0:05

Welcome home, friends. I'm Tonya Long, and this is Reset, where purpose meets possibility. Each week, we share conversations with thought leaders, innovators, and the dreamers and doers who are reshaping the future of work, technology, longevity, and purpose. Whether you're navigating AI's impact, reimagining your career, or searching for deeper meaning, you're in the right place. So settle in. Open your mind and let's explore what happens when purpose meets possibility.

Tonya: 0:46

Hello everyone. And welcome to RESET, where purpose meets possibility. I am absolutely excited and thrilled and a little nostalgic, to welcome Russ Elliot to our community and to our podcast. Russ and I worked very closely together for several years, many years ago, and I love that Russ is one of those people that I still have in my life and have watched him lead transformation and then I've watched him experience transformation. So I'm really excited that he decided to join us. Russ is a systems engineer, as a mindset, so what happens when a systems engineer applies his analytical gifts to engineering the perfect retirement? Russ, we'll talk about whether or not that word resonates for you because you stay so busy, coaching and mentoring others. You had a lifelong career leading technical programs at brands like IBM and Lockheed Martin, and Akamai, where you and I met. You've also had this extraordinary journey where you traded in your product roadmaps for Ironman competitions. And as you've been on this ride, post corporate, you've discovered new pathways to purpose. So, welcome. Thank you for joining. I'm sure I didn't do you justice. What else would you like people to know about you as we get started?

Russ: 2:22

Oh, well, thanks for the introduction. It was very good introduction. Underneath my skin, you'll find IBM and system engineering. Most of the time in my career, I was in various management roles. And this led me in late 2010 to take an eight week hiatus away from Lockheed Martin and go to Harvard Business School and pursue a piece of the MBA I never got. And that's really what led to my ultimate departure from Lockheed Martin, where I took a package. And instead of stepping into retirement then, I took the opportunity to come back to Boston and worked with a small Israeli company who I knew and was involved in setting up their U.S. headquarters and in mergers and acquisitions. I did that for three years and I had a very good time with that. I spent a lot of time going back and forth to Israel, trying to relearn Hebrew, made a lot of new friends both sides of the ocean. And started to make some friends in the greater Boston area, which was new for my wife and me. A few years into that we had a thing called sequestration, people in Defense business will remember that. And defense budgets got cut and Plasan decided to move out of the business that we stood up here. And I took a break and it was an important break because it was the first time I ever looked for a job since graduating high school. And I learned how to network. I was taught professionally how to network. And like many people, hadn't done it before. Dreaded every bit of it, but it brought me to Akamai. And Akamai was a completely new adventure for me because it was not a Defense job and, after 35+ years in Defense, to step into Internet was a wild departure. And I stepped away from one of the biggest companies of the world to a company that was about 2,700 people. Big transformation there as well, where the rules were being written as we went along. We were standing up new capabilities, new functions, new ways of doing things as that company grew from 2,700 to about 9,000. I'd say the start of the transformation started in 2016 when in a routine visit to the doctor, they were unhappy with my blood pressure and threatened me with going on pills, which I didn't want to do. That led me into an exercise program that I'd never done before, and that's where I discovered Peloton. Peloton was both a local community and a national community of people who were like-minded. And again, I got in at the beginning, there were only a couple hundred people using Peloton when I got involved, and we watched that grow to the million plus people that work with Peloton day in, day out as part of their ritual. And I was very fortunate. The guy in the office next to me had a Peloton, had sung its praises. I didn't want to do the blood pressure medicine, so it was a matter of what was I going to do to get my life in store – and it was getting on the Peloton. When we started using Peloton back then, there were just classes that were broadcast and classes that were on-demand, and it was really up to each individual person to try to figure out what to do day after day to get the best of it. I think I discovered two things there that that were very fundamental. The first thing I discovered was the importance of a particular kind of testing called metabolic testing, which helps set up something called zones. And zones are things you could exercise in, and by exercising in different zones, you could get different results. And if I fast forward to today, and maybe we'll talk about how that all came about, I find myself leading a government contract where we're building a portable metabolic analyzer. And it really all goes back to when things started with Peloton and when things started with another little system called Whoop and both in the world of metabolic analysis. At Whoop, I was asked to stand up some Facebook groups, and that allowed me to start building community, community in a way that was very, very different from corporate life.

Tonya: 7:11

I remember when you started your Peloton journey. At the time, I was the "mayor" of the local OrangeTheory and your reflection to me was, "Wow! Now I get it. Now I get why you're so obsessed." Because you were becoming, engaged in a community around physical fitness, which would not have been something you would have actively probably chosen. The community kept you committed in my opinion. And then as you've mentioned, led to so many other things. I remember also that analytics has always been an important piece for you. I remember being in Cambridge one week and you were giving me the lowdown on VO2 max testing I didn't want to go that far, but you, I think you used the tracking of metrics to turn your physical conditioning clearly around. But then it also changed your mental conditioning, your mental outlook, on things we know exercise produces – all those good brain chemicals that put us in a better frame of reference. How did you maintain your journey where you put so much around measurement and numbers, and still keep the "human" on the bike?

Russ: 8:30

I think when one advances through corporate life, business life, different jobs, many of us get ingrained with the idea of aiming towards goals and doing Peloton classes that were 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour, 90 minutes was one thing. But where could this ultimately lead? What would a good goal be besides trying to peel off some weight, trying to get the blood pressure down, and trying to get fit enough so these classes were more enjoyable. Peloton blends good instructors, good music, an amazing machine, the ability to ride live with people all around the country, at the time, now it's all around the world, and also do that on-demand. So do that live and on demand. It was very exciting, but where could this lead? And one of my good Lockheed Martin friends was a very avid cyclist. And I said "What should I set as a goal, that I should aim for with this?" And I said the instructors occasionally talk about this ride out to Montauk Point from New York City, and it's about 100 miles. Should I try and ride this thing – 100 miles? And he said, well, you could try that– and I said, well, how do you do that? And that set on a path to do 25, then do 50, then do 75, and then do 100. And by the summer of 2017, I did manage to ride the thing 100 miles. And I did it with some recorded classes and I ended in a live class and it was all very carefully planned, and I got through it and I did it. And then it was a matter of what would the next goal be. And the metrics were important, because they allowed these goals to be attained. It just couldn't have been done without it. And that's before I discovered the importance of nutrition and fueling, sort of just grunted out with a banana here and there. Get through it, five and a half hours later, five hours and 15 minutes later, it

Tonya: 10:39

was done. But now you've systematized it and continue to refine your system. So I want to bring a little visual from our past. Do you remember this? Oh, definitely. You gave me this book, gosh, it's been almost 10 years ago as I think about timing. The Phoenix Project is all about systems thinking, planning, and organizational alignment, which is what you and I spent our lifetimes doing, career wise. This was such an important book for you at the time and I wanted you to know I still have it. I think it is part of who we are in terms of designing systems around our professional endeavors, our leadership endeavors, and our personal lives, when we're trying to meet a goal or invest our time... and objectives that are working for us. So The Phoenix Project is about systems thinking. How did that and your engineering background help you meet life's unexpected turns? Like when you pivoted with your physical conditioning and training? Like your change from corporate to consulting? How did systems thinking help you move toward success?

Russ: 12:01

It was pretty simple. As I moved past the 100-mile ride, we got into COVID. And just prior to COVID, the personal trainer I was working with suggested"you ought to think about riding outdoors" and pushed pretty hard. We were never going to ride outdoors, but COVID let us ride outdoors with an amount of freedom that we couldn't before.

Tonya: 12:30

And

Russ: 12:32

the systematizing of moving from the indoor bike to the outdoor bike. Where the indoor bike was classes, guidelines, numbers – how could we transform that to an outdoor experience where you're dealing with weather, incline, turns, traffic, and things like that as well. And it was pretty simple. We just made sure the bike had all the same numbers. And we kept track of the same numbers while riding outdoors as indoors, and then started to apply that into these half-Ironman relays so that there would continue to be goals, and continue to be training objectives, to keep everything moving. And it was sort of also about that time that I got asked to get involved performing metabolic tests on other people. And now I had the task of having to interact with new people who would come to the home, they'd either go on the bike or the treadmill, I'd attach some equipment to them, walk them through what I expected of them. And I'd have to coach them through this test, very hard test, that takes about a half-hour. And be able to explain to them at the end, with numbers, with graphs, exactly what it meant and then what they should think about doing going forward to get the most out of their exercise program. And I think that was a pretty important aspect of me getting ready to break out of corporate, because I would do this in spare time and on weekends. The people got a lot out of it. I got a lot of thank you notes, and the company I was helping out by doing the testing really embraced me for the amount of effort I put into doing the work with these athletes. So there's systems thinking in there, I hope you hear it. I haven't tried to make it technical.

Tonya: 14:43

There is. And there's, there's a thread of you always associating with excellence. IBM, Lockheed Martin, Akamai – all excellent companies to do big, important global-scale things. And then, what you just described, bringing you into "physical" excellence, working with athletes on what I want to call elite-level testing. You weren't an elite level athlete when you started this, you were just a man approaching his 60s and wanting different conditions in your life to be better - sleep, those kinds of things. I don't think you would have forecasted where you've come to in your journey with exercise, and certainly, the community that it has given you. But the truth is, you've built it by bringing all these elements into your life that are different. What do you think was the key to understanding and executing on building those communities?

Russ: 15:50

It was finding common purpose.

Tonya: 15:53

It

Russ: 15:54

was largely finding common purpose and initially that came from working with another group of people that ride bikes, from the personal trainer, who are also doing these half-Ironmans. And then drawing other people in that I knew who rode bikes and setting up a bit of our own group and then participating with other bigger groups of people who were much further along than we were back then. And then it involved meeting some of these people at these events, whether they were the half-Ironman events or there's another set of events we do, called Team Cappy. And the common thread there was people who also rode Peloton. Going away from just meeting people, say, in the studio or on the screen, but in real life on outdoor bikes doing events, that was a transformation. I mean, the first one we did was down in Greenville, South Carolina, where there were 55-60 of us, all who came out of the Peloton community and were now also riding outside. It was pretty cool.

Tonya: 17:03

I remember one of your first trips to New York, you live in the Boston area and you made a pilgrimage to New York and have done it many, many times since. Lots of times. But the first time we do things is often a memorable milestone, and I look back and it was your commitment to your community, the enthusiasm, and then the value that you gave others in taking what had been your "professional" acumen, but applying it to this new phase of your career. Let's talk about that transformation and transition between your corporate career and this new personal life that you've embraced. We were talking about systems thinking and changes in life. Russ, coming out of a corporate environment (which many of us have done in the last couple of years) is not easy because we are ingrained with 30 years or more of patterns. What was the biggest challenge that you faced when you started, when you made the choice and decided to transition from corporate environments into more privatized consulting and mentoring work? What was the biggest challenge you faced with the transition?

Russ: 18:26

After I left Akamai, I spent the summer riding the bike outdoors and found a gap. There was, there's really no business. There was some VO2 max testing, but not a lot, there was no business and I had a very good friend locally who I do ride bikes with. We met for coffee one day and Jerry said a lot about the things that were going on in his small company. Jerry has a very small company and I said, "Jerry, you sound very busy. Do you need a little bit of help?" And Jerry had an idea for a new startup and he said, "do you want to get involved in this?" and I said, "Yeah, okay, let's try it." For about nine months, Jerry and I started to build up this new part of his little company and I had never worked in a startup. It was he, two other guys, and me trying to make this thing go, and I found it extremely frustrating because there was very little structure. There was no funding. The customer demand was up and down. It was based on some government work that had been done before and I remember, nine months later, sitting at coffee with Jerry saying, "Jerry, I'm going to pull the plug on this. This is not for me. I'm not going to do it. I wish you luck." That business is successful today. It did take off, and maybe if I'd been patient for a while longer, I would have been part of it. It wasn't my thing anyway. It was a good thing to do for nine months, but I wanted to step away again, retire again, and focus more on training for the bike season and see what that would bring. I found that little startup activity a bit frustrating. And because it was so "Startup", it was different than working with Whoop, with the metabolic analyzer, which both of them are established. They had some client base, there was a large user base. This other thing was just much too small, much too small.

Tonya: 20:45

It's hard. I learned a lot.

Russ: 20:47

I learned a lot, applied a lot of what I learned at HBS, met some neat new people – but it just wasn't for me.

Tonya: 20:57

Do you feel like in, in moving from more corporate level roles to more consulting roles, small startups, companies like Whoop - did you have to redefine success? You're very goal-oriented, you're very measurement driven. So did you have to change what success means for you?

Russ: 21:26

I don't think I was able to do that. I remember when we put the business plan together for that startup - there were goals, there were measurements. There were times when we had to stop one thing and start another. It lacked the level of organization and regularity that I knew could work. It was just foreign to the other people doing that. And I, as much as I enjoyed being part of it, the frustration outweighed it a little bit. Like the commute to Boston finally was enough to call it quits with Akamai a few years before. And I wasn't getting any younger so I just wanted to do things where I could add value, where the things I had learned could be applied in a good way and make a difference. And I guess I was very lucky because it was only a few months later when an old Lockheed Martin friend reached out to me and talked to me about something they needed that he was asked to propose. The solution wound up being a group of retired Lockheed Martin people. I was really lucky when they said, "Hey, would you take the lead of that thing?" And for two and a half years, I probably had the best assignment of my life, and it's 15 hours a week, big corporate environment, being asked to solve problems nobody else wanted to solve, with a group of people that – similarly-minded, similarly-aged, all retired – where the work we did was respected, valued. We met lots of new people. It was in an entirely new part of the company for all of us that worked there, and it was a fabulous time, just absolutely fabulous. And it allowed us at home to do what we wanted, and allowed us to do at work what was needed, on a schedule that was really really good for us, too.

Tonya: 23:40

I remember that project, and without saying too much about it, what I would reflect on is that you pulled together a community because these were people who had previously worked together. You were known quantities for each other and you leveraged relationships to basically, in my words, to execute on your highest purpose and calling, from a corporate perspective. And that's what made it so beautiful, was because you were able to structure it. Other people who are listening might think, "15 hours? What can you get done in 15 hours?" I would suggest, when we only have 15 hours we focus on the things that matter most and what we're supposed to be doing, not all the other things that tend to get pulled into large organizational structures that you and I led. Can you give some insight or wisdom around what it was like and what made you successful pulling together that community again?

Russ: 24:42

It started with three of us. And the three of us, from the beginning, really had all worked together in prior renditions. Both of the guys who were involved had worked for me in capacities that were similar to what we were being asked to do, but we didn't report at the level we reported here. Here we were reporting, in essence, to a division president. Working on problems he needed solved that none of his staff really could step up to because it would have meant dirty laundry. The most challenging thing we had to do was to make the people we were helping within this segment of the business feel comfortable. That we were sort of from headquarters and here to help, but not in a bad way. Like Internal Affairs, even though a lot of the work we had to do was "Internal Affairs"-like. Then we got a very challenging assignment with a big potential partner to Lockheed Martin and we knew who the right people were to get involved in that. And we'd worked with them before we brought them in, and that's what rounded out the team. At any given time, we had four to six projects going on. They spanned everything from trying to understand a market to get into, to being successful in the market, and getting out of the market. Most of the things we did had numbers of some kind, technical numbers or financial numbers or risk numbers, and we had to find a way to reduce many, many hours worth of work into 5 - 10 minute briefs for this guy who ran the division and get that staffed to the point that the people sitting around his table said,"These guys do good work. We believe it." And that involved all the kinds of stuff you have to do in a community. There's that little community, most of us unknown to this division, getting the respect we needed, to get the information we needed, to do the analysis and come to the kinds of conclusions and recommendations that were really needed. Great assignment; had a great time with it. Absolutely great assignment. Budgets came, that was the next thing to come to a conclusion.

Tonya: 26:59

I think there's a tremendous opportunity for a lot of people in the future to consider what you did – to consider how elevating to your highest calling and gifts in a particular channel, surrounding yourself with talent that augments and extends your reach. And then of course, finding that fit with an engagement that was made for you. I think that using our wisdom, especially for those of us who are more seasoned in our careers, is an opportunity to do what we love in ways that we love, and is a direction that many of us will be able to pursue in the next few years to apply what we know. We don't really have AI in the agenda. But loving AI like I do, I know that there's tremendous value for those of us with significant history, because AI is a people problem, not a technology challenge. And threading together people to change how they work and change how their mindsets operate – about everything from handling data to relinquishing any involvement in certain processes that don't serve us – is all a big transformation for how we will partner with each other moving forward. Is there any advice or guidance that you would give with that context, given you've been doing this for five or six years now, creating those communities to use those skills that have served you in the past.

Russ: 28:43

The thing I tell people who are on the edge of retirement and are asking what it's all about, and who are a bit nervous about going from a structured week to something that's potentially more unstructured is"kindle your networking skills." Meet more people, spend time meeting more people, and if you want to stay busy adding value, people will ask you. And since my last full-time job at Akamai, every instance of doing work with people– whether it's helping them out with knowledge that I've acquired that they've not, or applying wisdom and skill to something they need getting done – these things tend to come across my doorstep. I don't have to look for them. I just don't have to look for them. Every time I have a quiet period, somebody speaks up and they say, "What do you think about?..." and before you know it, the next one's there.

Tonya: 29:56

Let's talk a little more about networking. You've said that you had learned how to network in the transition you made to Akamai. Russ mentioned that he learned to network because he had never had to look for a job before that. You said that you hated every minute of it. I think that's funny that you and I are very different that way. I love to be out networking and in community. And I would suggest to you, I think you hate the idea of it, but I think you love being in community because you do so much of it right now. I'm curious what your advice would be to younger workers who get so myopic about the environment they're in – the single group, organization, or company that they're serving – and they really forget the value of building that network early in their careers. Do you agree that it's important for people to start these practices early? And since you're someone who "hated it," how would you advise them to learn to make this a part of how they interoperate in the world?

Russ: 31:10

So there are people that like it and it's just very natural to them. And it's part of their life, day to day, week to week, month to month, and they do it both inside their work environment and outside their work environment. They're just social people, and that's what they do. I'm more fundamentally introverted, and to be able to know the people inside the workplace and around the workplace, sort of no matter how big the workplace is, I never found to be a problem. When one gets faced either willingly or unwillingly... into how can I do this to identify my next opportunity? If I need an opportunity. If that network is stuck inside your company, and you're not part of that company anymore, the value of your network has just been reduced significantly. So the only thing one can do is find ways to build a network outside that and if people are very, very career oriented and are not into these other social circles, it's tough to get that started. And the only way to do it is to take whatever circle of friends exist, and get introduced to their friends, to their friends, to their friends, until you start to have a network of your own. The value of that, in today's world, is somebody in that new network(outside of where you work) will have a need, will have a problem, will want to talk about things. And if your name comes to mind, something might get thrown in front of you that would have never gotten thrown in front of you if you hadn't made that investment ahead of time.

Tonya: 33:07

I love it. I genuinely believe that a lot of work is tied to purpose. That's not a bad thing. I think for most people it's a component of purpose and finding ways to extend the universe – the population of who you can engage in work-related topics with – just brings a richer fullness to what we can do. I Airstream, and you might be surprised if you don't know anything about Airstream, there are a lot of people wired like me who run Airstreams – mechanical, planful, love the outdoors – things that don't necessarily always go together. I think from our conversations over the years, your Peloton community is much the same because it's people who are analytical, goal driven, not just "physical" junkies. They are also very analytical about how they approach the investment of their time. Is that fair?

Russ: 34:17

Very fair.

Tonya: 34:18

And I think that finding those networks keep us committed to those other things that extend our lives, extend the value and the breadth of what we do and what we get involved in. For you, it created a complete physical transformation of who you are. So moving into this new era for you, you created a community– networking was a big piece of that. We talked already about your pilgrimage to the Peloton headquarters the first time and many times since, but creating that community in lots of ways really shifted your life, your outlook, your tenacity for non technical problems. So how has physical transformation influenced your life in the last five or six years, since that's been such a big part of what you do?

Russ: 35:11

So, the first year that personal trainer got me involved in half-Ironmans, I was going to do one and wound up doing two. Got through them, was pretty happy with that. I saw the value in every fall deciding what the next year is going to look like. And what that meant was what events are we going to leave the home to go do/bike, whether it was a studio event or an outdoor event, what were those things going to look like? When were they going to be? One of these first years that we set that up, we were coming back from downtown Boston and my wife said to me, "Y ou got a lot of stuff you're gonna try to do next year. You think you ought to get a coach?", because I had never had a coach before and I knew one of the Peloton instructors had a coaching business. So I got involved with that. I did hire a coach from that guy's company. And what happened then was meeting a whole bunch of other like-minded folks from around the country that this coach was working with. And we would meet up a few times a year to ride together outdoors with the coach. And all of us had these different events. So there was a lot of chatter amongst us about how are we getting on with the stuff the coach was asking us to do. And the net result was this one year where there's these five big events. I did manage to get through them all, and I don't think I could have done it without coaching, and I couldn't have done it without the new community. And there are several people from the new community who, it turns out, are local, who were not part of my little group, and now they're very core people in our life. Very, very core people in our life.

Tonya: 37:24

One of the things that occurs to me is that you also pulled your family into these communities. Your wife Audrey rides now – didn't ride at all before, as I recall. You guys met your son who lived in Manhattan at the time, to some of your Peloton headquarters rides. So this transformation and the building of your community wasn't in isolation; your family was involved. Do you think that has helped you stick with the program and then grow what you do? Because it takes time away from home. We talked about five rides in a year. That's putting a bike on a plane – that's a big deal. So how has bringing your family into this made it a richer experience for you?

Russ: 38:09

So in a lot of ways, my son and I didn't have a lot of things we used to do together and now biking is something that we do together. In fact, he hadn't been on a Peloton until the time I went to New York to do my 100th ride, and I said "do you want to come to the studio with me?" and he says,"yeah, I'll give it a try." And his wife said, "you better go take a couple of spin class and make sure you're up for this." So he went with me on my 100th ride. Audrey didn't want to do that. But later on, he got much more involved in Peloton. He didn't have his at the time, so he would ride in the studio and I'd ride at home. I could see him on the screen, live in the class, and we were riding together and could see each other on the leaderboard. Later on, he did get a Peloton bike. In fact, he took it to England with him, and we would do what was called "video chat" at the time. We could do Peloton rides together in a class with conference video at the same time on the Peloton screen – a very, very unique experience. When he came back, we rode in Central Park many times. He got involved in some better bikes as a result of that and we do a couple of rides a year, as a minimum, that are decent, organized rides. In Audrey's case, she went along to the Hincapie and every Hincapie she's done, she's come in first in her age group. I mean, I'm fortunate I'm in the middle, but she's won her age group all four times. She doesn't want to do them anymore, but she's won four. So yeah, she got involved too. So it's become a family thing.

Tonya: 39:53

I love it. You were there doing it and they felt comfortable joining, and it transformed them as well. All the ways you just described that you were able to engage with your son using technology, using a joint desire to be physically fit, and it does take an investment of time. So I think that that need for community, whether the community is a ride with your son or a big ride, a hundred mile trip that you had to fly to do. Those are, to me, two ends of the scale, but they still bring engagement with other humans.

Russ: 40:31

Just to set the record straight, we've never flown with the bike.

Tonya: 40:36

Oh, really?

Russ: 40:38

Because you've

Tonya: 40:38

done so many.

Russ: 40:40

We always drive.

Tonya: 40:42

You always drive. Well, I'm glad you set the record straight. I won't put

Russ: 40:45

my bike on an airplane. I'm crazy that way.

Tonya: 40:48

Okay. Well, as I think about the rides that I recall, they've been all up and down the East coast and drivable. You're welcome to come out to California and do a ride anytime you want. We have some nice hills here that I think you'd enjoy.

Russ: 41:03

I ride them virtually.

Tonya: 41:06

Yes, you do. These communities, they have different ranges of scale: just you and Mark on a ride together virtually or big organized Ironmans. Do you think these communities are different than the communities that you had in the corporate space? Do they behave and act differently or are they similar?

Russ: 41:27

So there's similarities and differences. So similarities are common purpose. And there's a level of competition. We didn't have any competition where we worked, did we, Tonya? So common purpose and competition. The events I do, the competition is more with oneself. There is competition to win. The people I associate with, we're competing with ourselves. At a particular target, we want to hit the target where, the people I hang out with, we're not elite people who are going to win the event. You're coming in the top 10. There's one relay I came in 4th, that's the best I've ever done. My teammate was an 18 year old, graduating high school student. She's very fast at swimming and running. We came in 4th. It was very, very, very unexpected, but it was nice to come in 4th. So there's that in common. A difference is these communities, they're not full time. This is a group of people that will come together for a thing, and then they'll split apart, and then maybe they'll come together for a thing, and then they'll split apart. And even the communities we ride with here will come together for a Saturday or Sunday kind of thing, do it, and then we're on with our day. So it's not the consulting assignment with Lockheed Martin or full time at any one of these companies. Those communities you come in, it's like that, day in, day out, weekends and so on. So that's a pretty big difference. But there's there's common purpose, there's competitive.

Tonya: 43:20

We were talking about community and the scale of community, how communities are different, with what I'll just call personal activities versus more direct work activities. There's a lot of similarities, there's some differences but I find that when your life shifts in unexpected ways, both communities can really be an important part of doing well, not just surviving, but thriving. And I would say you have thrived, during and since our time working together. Community is a big part of that. You've had some challenges, some life challenges over the last three or four years. I don't know how much we want to get into those, but you've had major things happen to you and to your family. How did the communities help you move through those moments? Because those moments are so impactful and you don't go through them as an island. Did those communities support you through those challenges that you've had?

Russ: 44:25

Yeah. And in significant ways. In November of 2019, I got diagnosed with prostate cancer. And one of my close colleagues from the Whoop community is a guy I knew had prostate cancer earlier in his life and he was the first guy I called. So I got this diagnosis and I'm about to enter a new chapter, what do I do? And that long standing relationship, which was entirely networking based, was very, very valuable in setting the course for how the treatment went, where the treatment was, what the treatment was. And then moving into the recovery stage, because biking was very central to what I do. Treatment for this is, you're off the bike for 12 weeks. So what do you do about that? And, so what does it matter? It mattered because there was an event. In fact, there was a series of events that I had to find a way to train through those 12 weeks without, "getting on" the bike. I mentioned my buddy with a small business, and I said I need to do something like put a chair behind my Peloton so I can still train. And he loaned me a thing, which led to modifying the thing. So it's a bit of engineering, and that thing which became a pretty elaborate gizmo that went behind the Peloton, allowed me to train through the 12 weeks with the doctor being happy about it, getting into the event, and then PR'ing in the event and progressing through that whole season. So people who I had met along the way came along and helped me move through all of that and helped keep me motivated to stay through it. That little gizmo that we built for the Peloton has been outside the house to two other people in the Peloton community that had knee replacements. And they knew about it and their physical therapist said if you could get your hands on that. So it's been deployed to two other places in Massachusetts and we came close to deploying it again in the last week, but Audrey doesn't need to use it. I think that's a pretty profound part of it. The other part of it was two people are very critical in our life. They're our personal trainers and we mentioned to the personal trainers this diagnosis and I said, "can we shift the training to prepare for what bits of my body are going to go away and what I'm going to need?" And they did that, but they did something even better. They introduced me to another client of theirs who's the chair of the Boston Area Prostate Cancer Support Group. He and his wife have become very, very good friends of ours and guided us through, once the other guy sort of got us started, this other couple sort of guided us through the whole treatment phase that spanned a couple of months after diagnosis. So you never know who you know is going to know somebody who's going to need you or help you. And this couple calls me every once in a while, "Since we got a newly diagnosed person, they're thinking of using the same doctor you used. Would you be willing to talk through your experience?" So I've met another handful of folks who had to go through what I went through. And what they particularly like about the advice I give is, "Pay attention to pre-op physical fitness because it will shorten your recovery."

Tonya: 48:43

You know, we've had that conversation recently. I look at my friends, my friends who had children, and the women who trained had much easier birth processes, were on their feet running around with a baby on their hip, much more easily. Recovery, in my mind, is directly linked to how well we're conditioned. You don't have to be an elite athlete to be better conditioned. And I think the communities you've been in have supported that. I love that they have supported you, but you are also a giver. You're a resource for people. I've brought people to you who are starting this journey, so having people know your story and that you are a resource who wants to help others with information. More than advice, it's information. This is what you've experienced. I think it just further builds your community. You wouldn't think about a community around prostate cancer, but it's a gift to people. Prostate cancer doesn't affect me directly, but it affects the men in my life. And knowing those stories and being able to help people get to the right people, it's at the heart of networking, whether it's about physical conditions, work conditions. I just think it's a really important part of what we're able to do to give back to the world.

Russ: 50:02

And if we're not doing the networking – these people who can potentially be resources, or who you can be a resource to – and having them be known ahead of time is so helpful, bilaterally.

Tonya: 50:16

Of course. Let's transition a little toward the end of our conversation. You have a significant amount of freedom and agency in your day to day life, compared to those mornings we would be up, on calls with India at o'dark-thirty. So, you have a lot of agency. Has that freedom changed how you look at staying effective as a human? How have you managed the unstructuredness? It's a transition, the patterns I mentioned earlier are gone, and we're creating healthy new patterns. So how have you maintained your need for personal excellence and purpose, as it's been more of a blank canvas for you to operate from?

Russ: 51:04

I keep a calendar. I keep two calendars because the two systems I need to use can't be connected. I keep a calendar in Google that keeps track of regular recurring sessions I have with friends. So those things are set. My personal training is set. Certain anchor points around the week that are kept. I have another calendar and a tool called Training Peaks and that has the physical activity that's planned. We can do whatever we want. If we wanna run up to Nashua, if we wanna run down to Boston, we can do that. If we need to take a few days off to go down to New York, we can do that. We tend to program in our vacation. So there's still structure, but there's much more flexibility around what isn't structured, and I find that keeping the calendar keeps me out of trouble also.

Tonya: 52:02

When the term "gig workers" first started circulating, these were more repeatable task-oriented jobs in my assessment – but we're Gig Workers now. We are gig workers doing things at our level of engagement and involvement. You've clearly used those corporate skills though, to create structure for yourself. I think you've taken those corporate systems and instead of being a victim to not having them anymore, you've built them at the level that serves you.

Russ: 52:35

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's pretty important; otherwise, time would just take over.

Tonya: 52:43

But there's wisdom in that, right? In

Russ: 52:45

the middle of our time, time gets control of us.

Tonya: 52:51

I'm letting that soak in because, I think we all hit periods where there's too much. We all have those moments, where things get to be, just, out of alignment. I think the more planful that we can be, at a level that suits our own personal ethos, the more successful we'll be at identifying what needs to get done and then committing to and delivering on that. And that's clearly how you've operated. So that's systems thinking community mindedness, how you've set your priorities. I think it's made you, from my perspective, very fulfilled. I have friends that really struggle with things changing, not being like they used to be. And I look at you as someone who's embraced it as, it's just a change. It's just something for you to operate differently with and enjoy and get fulfillment. As we start to close, what would be your advice to people? Your couple of best learnings as you've transitioned from the 60 hour week to being more in control of more different components? Like that gig worker – call it a portfolio player – what would be your advice to people who are starting that process?

Russ: 54:11

I think there's two critical components. One of them is, if you're not in touch regularly with people who know more than you know about a particular thing, find those people and stay in touch with them. And if they will teach, mentor, guide, critique, allow you to bounce ideas, keep doing that because there there will always be people who know things in subject areas you want to know about. And if you find the right ones, then they will help you along. That's one part. The second part is stay attuned to people who need what you have to offer, and make sure they know you're available. And be available to them when they have a need, and be sensitive to what those needs are. And if you sense a need and they can't articulate it, spending a little bit of time helping them determine they have that need, finding ways to fulfill that need either directly or through through another channel. I think they're the two key ones, in my opinion, and I think that transcends corporate, post-corporate, to non-work life.

Tonya: 55:40

I like them. I think that's wonderful. So in that vein, because you talked about engaging with others, letting your story be known, being an expert and a resource for others. How should people reach out to you and get in touch with you if they have questions about anything you've spoken about and would like a connection point for a resource?

Russ: 56:04

I think it's very important to reference this content because I wouldn't recognize their name. I think it's important to reference the content and what part of the content resonated with them or they'd like to have more engagement , so that's very important. And then I prefer, for professional work like this, that we use LinkedIn. And it's easy, it's rwelliot– linkedin.com/in/rwelliot will get to me. Reach out to me on LinkedIn, as long as there's reference to this and what resonated, then maybe we can find a way to have some dialogue. And if I'm overwhelmed, I'll tell you.

Tonya: 56:49

Perfect. You've set clarity and intention boundaries. I think they'll appreciate the guidance you've given and how you framed it. So thank you; wonderful conversation. Such a journey that you continue to be on. I don't think your "retirement" (we've got to find a better word), but I don't think that your retirement is slowing down at all. I think your life is picking up, just with more choice, and I think you are a role model for many of us in looking forward to the future. Is there anything that you would want to share before we adjourn?

Russ: 57:27

No, I appreciate the time. Thanks for giving me a platform to share a little bit.

Tonya: 57:33

Wonderful. We'll put your contact information in the show notes, and have you on again in another year or two to talk about where you've been. I think it would be interesting to follow up because you really are charting a course for the future with intentionality, not rigidity - just intentionally seeking ways to connect, be in community. And that community opens up new offerings for you to do what you want to be doing with your life, and that's wonderful to see. Have a wonderful day, everyone. We will see you next time on RESET– where purpose meets possibility. And we appreciate Russ Elliott for joining us today. Thanks everyone.