Roadman, today I'm gonna chat with Derek Cullen. Let's cue that intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our longevity? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Welch and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Roadman welcome back to another roadman cycling podcast it's Wednesday it's my favorite day of the week it's interview day and I'm really excited to welcome back to the podcast mr. Derek Colin it's his second outing on the podcast and the first time he just left me crying laughing want an adventure just wanting to ride my bike with his amazing story he told us about a boy can across Africa, just taking up, leaving his job, finding himself in a situation and a life that he just wasn't happy with. And instead of just tolerating it, like so, so many people do, he just said, no. Left went cycling across Africa on his boy and it was an epic podcast where he talked about just the pains and the pure terror of being in a tent at night and actually pissing himself at night. He was so scared of loyal animals out there crazy podcast, go back and listen to it. I'm super excited to welcome one back today. And Derek again, never a man to be put into a box. He's currently living at the farthest remote tip of Ireland. And that's what I want to talk to him about today about living the simple life and how we can cultivate just a little bit more happiness by narrowing our focus and instead trying to focus on hundreds of things, narrow on our focus to a couple of things. And Derek has done that super well by narrowing his surroundings and he talks to me in depth today about just getting back in touch with nature and every morning having a ritual of just going down to the sea and getting connected back to ancestral nature. It's a great podcast and I'm super excited to welcome them back. But before I do, Roadman did a denden drum roll. It's Patreon Roadman. It's held the podcast, keeps rolling along and on the podcast during the week which proved to be massively popular and off the back of that I'm going to have to make up a little roadman manifesto or what we stand for, what we're about. But I went through characterizing what is a roadman and what are the values that we hold dear as a community. and one of them is just honor, integrity, and along that lines, and it's, you know, borderline manipulative, I'm calling on your better nature to support the podcast, because I'm a small independent creator, and like any small business out there, it needs your support to continue in all times, but especially in these tough pandemic times. So to support the podcast, you can head on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony the underscore Walsh and you can buy me the price of a beer once a month. And for that, it's not an empty gesture. You're supporting the podcast, but you're going to get access to the secret podcast. Secret podcast for January was absolutely what part I talked about secret strategies I'm using for shedding weight, something weight, something that I've got from the world or boys and I'm starting to experiment with at the moment. So I dive in and bear all tell my protocols exactly what I'm doing over on the secret podcast. Rodeman, I'm not going to push this off any further. Welcome back to the Rodeman podcast, Mr. Derek Colin. Anthony, thank you so much for having me. Derek, I'm delighted to catch up again. If anyone hasn't listened to myself and Derek have a podcast which every week I still get, it's a back episode now where every week I still get a bunch of the games talking about that episode. It's definitely one of the episodes that really stuck out and people love it and you made a big impact. Is that true? Yeah, I didn't, you hadn't told me that. That's fantastic. Yeah, every week. Yeah, because I feel like, and it's something we're going to talk about today, this idea of finding happiness, hacking happiness. And I think a lot of people drew a lot of inspiration for all my people who were stuck in little ruts in their lives. Being a big ruts are small ruts at one lad who took the leap based out in the Middle East, packed it all up, came home from the Middle East. And that was largely based off that podcast and the idea of like, yep, this isn't a practice role. Why am I tolerating a state of own happiness when there's better out there? That's exactly right. The hairs on my neck are standing up listening to that. Look, that's amazing to hear that impact or art. There are a few people that have gotten in touch with me that listen to it too, that were following your stuff over the years. So, well, that's what it's all about, isn't it? Been able to reach out to people like that. It's brilliant, that's why I do the podcast. It's this idea that it's, I think speaking one to one is brilliant and there's an impact you can have on that.
But it's a different scale and it's a different reward system when you speak one to many because you have the power to influence people in far-flowing areas. I spoke about this lad on the podcast. I've one boy that listens religiously to my podcast in Kenya. I don't know who he is, but I have this romantic dream of I'm using a spear as an aerial to kind of go and say, I've got to listen to my podcast. Is he Kenyan? I don't know. I don't know about the man. If he's listening to this so much, get in touch. Because that's brilliant. You've won a two week trip staying in Derek's spare room open my own head. If only, yeah. Derek, I want to talk about happiness, the idea of hack and happiness and find and happiness. So I want to journey back to your Cape Town to Choyaro cycle. And because you were in a dark spot in your life before, that you were in a dark spot with a lot of regrets around your parents, the past and your parents, some relationships that you felt you'd born down to the ground. And it's actually a great metaphor because I love this idea of motion because you're actually moving from Cape Town to Choyaro at the same time you're trying to find this happiness. but might take an enlisted to the story and you can correct me if I'm wrong on it. What brought you back to neutral and then ultimately brought you to happiness was a lot of the process. The daily stuff, the daily grind of puts on cream on, what do I need to do today? Where am I going today? Yeah, that's exactly right. And it's something that I thought was a problem in the past that says routine. I had a routine every day on that fit where I was getting up at the same time every morning, which was usually before sunrise, because it got so bloody hot, right? You don't wanna be cycling out there in that for the whole day. So I get up at the same time, I just crack on, I get pre-hydrated before I got on the road, but I crack on with the cycling. And that's all I was doing every day. I was cycling, I was looking for food, looking for water, just doing the most basic, simple things every day that I never focused on in the past, right? Cause they're just things you do in the past. They're just things you take for granted, let's say where I am right now or in the real world. But yeah, I was just doing all these really basic, simple things as part of my routine. And that was a process that brought momentum and it gave me a huge sense of purpose. And that's really what it was in the end, was that all these little things that I was doing every day was building it so much bigger, which was my sense of purpose on the trips. I'm really aware of concepts like mindfulness then, because I know I've spoken on the Summit on the podcast where one of my morning routines, and I've definitely got to get into your routines, but one of my morning routines, I like to express gratitude in the process. So an example, because that sounds quite abstract, an example, as I'm making my coffee, I'll try and think about where the coffees come from, the farmers that have picked the coffee, the people that have transported the coffee and the whole supply chain and be grateful that I actually, I can access this. All these people have worked and all come together for me to hit go on the coffee machine and bring this little cup of happiness out for me in the morning. And were you aware of that process that sort of gratitude surround in the process. It sounds like you could actually produce your own coffee at this stage, you know. But, oh, I wasn't. Oh man, like, I was going to start laughing while you were talking there because even the taller than me, I was like, is Anthony asking me if I did any of this stuff back then? That's like a flat no. Like, I didn't even get up in the morning. You know, I'd be hung over most days. And if I wasn't, I'd be on my way to work just trying to, just drag myself into work in the bus or whatever. Now, the last, that was the first thing that was ever from my mind that I could create a routine or I could make myself happier in the morning or have something that could add to my life in that way. Just never even crossed my mind before that trip. So what do you think on the trip, Dass, brought you, did it bring you to happiness or did it bring you back to neutral? I would say that, yeah, you know what, that's probably a good way of saying it. That particular trip, the cycle trip, which was back in 2013, if you're listening by the way, that probably brought me back to neutral as opposed to where I am today. Like, you know, it helped me, let's say a lot of that trip was about unlearning all the crap that I'd taken on over years, like all the bad habits, all the bad ways of thinking, all the bad methods that I had in my life.
So by the time I'd unlearn all of those by the end of the trip, I was only at the beginning of my way journey, let's say, right? So, and we're actually, this is a disclaimer I suppose. At the end of that trip, I thought I had everything figured out. You know, when I reached me to cry a year later, I thought, right, I've got this sort. Like, I am just, that's it. I've got it. But that, I have an idea. If you look back now, that was so fair from where I am today. Well, it would have been probably neutral. That's a good way of looking at it. I think that's even a good metaphor for athletes as well, because where you think the limit is, whether it's in an athletic pursuit, an academic pursuit, or even an also run a bill of businesses pursuit, where you think you're at 100% capacity, you're typically at around 40%. You've got way more that you can give in terms of commitment, dedication, vision, seeing the problem from different angles. Yeah, that's right. And like, who's it that says it, the 10X? I think Grant Cardone. Grant Cardone. Yeah, he has this. You know the 10X rule, you know, whatever you think about him or his strategies and all that. But there's so much truth in that. He's saying, whatever your aims are in life, 10x that, because like you just said, whenever you reach those aims, where do you go from there? Where's the sense of satisfaction and having everything that you've set out to get in the first place? I think there's a lot of improvement. Yeah, I think I remember one part of that book that actually struck me because so many people, you know, monetary is an easy one because we can measure a number. So many people, if their goal is a million, they say, well, I don't need a million. I only need to make 200 1000 and now because their goal is set that much lower they think less effort will get them there But there's nearly a minimum amount of effort you need to push the car like it's only a bit extra effort once it's rolling Like when you right when you downgrade or down regulate that amount of effort. You just don't hit either of the goals 100% yeah, yeah, no that I know you've actually found that I would say I probably found that like since Like aside from the trips that I take with my professional life like trying to make money that sort of thing, I definitely see it in those areas. On that trip, how much of your immersed in the process, figuring out what are figuring out where you're going today, trying not to get killed by lines and tigers, how much of that focusing on the presence is contributing to your happiness or your move back to neutral, because you get to leave behind or don't have time for worrying about past stresses and don't have time for contemplating how people view you in the future. right well you know a lot of I didn't do any self help work before that trip as we've established right I didn't read any books didn't have any if someone talked me about that stuff I would have been just saying what what are you talking about so on that trip I started to have a lot of experiences real experiences most of them were based around fear let's say with the animals for example I'd be shivering in my tent at night I'd be crying in my tent at night really really scared but then you know the things I was afraid of didn't happen or were extremely unlikely. So when I had all these experiences night after night and I realized that I was afraid of nothing, that made me less afraid. So I started to realize truly is first time experiences, all the stuff that I'd read later on in self-help books let's say. So what I realized on that trip through experience was that the way that I was going about addressing these problems that I had in my life was by raising my awareness. I was consciously trying to catch my thoughts. I was trying to consciously, trying to become aware of what I was thinking. And that then I was going about trying to change that way of thinking. You get what I'm saying? So it was true that I was actually experiencing that I was using the awareness to do that. I was reading something recently, I can't remember the quote, but it was a touch on that exactly that point where there's a gap or a spaces you refer to it in between our thoughts and our actions. So just because you have a sad thought, you have a space where you get to interpret this sad thought before it outwardly affects how you feel and you become sad. And it's in this space that we get to determine how we feel, how productive we are, et cetera, because we all get to choose how to process those experiences in that little gap. And it was a brilliant quote. I must take it up and send it to you. Right. And you know, I think the way the reason I was able to get that awareness, If you think about that trip, the cycle trip, through Africa, I spent most of that year on my own, whether it was in the middle of deserts or in the middle of big mountain ranges.
It was a lot of time alone. That was a very unusual amount of time to spend what your own thoughts. So I was essentially forced to sit down with all the crap I'd run away from, from most of my life for a start and forced to sit with that and to start poking around and acknowledge that I was there in the first place. But I would never have gotten that point of awareness that are not spent all that time alone. That's why I think cyclists can understand this a lot by the way is because when you go out in the bike and you're wrong, it's very therapeutic, right? We are not old at. And even if it's only for like 20 minutes, you have this, it's like there's rhythm there with the motion of the wheels as well, but you have this 20 minutes where you're giving yourself this self-tear to be, but it's also the fact that you're alone. For probably the only point in your day, you have, it's just you and your thoughts and you're actually facing up to the stuff that you just wouldn't pay attention to or confront otherwise, you know? So that was why that on that trip, I was spending all this time on my own, a crazy amount of time on my own with all these thoughts. And that was what was allowing my awareness to get to that stage, or I was able to start catching those thoughts, you know? So this one's gonna get deep. So I was thinking about why you're such a happy fucker. And I was looking back at your adventures, you know, across Africa, your walking trips, even your latest adventure, you might call it a health sport, it's an adventure. Not many people get to go and live on the edge of an island off the Atlantic and watch the waves bashing in every day. And we'll get to that in a second. But here's where I'm going to go deep on it. I think the Africa Ting, it's I've this theory that I don't know where I read it or maybe I've just created this theory and it's going to be groundbreaking. Who knows that the opposite of happiness isn't sadness. The opposite of happiness is boredom. And so if the opposite of happiness is boredom, if we agree about that, the way to stave off unhappiness or sadness is adventure. And what you've done across all these things, whether it's the walk and trips, the cycle and trips are your latest endeavor, you're creating adventure. And I would say, but create an adventure, your manufacture and happiness. Troy responded up. Right, how do we respond to that? That's written down to how do respond to that. But I hear there's so much food in it, right? And when you think about sadness as a feeling, right, we generate that we construct that and we construct it by spending too much time in either the past or the future. So if that's true, which is widely scientifically proven that it is, well then that tells us that if we spend more time in the present, that's how we can avoid the sadness that we're bringing on by ourselves. And eventually bring us into the present. Exactly. So the way to stay in present, the easiest way that I know to stay present is to go for a walk, for example, to walk out the front door because activity and exercise, that's what switches out the limbic side of the brain, which is the side of the brain that makes us feel anxious all the time. So there is actually like proven signs behind why we feel that way and why being active and being busy and doing stuff like you're saying and avoiding boredom will help us feel happy. Like it's been proven, we just don't do it enough. And it's also hard to do. But as we're chatting about this, I'm thinking about clients that I have working with me in the coaching company and thinking about the ones who are excelling and the ones who are kind of falling off the wagon a bit. And the ones who fall off the wagon, they're typically people who they ride indoors for a long period of time or there's a big trend in cycling at the moment riding indoors. It's like these E-video games where you're getting to work out on your stationary boy, but you're in so is. And there's no adventure to that. And when I think about the guys who are long term in the sport, I'm talking for years, maybe decade, plus they're the ones who always seek adventure who get to the end of a road and go, ah, I wonder where that road goes? And they go up the side of a mountain, they end up carrying their boy cover their shoulder and you're kind of chatting to them that night and you're like, you won't believe where I was on this spin. I was walking through rivers, I was climbing up the side. But it's that adventure that ultimately brings the happiness like Richard the Bell. Right and here it's just a big deal and interesting things right like where I am at this time in my life like like everyone at this because of what's going on at the moment you can't go anywhere you can't really do it very much so what I've been doing now is focusing on the micron instead of the macro all the little things that I could do now within my control that actually make me feel good about myself and good about what's around me one of them to be honest which is totally avoiding the news right I totally avoid the news I know when I totally, right, and another thing I totally do, completely, and I try to do this all the time avoiding negative people or toxic people.
Even people that I'm close to that I love, I'm avoiding them, right, because they're not bringing anything positive, anything worth, or any value into my life right now, so I'm keeping it out there. But that's focusing on the micro, it's not just about that, I go out for walks a lot, I go meditate down with the ocean, and I just start focusing on these little things that I can enjoy in like even having a cup of coffee, that's probably the highlight in the day today, when sitting in the garden and having a cup of coffee, you know? And I'm not sure I shared the story with you on the last podcast, but I heard a great story about this idea of trying to, you were saying you avoid toxic people, but for a long period, I definitely taught, no, I have so much positivity, I can save them, I can make them happen, I can infect them with my positivity. And I heard this great story about it, and apologies if I'm repeating myself on it, but some of the listeners won't have heard it. So it was recounted to me second hand, so there's a helicopter rescue pointless and this guy on the helicopter is a rescue diver. And so at a couple of times in a rescue diver's career, they'll go out to sea, they'll jump into the water off the helicopter and they'll have 10 seats on the helicopter in a Atlantic sea rescue and he'll jump into the sea and he'll start swimming and there'll be 15 people in the sea. So my buddy asked him, well how do you choose who you save if there's 15 there and there's only 10 seats on the helicopter. And he said, you can only save the people who swim towards you. And I was like, what amazing metaphor that is for us are trying to reach out to people when they're not, they don't want to be helped. You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. If someone's bathed in that negativity and they want to live in that negative space, no matter how much positivity you bring to them, you're not going to bring them back across to the loist. They needed to swim towards you. Right. Yeah, the so much truth in that, and I was that person that wasn't swimming toward you in the past, right? I was that person that was not just surrounded by negative people, but more so that I was a negative person and I wasn't helping myself. So I couldn't have expected anyone to help me. And no one did help me, you know, I had to end with doing it myself, but I would have been one of those people that you wouldn't have saved. It talks to me about your surroundings at the moment because you've moved up to Malinhead, but what I love about this is it's deliberate. Your manufacture and happiness, so many people kind of drift and accept a baseline level of unhappiness, like they moan about to commute every day. And to tie this in with a quote I heard from you talking about Ricky Gervais, Mondays don't suck, your life sucks. Life sucks, yeah. So, but you're someone who's In my mind anyway, and I'm sure it's different sitting in your chair, you make hard decisions well. And maybe you wrestle with them internally, but the idea of quitting a job and going cycling across Africa and this recent one of, you know what Dublin's not bringing me that much happiness at the moment, I'm going to find a cottage on the edge of the earth and I'm going to go and live there. Talk to me about that deliberate manufacturing of your environment. Yeah, there's a bit of that which I haven't quite worked out, which is I am able to make big decisions, very big drastic decisions, life change and ones if you want. But I'm very, I'm very bad at making small ones. So I haven't quite worked that out exactly. But what I would say is I'm in an unusual position where I was in a really dark place years ago before that cycle trip we talked about. And I was at the point where I just I was broken. I wasn't even low, I was just totally broken, physically, mentally broken. And I'd last my parents, but I'd also destroyed my own life and all the relationships in my life, my career and all the positivity I had gone for me at the time. So I waited till that point where I was taught me I had nothing, felt like I had nothing before I started building it up. So I didn't want that to happen this year, for example. I didn't want to wait till that point because I feel too many people do that. They wait until they're at the very lowest point before they say to themselves, how can I be happy? They wait until they break before they say, how can I do better in my life or how can I have more? and join with them in life. So this year, which is a number of months ago, this stage, I was getting to the point where I was just, I was not stimulated by anything, but I was just getting really, really negative all of a sudden.
And I can't myself thinking about that. And I realized that, look, it's nothing to do with what's going on around you. It's what you're allowing to happen inside, right? You're making this about everything that's going on around you, which yet is bad, but you're allowing that to affect what's going on inside your head, and that's what's really going on here. So I made a decision to come up here to this cottage, to regain, if you like, the way I was before I got into that feeling before the COVID, the dreaded seaward. And that was what it was about. I wanted to come up here where I was away from the distractions and where I was able to go back to being in that happy place that I've become so familiar with, up until all this stuff started. And that's essentially what I've done here. I've been up here for only three weeks. It feels like three months at this stage where every day has been amazing. And that tells me without any shadow of a doubt that it wasn't meant to do with my situation. It was all in my head. That's why I was unhappy. That's why I was miserable. That's why I was feeling negative. It was in my head. This great book, Machu Sawed, is the author, Bense Rirata? No. So the premise of it is that it's all about environments. That if you, it's about athletes, and if we put athletes into a certain environment that genetics, genes don't matter, that it's all, it gets the, it tries to answer the nature versus nurture debate. And he argues quite, quite successfully, that it's all about the environment. We put someone into that. If you post, you know, one of the examples he cites is, I think this forward, the top five table tennis players in the world all came from the same neighborhood. And they all came from the same neighborhood because a group of dads got together 10 years before that they bought a bunch of table tennis tables. They made little leagues and it made it really a stimulating environment. But I was thinking back to bounce when I seen on your social media that you had moved to Milan head when I thought, here's Derek. He looks been outside. He knows that makes him happy. And now he's making that deliberate move to surround themselves in that environment, much like the table tennis players who wanted to excel in table tennis. They knew being in that environment would make them better table tennis players. you made that same move to nature in this case, because you know nature makes you happy. So deliberate. Yeah, everything you say there is on point, I see why you compared it to because there's not a day when I was telling someone you're at night that I tried to sleep as fast as I can here so I can wake up and do it all over again, right? And it's actually true. I go to bed early some nights because I want to just wake up and have the full day ahead of me. And I love it because, like you say, nature's on my doorstep here. That's what sets me on fire. So I can just walk out the front door and I'm there. And I'm very aware now that that's not just a huge part of my professional career as an outdoor adventure, but it's a huge part of my life. And where I get my happiness from, it comes from being out in nature and doing the stuff that I love. So I have literally like surround them myself with all those things, with everything that makes me tick. You know, and it would have been possible to do when the smaller adults in Dublin don't get me wrong going to the park, going to the ocean, that sort of thing, but not in the way that I'm dealing here, you know? So just to finish up there, let's talk to me a little bit about why this morning routine of yours are heading down to the ocean and sitting silently with yourself. Talk to me a little bit about that internal process because I think that's something that so many of the viewers it is so much probably struggle with because they're pulled in a thousand different directions by family obligations, work obligations and then this little device in their pocket that's like their master. I actually often think that my dog, looking at me, thinks that the phone controls me. It must be bizarre for the dogs, because every time a beepsy jumps. So it must be like when I whistle for him, he jumps. He's like, the phone owns this, gaunt. And according to the list I wanted you to phone those owners. There's a bit of truth there, I reckon. So what's going on in your head with it? I suppose there's two parts of the question. Talk me through why silence is important to you and then also what is actually going on in your head? Are you fighting taught or you letting them go? Are you contemplating on stuff? Or are you breathing or anything in between? Right, so on all the long distance trips I've taken, a lot of them have been through big, large wilderness areas.
And then if If you're insignificant, your problems aren't worth stressing about. If you are this insignificant piece and your problems are this insignificant piece of an insignificant piece, you don't need to be stressing about them. Right. That's the actual metaphor at work, isn't it? I was standing up at the very north tip of Ireland, just behind me here, Fambas Crown. I was standing there today and there's no one around, of course, but standing on the hill there, you can see in every direction, it's mostly ocean. So the next stop is Iceland, but it's mostly ocean that you can see but it's exactly like that And it felt like to me look at the ocean rises up to the sky. You can see so much of it And it felt like to me it's like the universe is tearing back at you But like you just said, it's like who could have big problems looking at that, you know You know when I'm what I meet more more so the case that me makes the little problems that I have in my mind Fear so insignificant in the face of what I'm looking at, you know Derek Eilhappier after this chat tell me before you go So you're wearing some pretty cool swag there. This is your new outdoor wear. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, actually I'm wearing stuff. Yeah, out there. I started a clothing brand last year called Out There, O-U-T-D-A-R-A. And I started it because I couldn't get sponsors. So I decided to start my own sponsor, right, become my own sponsor. That's going pretty good. Now I sell hoodies, beanies, t-shirts, Oh, gear that's suitable for going outdoors, whether you're running or walking or hiking, that sort of thing. So yeah, I think it was interesting and that I sent it off my social channels, Derek calling outdoors and it's on the website as well, out there.ie. And for everyone there, social channels are a very good value for money. I'm loving those daily videos down by the city. Thank you so much. Yeah, and I know if that's my favorite part of the day, I used to hate more and I used to wear a passion, especially when I was in a job I didn't like, but now's my absolute favorite time of the day. And when you could so excited to make those videos that you were talking about before. So I love making them. I only make them and I feel like it, right? But that just so happens to be every day. Derick, I love chatting, hacking, happiness. Thanks very much. Hey, thank you very much. And thanks all your listeners as well, especially everything that reached out after the last podcast. That was awesome to hear from you. Yeah. Cheers, Eric. Jazelle. Thank you. Hey, everybody. It's Anthony again. Really quick, I want to invite you to join, arguably the best thing I've ever put out inside the Roadman community. It's a challenge. It's a challenge called a 14-day Kickstarter challenge. So regardless of where your fitness is at right now, this is going to be the catalyst for making you faster and making you the leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guesswork out of everything. It's 14 days of training plans, regardless of what your level is. There's the master's beginner advanced. There's meal plans, shopping list and even a video course holding your hand and talking you true at all. So what I recommend you do right now is just stop everything, press pause on this audio and go to roadmancycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio. That's roadmancycling.com slash 14 day.