know cause? Some people said the same to me. I could never quit a job and leave the country and I'm like I don't have anybody relying on me. Now is the time for me to do this in my late 20s. But some people's level of the risk tolerance they wouldn't take it.
Speaker 3:They couldn't even manage traveling alone in many cases because they were brought up in a very protected, nurtured, yes, but protected environment and I would say almost a fear-generating environment. Watch out for that. Watch out for that. You know. I think some of it's innate as well, so it's just a matter of each person has their own thing. And then people say, oh, I love what you've done. Well, I made a lot of choices that other people wouldn't have made along the way.
Speaker 3:So and I will say that when I did go off into consulting, I was already at that time dating the person who eventually became my husband Not much later, and he was very supportive. He was my biggest cheerleader, as a matter of fact, and later on he became my Sherpa in triathlon, and I'll tell you what that is. It's certainly not a derogatory term. When you're doing triathlons, there's a lot of stuff to organize and there's travel to organize, and you've got gear and you've got this and that, and it's always wonderful to have someone who's there, who's not nervous about a race and worried about where they're going and losing their brain a little bit on stuff, and we call them our Sherpas, and if you have a good Sherpa, it's a blessed thing. Through much of my triathlon career, bob was my Sherpa.
Speaker 2:I love that. Now, speaking of your triathlons you mentioned you went from being a couch potato to doing the triathlon, so were you not very active as a kid other than like playing basketball?
Speaker 3:of my interest in athletics when I was in college at the University of Chicago, they actually did have a physical education requirement and one quarter we run a quarter system I satisfied my PE requirement by taking billiards. Now I'm super active. So, yeah, I was active. My family always went hiking on vacations and stuff like that, but I was never into athletics and I had really become. I wasn't fat and sloppy, but I was inactive. I was one of your classic January. This year I'm going to get in shape 15 days later. Bye-bye people for years.
Speaker 3:But what happened is I went through ovarian cancer which was diagnosed when I was in my late 40s. I was advanced ovarian cancer, which is tends to be a killer, and when I finished up my treatment I found that I was very depressed. Up my treatment I found that I was very depressed, very low. I could not get back into anything. I was tired, partly because of the carry forward from six months of chemo, but I was just depressed and I unfortunately I didn't realize, but that is for those of you who are going through or have gone through chemo. That is often an impact that happens when you finish up treatment because all of a sudden you're not doing anything about it anymore. You're just sitting there waiting to see if the counts go back up.
Speaker 3:So and I saw an item in our local newspaper about a little mini triathlon where they're going to do training for the 50s crowd, 50s and up, and I looked down I thought I can swim 300 yards with some practice, a pool swim. I have a bike I had in college hanging in the rafters, right literally, and I can maybe walk a 5K. And I thought maybe if I gave myself a goal to work towards, that would help me and with a group that it would help me to bring myself out of that. It did in a very big way. I got hooked on it. I never told anybody in that group that I had been through cancer, because at that time I wasn't talking to anybody except for family and extraordinarily close friends, because they would have looked at me and said, oh, you're going to be dead in six months. I mean, they wouldn't have said it, but that would have been what their thinking was and I certainly didn't tell clients. And so I went through this training and I got hooked on, first of all, having a goal to work towards and starting to feel better. But the thing that I think that really poked me in, that still does to today, is that the community around triathlon is fabulous, wonderful people, I don't care if you're first, last or in the middle, it's a supportive group, it's a fun group. You might be training with somebody who's a lot faster than you are. They're still there to support you, and so on. And so it was the community around it that really got me hooked and the goal so I went on from that one little short triathlon to I think I've done about 40 at this point, up to and actually including an Ironman, although the first time I tried doing an Ironman I failed. That was devastating. I missed the trim cutoff by one minute and they stripped the timing chip and sent me to the recovery tent.
Speaker 3:Frankly, I swore I'd never do an Ironman again and I didn't for about three years. And then I was sitting down with my coach doing some planning for an upcoming season. He says you know, dorothy, for most people I wouldn't even recommend going long like doing an Ironman. But he said for you it's like a piece of unfinished business. And so I said to him I said can you train me so that I can finish and finish in the time he said absolutely. He said, first, you were overtrained, second, you didn't have proper swim coaching. And he said you do what I say and nothing more, nothing less.
Speaker 3:And I did an Ironman and I beat the swim cutoff by 30 minutes and I'm not a fast swimmer, but I learned much more efficient swimming. So that was the story and then I got away from it. I was doing a lot of caregiving with my husband and I just didn't. I got away from almost everything. I did a little bit. So that's why, when I did the triathlete nationals back in September, I really only had four months of training to get back into it and you have to take it slow. You can't just jump back into it. Because my coach's absolute top rule is don't get hurt, and he's right, because get hurt it's going to knock you out of the game. And so it was almost frustrating to me because it was like I think I can do more. He's like don't. So I got into the Nationals and I finished. And here's a piece of news that I didn't know when, actually, even when we set this up I have qualified for and will be on Team USA for an international race in Australia this year.
Speaker 2:That's so exciting. It is.
Speaker 3:And now I'm really training. Now I'm getting into stuff where I'm like, oh, I'm sore, so and I'm continuing to work with that same coach. By the way, that's another thing, and we talked about coaching earlier. Find a coach, find the right coach, and that's so, so important. So in this case, I asked around with my I was out for with a whole bunch of friends Some were runners and triathletes and non-athletes and so I said I need to find a coach who can work well with an older athlete. It's a very different story and you can work with someone who has been off of training for an extended period of time. So we chit-chat around the table and suddenly somebody came up with the name and they said that's who you need to be with. So that was, and he's local, and I wanted somebody local. I didn't want to do strictly online stuff, and then you were.
Speaker 2:So you did this three years later after the last time.
Speaker 3:I was almost 10 years out of it. Maybe an event a year, a short event a year, not even most years for almost 10 years. And when I qualified for nationals because I did a short triathlon here in Richmond and partly because there weren't a lot of people in my age group I podiumed, I was there, that's the thing. And so I got the offer for nationals and I looked and I thought you know what? I think I would like to take this on. I think I'm ready to go back to it. I think I'm now ready to take this back on, and that's when I got back into it in a serious way.
Speaker 2:And now, how old were you when you did your first one?
Speaker 3:I was 51 when I did my first one. Yeah, my very first one. I did the Nationals in September at 73. Nationals in September at 73. You can take on a goal late, you can do it, you just have to take it 100 yards at a time. And that is the fundamental message that I get across when I speak to groups. And it sticks, people really come back.
Speaker 2:I've had people come back to me years after a keynote and they can still cite specific phrases I used, which is great. Wow, now I'm curious did your arm affect how you were able to do the triathlons? Oh yeah, like, probably swimming.
Speaker 3:Swimming, yes, when I first started doing well. Well, for one thing, I have a bike that is very highly customized to me, because normally your main brake is on the right. I don't have grip on the right, so the brakes are swapped, the gears are swapped, the we call it cockpit meaning where the arrow bars are is all adjusted for me so that it fits. But, but the biggest challenge was open water swimming Because, let's face it, in a pool all you're doing is following a line down the pool. Right, even that was a challenge.
Speaker 3:When I was a little kid, I say I learned by head wax, because nobody could explain to me what to do. So I would veer and go wet. Then I would veer and go wet. Eventually I figured out how not to do that. But that does not help you when you get into open water because there's no line on the bottom of the pool to follow. So when I first started doing open water swimming, I tell people it was like sine curves. So it took a lot of work. It took a lot of work to adjust that and it's not absolutely perfect, but it's pretty darn good.
Speaker 3:And I'm not even sure I do a lot of sighting, a lot more than most swimmers do, because when you're swimming in a triathlon in open water, you kind of put your head up and look at where the next buoy is. Now, if I'm naturally a straight swimmer, I might do that occasionally. Might do that occasionally, but for me I do it frequently so that if I do need to make any adjustments I can do it quickly before I go with a heck off course, which has been known to happen. But I just don't want to be swimming a lot of extra distance, I'll put it that way. So the swimming on triathlon particularly after I got it, because the original one I did was a pool swim was a big challenge. It was a big step up for me and it just took work and practice.
Speaker 2:Was there anything that helped you persevere and push through?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I took it. I didn't try to do really long stuff at first. I mean, the first couple of triathlons that I did that were in a lake. For instance, I did a sprint triathlon, I did a really short one. Swim is 400 yards If you're off or sight that tree or something like that. It was just a lot of work, a lot of practice. Of course now there's a cheat sheet, so to speak. I don't have it yet, but just this past year they've come out with swim goggles that will give you your direction what degree you're on just in the last 12 months, and they are expensive. It might be worth it.
Speaker 3:I did a lot of lake swimming last summer and I got pretty darn good. I have a friend who lives out on Lake Outon County. Next year I would go out there every Saturday and do a good long swim and it was fun and the friends were there and his wife did a brunch for us after each one. You see there's a lot of social stuff to this too, and so, to get back into it, I did a lot of that last summer since you weren't very active previously.
Speaker 2:Who did this interest come from? Did you have interest in being active and you just weren't?
Speaker 3:In growing up, although I wasn't particularly enamored of school sports. I mean, my family always went on camping and hiking vacations, so I did that, and even after college I did some backpacking and so on. So obviously that was there. It was just what we call it dormant. You know, life got in the way, careers got in the way, and so it was a matter of having an event and a group that got me to restart. And then it was the. It just felt good. It just felt good to be back in shape. And I will tell you, even in the last six, eight months and I was not having a difficulty with balance or anything like that but I will tell you, I am a lot steadier on my feet now than I was eight months ago. My strength and balance, without doing a huge amount of work on it, my strength and balance, without doing a huge amount of work on it, my strength and balance are significantly better than they were. Just from that little stepwise stuff that I've been doing. It makes a very big difference.
Speaker 2:Now you mentioned the event and the group helped you. You think that factor of those two things helped you Because, before you mentioned, you were always going to get in shape the start of the new year but having, like this actual specific event that you're doing it for and this community per se.
Speaker 3:Man, all the difference in the world. That's night and day difference. I'll tell you it truly is, because having it's like I have a couple of groups mastermind groups and accountability groups that I work with makes all the difference in the world. It's the show up factor and nobody's pressuring you except yourself. But you know you'll be missed and you also know that cumulatively it's going to hold you back. But it really is. It's the factor, it's the community, more than anything else.
Speaker 3:It was getting back into a group situation, even though I do most of my workouts on my own, but even so I'm back into a group situation. I've even now signed up to do an indoor track winter team because it's a group, it's a community. Indoor track with her team, because it's a group, it's a community, it's an encouragement, no matter what you're doing. And so I think that for anybody you know, whether it's one accountability partner or a small group, you're going to get out and walk twice a week. That's progress. That's progress, and don't put yourself down.
Speaker 3:If it's only walk around the block, that's still progress. Getting out the door is progress. So that made all the difference in the world for me to get with a group and to build that community and feel a part of something that wasn't strictly work. That wasn't strictly work. Yes, I think many of us tend to get isolated into only our work communities and maybe church or whatever. But to have a community that is based around activity, whether it's walking or hiking or running or triathlon or whatever, just is such a difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's almost like a different energy with the people, without a question.
Speaker 3:It's almost like a different energy with the people, Without a question. It's a completely different energy when you show up and there are other folks around and you know, for instance, this track team I'm working with. I'm not a sprinter and everyone on that team is faster than me at a sprint. Now, could they keep up with me on a triathlon? Probably not, but that's not their objective. But they're still there cheering me on when I finish a sprint on the practice, and very sincerely. So that's what I mean by that.
Speaker 2:It makes so much sense. You know, like the community, even if you've got the new goal, like people even say, telling somebody not necessarily telling everybody, but even telling that one person to hold you accountable, to check in with, to have that yeah.
Speaker 3:And the same thing is I don't care what the goal is. It doesn't have to be a physical goal. I, for instance, have a colleague that I've done a Monday. What are we doing this week? Friday check in and celebrate for probably going on four years, and it's a great setup. We get on a phone on Monday morning and we chit chat, we talk about personal stuff and so on. We know each other's lives very well at this point. She doesn't live here, where it's on Zoom, and then we get back together on Friday and say, okay, what'd you get accomplished? And sometimes it's like I didn't get anything on my list, but I did this other thing and that's okay.
Speaker 2:But we literally have a I call it bookending the week check-in.
Speaker 3:I love that. Yeah, and that's basically that's work-related, so that's a different sort of thing. It's been the best, absolutely the best.
Speaker 2:I think that's so, so powerful. You know, post-COVID a lot of community got a little funky, so I think that is amazing. It's forming that community in any aspect.
Speaker 3:Yes, well, in a funny way and I will say this about the whole COVID thing I was in a mastermind group today. That was just really very powerful discussions with a group of people on mission-related things. I have physically met probably only two of the people, maybe three of the people that were in the group today, because it doesn't matter, but we share goals. Because it doesn't matter, but we share goals. We're speakers, we're coaches primarily speakers and authors and consultants and, at a level where it's powerful, women, and that's part of what this is about.
Speaker 3:So, in a funny way, would I have had that had it not been that we got shoved into it with COVID?
Speaker 3:I don't know, I don't think so.
Speaker 3:So my networks of who, the people that I reach out to and rely on now are many, are not even in the United States, so in one sense, it closed us down.
Speaker 3:But if you have established some strong professional relationships or even personal, but these are primarily professional groups that have common interests and common goals in the sense of wanting to grow or direction whatever, as this pretty diverse group, then Zoom is your friend. And, of course, during COVID I ended up and I'm very highly professional at doing online production for Zoom. I've done events, everything from very high stakes events up to a TEDx and with doing the background production and paid production for that, and there's not as much need for that level because most big events now will be in person, whereas for a while there they weren't, and that took a lot of skill to manage the back of the house, so to speak, which I have and just sort of build it out of just figuring it out, speaking of that approach, I love that, though you know, covid, it did allow us to spread and connect with people internationally a lot more, and I think a lot of people became more open to that.
Speaker 2:I love everything you mentioned about community. I think it's so powerful we can either tap into it or we cannot tap into it, but it makes a difference in every aspect. Whether it's so powerful, we can either tap into it or we cannot tap into it, but it makes a difference in every aspect, whether it's physical, professional, personal. We're not meant to be secluded beings. I heard somewhere humans are meant to interact with other humans.
Speaker 3:Yes, and we all need that personal in-person and that's where my local training and my local and certain professionals that I see here. But that creates an in-person. Well, for instance, I did a first day 5K on January 1st and I saw all kinds of people that I know. I saw people I know from triathlon. I saw people I swam with at the lake. I saw a coach I used to work with and his whole family at the lake. I saw a coach I used to work with and his whole family, and so it was just fun to get back and see people, see those people that I typically wouldn't see in one place anyway, but it just brings back friendships and fun and so on, and you need that too.
Speaker 2:It's so true. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me. I loved this. Have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty? Yeah, so he has a podcast called On Purpose and he ends his podcast with two segments, and I end my podcast with those as well. First segment is called the Many Sides to Us. There's five questions, and they need to be answered in one word each. Oh, what is one word someone who was meeting you for the first time would use to describe you as?
Speaker 2:warrior what is one word that someone who knows you extremely well would use to describe you as Resilience? What is one word?
Speaker 3:you'd use to describe yourself.
Speaker 2:Overcomer. What is one word that, if someone didn't like you or agree with your mindset, would you use to describe you as?
Speaker 3:Pushy.
Speaker 2:What is one word you're trying to embody right now? Ity. What is one word you're trying to embody right now?
Speaker 3:It's not really one word, but belief in myself.
Speaker 2:Then the next segment is the final five, and these can be answered in up to a sentence what is the best advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 3:Make your own path. Don't wait and follow somebody else's path.
Speaker 2:Why is that the best advice?
Speaker 3:Because I would be totally constrained if I was constantly trying to follow what other people have done. It would not be me.
Speaker 2:What is the worst advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 3:Worst advice I've ever received is it's an interesting one with triathlons don't try to do that, you won't be successful, and unfortunately, the best answer I have to that is something I used to have on an identity wristband, which these days, of course, you've got digital. It says and this is my response is don't tell me I can't. My son and daughter-in-law heard that phrase. They just cracked up because they said that is so you.
Speaker 2:I love that. Don't tell me I can't. That's amazing. What is something that you used to value that you no longer value?
Speaker 3:I'm going to say travel, oddly enough, the reason being I've been in 45 countries. I've been, you know, I've lived overseas. I don't, I mean, would I go and potentially live somewhere else? I might, but do I need to go to this location and that location, some other location? Nope, been there, done that.
Speaker 2:If you could describe what you would want your legacy to be, as if someone was reading it, what would you want it to say?
Speaker 3:you want it to say. Dorothy totally inspired and motivated me to take on and achieve a goal that I didn't think I could do and that I was afraid of.
Speaker 2:If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be? And I want to know why.
Speaker 3:One law for me would be that and this is going to sound a little, may sound a little bit odd, but would be everyone needs to have the opportunity to make their own personal choices throughout their lives, not constrained by others and certainly not regulated. And why would that be the law? And I'm thinking partly on education. Education, in particular education for women, is just so unevenly spread and it makes such a difference. It frees people up, it frees their minds, it helps them and their families, and even beyond that, when they become adults, if they like I didn't marry until late Thankfully I was in a family where I didn't get pushed about it. Didn't marry until late Thankfully I was in a family where I didn't get pushed about it. A lot of people that wouldn't be the case. So people's time for their decisions needs to be their own, not pushed or controlled by somebody else, and I think there are way too many situations where it's the other way.
Speaker 2:That is so true. Now I have a personal question what suggestions, if any, do you have for somebody who's looking to do their first triathlon?
Speaker 3:Find a group, do something short, don't take on too much and don't worry about your time. Just figure out. Figure that you're going to finish. Just figure out that you can do enough to finish. When I went back into triathlon I literally said and that actually this is when I qualified for nationals. I had not been doing any running whatsoever and part of that I knew the location of the triathlon because I'd done other stuff there. It was a short triathlon, it was a down river swim. I figured I can float if I can't get there any other way. And I knew the bike course and it was pretty flat. Find a flat bike course and be ready to walk if you need to. It's only a 5K. You don't get punished for walking. Just be kind to yourself. Find a group and have fun, but do train some because otherwise you have the potential to get hurt. And what I would say is go find a beginner, even if it's online. Go find a beginner triathlon program. There's plenty of them online that will walk you through. What do you need to get done in order to complete your first sprint triathlon and follow it? Get done in order to complete your first sprint triathlon and follow it. And the other thing. Is this about that? About the triathlon thing?
Speaker 3:Some people will say, well, I can't swim, that's fine, put together a team. You can do a team triathlon One person swims, one person bikes, one person runs. And we have one particular situation here in Richmond where there's a particular triathlon where they do it three generations Grandpa swims, the daughter bikes, the grandson runs. It's great family stuff. So you don't have to be good, you don't even have to do all three. There's lots of different variations that you can do. You can do a swim bike. They call it an aqua bike. You can, because a lot of people, if you've got bad, you can say, oh, I got bad knees I say do an aqua bike, don't run. So quit the excuses, find something you can do and go for it.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that. One of my best friends. I had never even heard of triathlons before. I only do any of the things, but one of my best friends that I met this past year actually is really into them and he's an endurance coach and yeah, he's all about that and I've learned so much. It's so fascinating. You know there's so many things that you can do. You know people are like I can't do it because of this, I can't do it because of that. You know he's like 55 years old, he still does all these and it's like no, you can do it. You know, like I can't do it because of this, and like even the bad niece. I've heard people like even people look at me and they're like you're young. I've got friends like 30 years old that are like oh, I can't do that because I'm like bro, you're 30 years old. My best friend is like 55, running an eye on me and what's your excuse?
Speaker 3:like stop making excuses the only thing I'll say about triathlon is this it's really not about sports, it's about what's going on between your ears, because you can get out there, and if you don't have proper nutrition, it's not so true on a sprint triathlon, but you can really crash out if you don't have the psychology of it. I'm going to do this, I'm going to finish it, I'm prepared for this, and then you get out there and the doubts start, of course, but you have to be. So it's what's going on between your ears and the nutrition you put in your body. That can make a huge difference. I don't care how well trained you are, you can still completely mess up in a triathlon Perfect swimming, perfect biking, perfect running but you don't have the psychology to get there.
Speaker 3:I have a really good friend here who is a way better swimmer than I am. He's a good biker and good runner and he is consistently DNFing. Do not finish on triathlons when he does events and it's because his head isn't in it, and if you can't fix that, I don't care what you've done with the other stuff. So that's kind of the final thing. It's what's going on between your ears and in a longer triathlon, it's what you do for nutrition.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much. I loved this.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thank you, and I will look forward to seeing the recording so I can break it up and give you kudos for your podcast.
Speaker 2:I like to leave it back to the guest. Any final words you want to leave the listeners with?
Speaker 3:Well, I guess my final words would be if I really do love getting this message across to groups, so if you whether it's your association or organization or company we can have some real fun. Just bring me in and get people excited and have fun and laugh and also walk away with a message that they can use.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Thank you so much. And where's the best place for listeners to connect with you?
Speaker 3:They can connect with me on LinkedIn, which is Dorothy Erlanger. They can connect with me on Facebook or Instagram. Instagram is derlanger and Facebook is Dorothy Erlanger. I'm also up on YouTube, so I will get you the correct links for that If they want to. I have a 10-step guide to victory giveaway for folks. That's very concise. That really walks you through a lot of the things we talked about, and I would love to offer that to your listeners, so I will send you the correct link to put in.
Speaker 2:Awesome, and I will link all of that in the show notes for you guys to click directly. But thank you so much, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3:I appreciate talking with you.
Speaker 2:It's fun and thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Mander's Mindset. In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you, I'm booting for you and you got this, as always. If you enjoyed the show, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five-star rating, leave a review and share it with anyone you think would benefit from this. And don't forget you are only one mindset. Shift away from shifting your life. Thanks guys, until next time.
