Welcome and Greipel announcement
Today I want to talk about a concept called MOMENTO MORI. Sounds confusing, but it's interesting. Let's cure 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 Row Man Podcast. Roadman welcome back to another roadman cycling podcast and anyone who follows me on Instagram will know I let out a little little nuggets of a clue a little bit more than a clue I told you exactly who it was Andre Greipel will be appearing on the roadman podcast in audio form and on video form I'm super super excited to announce that one of the goats one of the greatest of all time. 164 professional race wins and he's coming to a roadman podcast near you very soon. Before I dive into today's podcast, you may be wondering where yesterday's episode was. Well yesterday's episode was titled Why You're Mentally Born Out All the Time and Strategies to Avoid That Born Out. Well, that's part of our secret podcast. One podcast a week is going over to our Patreons only. So to get access to that it costs you the price of a beer once a month. Not a lot to ask and to subscribe and get access you go to www.patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch the link is in the description. It'll take you about total of about 15 seconds to check out. Buy me the price of a beer once a month and then we're done your game. You get access to the secret podcast and a host of other benefits you'll see over there. I'm starting to really put a focus on Patreon and given value to that community because I am speaking into a fresh new sure SM7B microphone and Roadcaster Pro. It doesn't mean much to you unless you're an audio nerd, but it is the top of the top, the crème de la crème of podcasting equipment, and that's only possible because of the contributions over on Patreon. So thank you very much to the Patreons and thank you in advance for subscribing to the Secret Podcast. Today I want to talk about this concept called Memento Mori, and hopefully you're enjoying it through my buttery crisp new audio. Hopefully I didn't make a mess to the levels because there's a lot more options. But Memento Mori is a stoic philosophy and anyone listens to the podcast with regularity knows I reference stoicism and stoic tarts and stoic tinctings quite a lot. Memento Mori translates as remember you will die. and this sounds like a very pessimistic outlook on life to go through life thinking, remember you will die. But it's true, you will die. And there's an anecdote that I love that you're all walking through a forest now and we're winding through this forest trail. But at the end of the trail, there's a cliff and you're going to fall off the cliff and that's it.
Recent crashes and mortality
It's over. Game over. You're going to die when you fall off the cliff. But as you're walking through this forest trail, as you embark on this walk, wouldn't you want to know there's a cliff at the end? And think about it, once you know there's a cliff at the end and the walk isn't indefinite, once you know there's a cliff there, how does that change your interactions along the way? How does that change your sense of appreciation for the path, the smells, the nature, people you meet on the trail? How do those conversations, how do they become different to further you go down the trail? It's important to know that we will die at some point and it's important to embrace it, meditate on it and reflect on it. That's exactly what the concept of momental morrid does. And I've been thinking about it a lot lately. There've been two really bad crashes. Egan Bernal crashed into the back of a park truck, it seems, in Colombia, and horrific crash and speedy recovery to Egan. What a great champion he is. And it looked like when he won the Tour de France, he was ushering in a decade of domination, but it hasn't come to pass and will we ever see him back to that level again? I don't think it's that helpful to speculate right now. Well, that's exactly what I just did. But yeah, look, he's a lot of injuries. He's two broken vertebrae, a broken leg, punctured lung, one should broken ribs. So yeah, just speedy recovery and forced things for us. Let's get back on his feet and get back to being a functioning, healthy, happy human. And then you can worry about boy Christen. And just today, Irish National Champion and friend of the show, who's been on the podcast a couple of times, Imogen Carter was head-on by a car out training today. And I don't know the extent of horror injuries either, but I'm sure a bunch of you follow her on Instagram. She's quite big over there. They look quite substantial as well. Now they're not career ending from the looks of it, but still, nevertheless, Momentumori for me is something I carry with me every day. And I always think about it. Marcus Aurelius, kind of the Godfather of stock philosophy. And he has this quote or this idea that you could leave life right now and let that determine what you do, what you say and what you think. And he builds on that in later works inside the meditation's book, where he says, if somebody came along to you and said, you're going to die tomorrow or the day after? You would be a fool. You're not sure if it's going to be tomorrow or the day after. You would be a fool not to enjoy tomorrow because it could be your last day. Well, when in effect, somebody has come along to us and said you're going to die tomorrow or an indefinite day at the future.
Accepting good and bad
You'd still be a fool not to enjoy tomorrow because you might see another day after that. So Momento Mori, what it really does is it allows you to think about if you have a fight with your partner, if you have a fight with your girlfriend, your boyfriend, should you drag that on and carry that fight on for two or three days? Momento Mori, remember you will die and it might be tomorrow. Don't carry that on. If you've stress and work, Momento Mori, you can't let stress weigh on you because ultimately it really doesn't matter. really what this idea of Momento Mori does brilliantly is if you know you get an amazing job, dream job, or a lot of land of podcast sponsoring deal for a million euro a year, like imagine that. And you know, am I going to have an arrogance about me? Am I going to have a swagger about me? Momento Mori, I will die. It doesn't matter how big a sponsorship deal I land on the podcast. It doesn't matter what stress I'm under at work because ultimately we will die. So it allows us to accept the good things that we receive in our life without arrogance and it allows us to accept the bad things within difference. And I think that's the beauty of this concept, Momento Morion. I want to finish up the podcast with that and just reiterate it. It allows us to accept the good without arrogance and allows us to accept the bad within difference. Roll man. Thank you for listening to Rollman podcast. I've really exciting things planned in the can that I'm going to be bringing to you really to you on the Andrei Gruypa interview is just one of them. We're going to start bringing this in video format and have loads of other exciting things planned. I really can't wait to tell you all about them. Roadmen, until Monday, I will chat to you then. If you're in Dublin, don't forget to come along and join us for the Roadman Group Ride, 9.30am on Saturday morning on the outside the Bay restaurant in Clontarf. If you're not in Dublin, I bid you a due, enjoy your weekend ride and I will see you on Monday. Roadmen, Before you rush off, I want to mention something completely new. We've recently just formed the new Roadman Cycling Club. So there's two elements to this club. One, it's a virtual club. You can join it anywhere in the world. And two, it's an in-person club based in Ireland. So if you're a racing cyclist in Ireland, then you're looking for a team to race in the colours of next season. If you're looking to hang out with some amazing people and do group rides on the weekend, go and check it out. roamancycling.com forward slash roadmancc the link is in the show notes hope you can join us as part of the new roadman cycling club