I’ve become obsessed with Rich Roll’s 4AM training posts lately (like this one).
If you’re not familiar with Rich, he’s an ultra endurance athlete, husband, father and host of the popular Rich Roll podcast.
At first, his videos motivated me. I’d scroll through the artistic photos, the discipline, the darkness-before-dawn energy and feel something energizing.
It only took a week for that feeling to wear off and for them to begin to bother me and make me feel like I was losing.
He’s older than me and somehow more relentless. He’s doing more than me. Starting earlier than me. He’s out ahead so therefore I must be behind.
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Then I remembered something:
Rich had major back surgery a year ago. He gained 40 pounds. He spent more than a year where the most he could do was walk. And now he’s rebuilding; methodically, publicly, beautifully. And he’s showing us how.
And here I am: healthy, 53 and at my ideal weight, sleeping until I wake up naturally. No alarm. I wake up, walk my dogs, and enjoy my coffee without looking at a clock. My first meeting starts at 10. I break up my day with a midday workout, have lunch, and see clients in the afternoon.
By most scorecards, we’re both winning. Just on completely different terms.
Rich is going to nail his comeback, because he’s doing exactly what I coach every man I work with to do: preparation, discipline, consistency, accountability. He’s just applying it to a different definition of success than mine. He’s said he’ll run a marathon at 60. I have zero doubt. He might even win his age bracket.
Me? I’m training the minimum effective dose required to stay at 175 pounds, maintain my body composition, and remain physically capable of doing whatever I choose; which will never be a marathon because I can’t stand running.
This year it’s already been a 26.2 mile ruck marathon, The Skyline Traverse Hike, 30 miles along the shoreline in Napa, and yesterday it was just 3 hours of pickleball.
Whenever it comes to planning an adventure, my criteria is simple: it has to be fun, somewhere incredible, and with guys I’d enjoy hanging out with.
My way’s not right or wrong. Neither is Rich’s. We’re both ambitious. We’re just ambitiously chasing different things at this point in our lives.
Here’s what social media in midlife has a way of doing to men: it hands you a highlight reel of everyone else’s choices and dares you to measure yourself against it.
The peer who’s up at 4am. The guy who sold his company. The one who looks like he hasn’t aged. And somewhere in that comparison, you lose the thread of what you actually want.
Comparison isn’t the enemy. It’s actually useful data. Be observant. Be impressed. Notice what resonates with you and what doesn’t. But at some point you have to close the app, put down the scorecard, and ask yourself a serious question:
What does success actually look like for you, right now, in this season of your life?
Not what it looked like at 30. Not what your dad modeled. Not what your most successful friend is chasing. What it looks like for you.
Rich and I are both proof that the work pays off, and that it never stops. We’re also proving different things matter in our lives, and that’s exactly the point.
In Health,
Greg Scheinman
Founder, Midlife Male
Husband. Father. Entrepreneur. Coach.
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