From Rock Bottom to Ultra Marathon — The Introvert's Physical Resilience Reset

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I have over 25 years of leadership experience, and yes, I am an introvert. My guest today is Dr. David Hooper. He’s an entrepreneur, an AI consultant, and an ultra-marathon runner. He’s an introvert who’s built his career and his company by leaning into his quiet strengths. His business, Lunala, is named after the three pillars in his life, his dog Luna, his cat Arwen, and his wife, Laura. This tells you a bit about how he leads. David shares in this episode about a rock bottom moment that has reshaped his life, and what came out on the other side was a very clear eyed sense of purpose. In this episode, you’ll learn, number one, how to make your impact visible at work through outcome storytelling so you get the opportunities and attract the clients that you want. Number two, how to use AI as a thinking partner for daily reflection so your best ideas don’t stay trapped in your head. And number three, why let me get back to you on that is one of the most powerful phrases a quiet leader can own. So let’s get into it. All right, David, fantastic to have you on the show today. Welcome. All to my pleasure, Greg. Really looking forward to getting into this. Awesome. Well, I have to ask you the question I ask everybody when they first get on the show. Do you consider yourself an introvert or extrovert? I can say without a doubt that I am an introvert. That is for certain. I’ve always been quite quiet, but I played in sports teams. And I was always a leader and loud on the pitch, but very quiet off it. And it wasn’t until I was a little bit older in my kind of 20s. I kind of thought about how I like to spend time and recharge and where I get my energy from that I kind of thought, oh, maybe, you know, I see more alignment with introverts and extroverts. The common misconception when it comes to introverts is that we What’s in your wallet? Terms apply. See capital one.com for details. Don’t have confidence or the ability to lead when that just simply isn’t the case. You know, I’ve been in different situations where the loudest and most confident shall we say, or perhaps not the greatest leaders. So yeah, I think when I look at my own kind of strengths and weaknesses, I always bring it back to not kind of putting myself in a box. So, you know, just because certain people label us as introverts and say, you know, you have to stay in that corner. Well, actually, you know, we can break out with those boxes and lead teams just as well, be confident in the exact same situation. Don’t allow any label to put you in a box. You can go and do whatever you like, no matter what anybody kind of labels you. Right. And it’s helpful recognition, but really, ultimately, you want to not be hemmed in by any kind of label. Can you take us back to kind of the pivotal moment in your life, in your career, what was going on and, you know, how did that put you on your current path? Yeah, so I had a big, big moment in my life around 2017 when I worked and worked to get a job that I really, really wanted. My whole career had been pointed at this job. I got that job and then about a year into that contract, I was made redundant. And that just sent me on this incredible spiral of self-destruction. I just locked myself in the house, started eating. I put on around 80 pounds of fat in about six months and I was officially labelled as morbidly obese and I was also diagnosed with depression at that point as well and medicated for clinical depression. And for about six months, I wouldn’t leave the house morbidly obese, clinically depressed, redundant and really, I wasn’t going anywhere. You know, I was really in this spiral of despair and we were sitting around the Christmas table and the shirt that I was wearing was so tight when I was trying to eat my Christmas dinner that I thought the buttons were going to ping off and go go into my father-in-law’s meal. I had to excuse myself and go and get changed and that was a real rock bottom moment where I kind of was looking in the mirror and thinking, you know, you’ve put 80 pounds of fat on, you’ve been diagnosed with depression, you’ve been made redundant and now you’ve had to go and get changed because the clothes you’re wearing are so tight, you can barely function. And that was a real painful moment where I kind of took a few deep breaths, wiped the tears away from my eyes, put a big t-shirt on and got a little bit more comfortable, went back to the dinner table, got through Christmas and into the new year but really made it a point of attacking 2018 at that point with everything I had so I started to look into mindset and mindfulness and really reframed a lot of the things that were going on in my life. So I had those three areas, I had morbid obesity, redundancy and clinical depression and I tried to reframe those things so the first one morbid obesity, I had 80 pounds of fat to lose, I saw that as an opportunity to reshape my body and readjust athleticism that I had in my youth, I saw my redundancy as an opportunity to become an entrepreneur and start my first business and the last one depression, I saw that as an opportunity to really refine and refined my purpose and what really made me fulfilled and happy because I wasn’t happy and over the next six, seven months I really got to work so I lost 80 pounds and became an ultramarathon runner, I really figured out what made me happy and there’s a great little story that I’ll just jump into. I was having this, these thoughts, it was around the 2nd of January and I was thinking you know I want to, I want to be buying a big house, I want to drive a fancy car and have a fancy watch and I don’t know why but I was perched on my staircase and we’ve got a dog and we’ve got a cat, a little dog called, a German Shepherd called Luna and a little black cat called Arwen and for absolutely no reason at all Arwen, my little black cat came and found me and lay on my chest and Luna came to the bottom of the stairs and kind of put her head on my foot, what exactly while I was having these thoughts and it was like a bolt of lightning went through me and I thought hold on, I’m thinking I need big house, fancy watch, fancy car to feel fulfilled when these two little creatures have come, found me, given me comfort, my wife Laura as well, if I have a bad day I’ve still got those three pillars, you know, if I was picked up and put in a field in a tent with these three, life would be still absolutely incredible and I’m so so fortunate so I was able over that six month period to refine this purpose and this fulfillment and it was a really beautiful moment and then the last aspect was was starting my first business at the end of that that kind of six month process as well so it was yeah a real challenging period but now I look back and it’s shaped me into kind of what I’ve got on to achieve and I’m really kind of almost grateful for that period now. Well thank you for sharing that there’s so much in there, I’ve written about rock bottom moments not from the perspective of a treatment program but I think that there’s a commonality of that journey, that path where there has to be some kind of moment where you know it’s the rock bottom for you, whatever it is for you and this is just not acceptable and giving into that and it’s like okay well I’m going to do whatever it is that I need to do to change from here. Yeah I totally agree with that and the moment I I hide those moments around the Christmas table where there wasn’t really another way to go it was it was so painful and it was so raw and it was just that that feeling of right you know now now I’m in a place I can go and and start to take a couple of steps in the right direction and and that to anybody who’s listening is genuinely how this started so it was kind of the the 2nd of January and I was the 80 pounds overweight and I said right I’m going to go out and I’m going to run five miles and I opened the door ran for approximately 45 seconds and broke down and I thought you know I can’t do this there’s no way I can do this and I know it was about a hundred yards from my house because I could still see our garden gate and I walked back to the house and I stood at the garden gate and I said if you go in the house you’ve probably gone to eat and comfort yourself like you’ve been doing for the past six or seven months so I walked for about 20 minutes and then came back but that was the the start of of that that journey of building a little bit of mental toughness of getting some exercise but I pictured myself going and running five miles and being this athlete immediately when actually it was I just needed a tiny little step just to start to push push the ball in the right direction I love that I want to linger on your story too of you know your dog and your cat there is something incredibly touching to me about that these creatures are present here and pets can be such teachers for us and about what really matters yes Greg I I am so in line with exactly what you’ve just said the thing that I always come back to was a lovely lovely kind of statement that hit me it was it was something like and I’m paraphrasing it was something like for 10 to 20 years your your pet is in your life but you are the whole of your pet’s life and that to me just was really powerful when it comes to you know appreciating them and partnering with them and loving them and so much so my my business is called Lunala and that’s actually a combination of all of my three pillars so Lunala is Lunala Arwen and Laura which is my my wife and they really do play such such an important part and you know I’m so grateful because Lunar especially there is times where I’ve I’ve got anxiety as well where I would be kind of really having a panic attack on the floor and Lunar would come over and lean against me and cuddle me or you know she obviously doesn’t quite know what’s going on but she knew that there was comfort needed which was really appreciated so yeah there are a huge huge part of of my life and what I yeah always kind of think about it it just draws me back it anchors me and yeah it’s it that that relationship is is and bond is so special so that helped ground you and you you you evolved into a sense of purpose and direction and your business grew out of that tell us a little bit about sort of ultramarithonic yeah it’s a yeah it’s a it’s a fascinating discipline and to be honest a lot of us say it’s just like a big picnic a long picnic you know a 24-hour picnic while we’re eating every every hour or so but the reason I was interested in ultra marathon running was because I come from this this really quite challenging place and thankfully it’d come out the other side I’ve got in great shape you know I went from the worst shape of my life to the best really fit and strong and I just always want to push the boundaries so I’m incredibly ambitious and there’s a bit of a pattern in my career where I’ve had a big setback and then I’ve tried to go the other way so for example I I failed all of my A levels at school and then I tried to fix that or prove to myself that I could go and actually learn and educate myself I went and did a PhD and it was similar with the the ultramarathon side I’d been in such a dark place unable to to walk or run five miles I got to this point where I was running regularly enjoying it and it was just that moment of how far can we go with this why not why why not have a go at this and it was super exciting it was some great experiences and it really makes you appreciate or actually gives you the opportunity to find out a little bit more about yourself so what do you do at 30 miles or 50 miles or 70 miles when it’s incredibly painful you’re tired sleep deprived probably hungry had too many sports gels dreaming of that uh that that pizza or whatever you’re thinking about at the end of the race and it’s at those moments that mental toughness that discipline where you keep putting that one foot in front of the other that to me was this kind of sick almost twisted opportunity to to find that out about myself in in a way yeah and there’s a continuity there between you know you’re coming back to the house and you know there’s that decision point am I going in to comfort myself or you know I’m going to do what part of me really knows I should do you become a explorer at the boundaries of of what you think you can do and there’s kind of a lovely lesson in that where we have boundaries all the time that we set for ourselves it goes back to the labels we talked about what is the mental idea that is holding you back from doing this idea that part of you has that what if we could do that yeah that is it’s such a great point Greg and it’s something that I’ve battled with with a lot in my my own life and I think that’s why now at a slightly older age I do try and always push push these boundaries and take these risks and have a go at these different things and always try and bring an open mind to the conversation I grew up in a very education focused household so it was very much a school’s the most important thing and then university is the most important thing and then a career in education is is the most important thing both my parents were teachers you know if I wanted to start a business you know why do you why do you want to do that or oh you want to you want to go on an ultramarathon why why would you do that you know you don’t need to don’t let’s keep it safe it’s let’s keep it safe and simple and I think that brings us back to the the labels you have the the power to to break out of those labels and to break out of the the hold that others may have on you it’s always your your decision that you can make whatever the challenge is that that you’re interested in facing it really does come down to you and another thing that I always come back to as well is I never wanted to have regrets so when I’m 80 I never wanted to look back and go how I wish I’d got in great shape when I was in a position to to go and run an ultramarathon or I wish I’d lost the weight earlier so I could enjoy time with my niece and nephew those those types of of of thoughts really really drive me and that’s really what keeps me driven yeah so we have on the one side dreams and not wanting to have regrets and on the other side is making sure there’s enough self understanding self compassion your pillars that people you care about are in a sense they were what helped give you some self compassion about that they’re grounding you in a purpose how do you balance yeah you can do this and you know break through the barriers how do you prevent that from tipping over into punishing yourself that is very difficult and it’s not something I have particularly mastered I think my wife’s a great critical friend for that you know she’ll ask great questions she’ll challenge me she’ll say you know well is this is this the right time or have you thought about x y and z so trying to find someone to help with that process and say this is what happened and have somebody else say well you’ve ignored 60 70 80 percent of the really good stuff you’ve done and you’re focusing on the 10 20 percent that you’re not doing and you know just having that opportunity to to lighten the load and whether that’s journaling whether it’s voice noting yourself I just think getting those thoughts out your head that really helps me so you in your business you talk a lot about AI and what are some of the ways that you see that this can be helpful for people who are interested in leadership and you know how could it be helpful for introverts so if you think about a very very quick history history roughly in the 1800s there was a huge technological advancement with the tractor everybody working on farms and in agriculture had a big panic and thought what am I going to do you know my job’s being taken how am I going to put food on the table so that was a big shock to the system we then had a big technological advancement roughly in the 1970s 1980s and my dad actually came home with a big briefcase and he was in a real real grump and he said to my mum you’ll never guess what my bosses said I’ve got to learn over the next couple of weeks and she says I don’t know what’s in the briefcase and he opened the briefcase and what was in there was one of the first ever laptops and he said I’ve been told I’ve got to learn how to use this laptop I like to ring people and I like to write letters I don’t know why I need this so again it was a big shock to the system big technological advancement and then if we fast forward ever so slightly to the early 2000s four guys got together in a US door room one of them said I want to take a picture of my breakfast and I want to put it on the internet Facebook was born and again that was a huge shock to the system and we’re now at that same stage with AI will it take our jobs what will happen but if history tells us anything it’s that we will adapt in five years none of us will be having these thoughts it’ll be integrated into our lives so the first thing I would say to leaders is that this is a real opportunity for you to show leadership and embrace AI because this has to be a top-down approach you have to be the leader you have to be the one using AI knowing about AI implementing AI because then everybody else who you are leading who is worried scared about their job unsure they will be comforted and go okay if our leader is thinking about this then then maybe I should so that would be the the first part the second part would be this really isn’t going the way so if you think about the the speed at which AI is developing it’s much better to get on board and have a go at this point compared to in five years time where who knows what it what it might be like and then the third and last part which is is really exciting and one of the reasons I got involved in AI initially was how this affects or could positively affect introverts now we’ve just spent five ten minutes talking about reflection and me talking to the dog me talking to my wife I now pair with AI on a regular basis and AI for an introvert is it’s to me it’s a dream so I can have conversations when I have isolated myself which I I like to do you know I like to be by myself but I can still have reflective conversations and be asked questions and be stimulated in that way but also if I put a kind of comedic slant on this when I think about interacting with people quite honestly you know I don’t love having phone calls or ringing restaurants or those types of interactions when I think about I could speak to an AI to book a restaurant I’d be more likely to do it for me as an introvert it’s a real yeah it’s a real positive there’s some really great pieces of advice in there getting in getting familiar kind of demystifies it I think if you are kind of shutting your mind to it and keeping it at arm’s length then it can get scarier this is a tool an amazing tool it is an incredibly powerful tool and if you’re creative about how you use it where you use it and incorporating it into different parts of your life then it’s just going to strengthen the best parts of you what are the things that are most me you know that that are most unique to me and you know what are some of the things that it can be just a huge relief I don’t have to do that anymore what are the tasks that you enjoy doing what are the things that you’d rather somebody else would do on a repetitive could AI do them for you to free up more of the creative stuff that us as introverts you know we love that big picture thinking the strategy there the exciting plans all of that that really exciting stuff and if there’s more time to do that fantastic and even better if there is an opportunity for AI to help lighten the load so I can spend more time in the hills with Luna walking here or doing getting home for my niece or nephew’s rehearsals or plays or dances or sports games you know that’s that to me is it’s really really exciting and that’s one of the key things I when I started to talk about AI in that sense at a couple of conferences and you could see busy executives think oh okay so instead of replying to 150 emails at 5 p.m. till 8 p.m. I could have AI write some drafts for me get them done in half an hour be home for my my daughter’s soccer game something like that so once you spend 20 hours of time on chat gpt or perplexity or clod once you spent 20 hours experimenting and starting to scratch at the surface of AI you quickly realize that oh actually this is it’s just a tool that I can use and it can help me do x y and z I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had someone message me or come up to me and said you know I did that the 20 hours and now I use AI all the time it’s it’s great so it’s just engage with it have a little taste of it dip your toe in and break that that kind of glass ceiling of I’m terrified of this I’m worried I’m not going to engage with it yeah I think once you found that one task that has been compressed from 30 40 minutes into five minutes you know it unlocks everything you’re like okay I’ve already saved more time than I’ve invested you’ve probably saved more than the 20 hours that you invest in it I love what you drew out there that this is almost another dream for introverts because it’s interacting on your own terms completely right and that to me is where my my mental health suffers if I don’t incorporate that into my day so if I go and just keep all of these thoughts to myself and you know I get home grumpy quiet not my best self but now I do partner with AI and reflect with AI and ask AI to challenge my thinking it’s just been been such a big help so partnering not replacing and allowing AI to tempt your brilliant thoughts out because every every introverts brilliant tempt those thoughts out organize them and then we can actually do something with them one of the things I talk about on the podcast is that because we’re internal we’re thinking and we have this rich internal life we aren’t always skilled at bringing that out into the world we’re not skilled at sharing we don’t share our thought process we show up with you know presenting the conclusion and we haven’t brought people along which is super important as a leader maybe the discipline of bringing out your thoughts or sharing your thoughts more AIs could be supportive in that way that’s that’s so true just that the point the end of this so you know let’s say a book for example under no circumstances should an AI write your book for you but what it can do is it can map out bullet point forms and it just sets you up for a much easier win and it just organizes the thoughts so you can just move a lot a lot quicker so I want to get to some practical things that people can take away and try and one area which that’s often a challenge for quieter people is we’ll have accomplishments but we don’t necessarily talk about it you know our contributions can go under recognized compared to people who are just naturally out there promoting themselves so what are some things that introverted quieter leaders can do to have more visibility yeah it’s it’s a really interesting one I don’t want to come across as arrogant I used to introduce myself as not having an ego I was really protecting myself I think when it when it comes to how I was trying to go about my work but in reality I now try and lead through through example it was it’s always about warning the following zip recruiter radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with f words when you’re hiring we at zip recruiter know you can feel frustrated for Lorne even like your efforts are futile and you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine fortunately zip recruiter figured out how to fix all that and right now you can try zip recruiter for free at zip recruiter dot com slash zip with zip recruiter you can forget your frustrations because we find the right people for your roles fast which is our absolute favorite f word in fact four out of five employers who post on zip recruiter get a quality candidate within the first day fantastic so whether you need to hire four 40 or 400 people get ready to meet first rate talent just go to zip recruiter dot com slash zip to try zip recruiter for free don’t forget that zip recruiter dot com slash zip finally that zip recruiter dot com slash zip the impact so I would always try and bring my projects to life whether it was through having certain metrics or ROIs so that were they were really impactful and suddenly somebody who’s very senior saw the impact of that project and they want to know what you did so you kind of forced to almost talk about your practices which again very very uncomfortable for us introverts a lot of the time it’s also just around helping the quickest way I found to rise to the top was to actually care about people and to actually try and help them you know you can tell when somebody’s being inauthentic and are playing that the professional game and to me the way to get around that was to actually take an interest in the people who I was working with actively ask them if I could help them if they wanted to go for a coffee if I could impact them in a positive way without expecting anything back in return and those simple things well maybe they’re not that simple make a huge difference and the second thing which is really challenging for us as introverts was developing the ability to say no and stand up for yourself whether you’re being asked to do too much or if you’re asked to give a point in a meeting our thought process hasn’t caught up yet having the ability to say no actually I’ve got too much on my plate at the moment that is an incredibly powerful skill to have but also if you do get asked a direct question in a meeting having the courage to say you know what it’s a really great question and I’m going to think about that to give you a better answer and I’m going to come back to you in the in the next half a day or a day or whatever it is shows a lot you don’t have to be the loudest in the room to be the best leader so they were there just some of the things I I always tried to do has really great stuff in here you know telling the story of the impact it doesn’t even have to be beating your chest in a meeting or pounding the table you’re just putting that out there and people will see that and you’re in a sense letting your work speak for itself but you’re taking action to make sure it does get seen I call it that’s quite influence network you’re building a network of of one-on-one relationships which are super high value because they’re grounded in service it’s a genuine authentic caring relationship and and helping others and then inevitably when you have something that you need people feel the same way about you I completely yeah believe that truly and I think that is one of the reasons that I’ve been being able to kind of go and build a business outside of work that network that you talk about was the one thing that’s changed my life when it came to building building the business I always would have one-on-one coffees with people that was my my thing so when I hear other business owners talking about you know trying to get a lead or you know how do you get leads and all these different things when I started Lunala I didn’t think that I just thought every month I’m going to try and have a coffee with with someone whether it’s virtual or in person and I’m just going to try and build real relationships with people and if they work with us great if they don’t they might know someone who eventually does but it was all about going back to those kind of portraits of actually taking an interest in real people so for those introverts listening who worry about that aspect if you suddenly switch the mindset from oh I need to get 20 leads for my business this month I need a cold call 500 people if you change that to well I’m going to offer 20 people for a cup of coffee suddenly it becomes a lot easier and a lot more manageable and as introverts certainly for me I said well I like like coffee I like deep conversations let’s let’s see how that goes yeah I like it I want to touch on one bit of advice just in terms of mindset is there one thing people could take away from your experience with ultramarathons you are always able to to take that extra step you are at 40 capacity when you’re exhausted and that really really brought it back for me when I when I read that when your brain is saying give up this is too hard you you can you can take that extra step whether it’s a 5k a 3k a 10k it’s a fitness journey whether it’s a business that you haven’t made a sale in your first 11 months whether it’s a piece of study degree master’s PhD whatever it is the same thing lies across all all of those different things there’s always more to give you just have to remember why you’re doing these things why you started them and how amazing it will be when you finish them yeah when you’re exhausted you still got 60 left to give thanks so much for sharing all of your thoughts and your wisdom David I really appreciate you being here if listeners want to learn more about you and the work you do where should they go so the best place to go is LinkedIn so it’s Dr David Hooper on LinkedIn and if anybody wants to find out about what I do the website lunala.co.uk and feel free to send me a DM about anything we’ve talked about today I’d love to love to have coffee if anyone wants to coffee thanks so much for being here David thanks so much for having me Greg take care all right here’s a few things that I’m taking away from this conversation with David number one use AI as a thinking partner not to replace your original thoughts I can’t do that but to draw it out as introverts we do some of our best work internally and a lot of times these great thoughts just stay stuck in our head and never make their way out into the world AI gives you a way to externalize these thoughts to reflect organize and actually move on them and start taking action verbalizing is the first step out of your head and into the real world number two let your impact do the talking you don’t have to pound the table to get attention on your contributions or to get ahead just start talking about your measurable outcomes put numbers to what you’ve done the people who matter will come back and ask how did you do that and number three claim your space David’s advice about saying that’s a great question let me come back to you with a better answer is really about claiming the time that you need to do your best thinking it’s a must-have tool in every introverts toolkit if this episode resonated with you the best thing you can do now is to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts i’m greg weinger keep leading with quiet confidence and i’ll see you next time warning the following zippercruder radio spot you are about to hear is going to be filled with f words when you’re hiring we at zippercruder know you can feel frustrated for lorn even like your efforts are futile and you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine fortunately zippercruder figured out how to fix all that and right now you can try zippercruder for free at zippercruder.com slash zip with zippercruder you can forget your frustrations because we find the right people for your roles fast which is our absolute favorite f word in fact four out of five employers who post on zippercruder get a quality candidate within the first day fantastic so whether you need to hire four forty or four hundred people get ready to meet first rate talent just go to zippercruder.com slash zip to try zippercruder for free don’t forget that’s zippercruder.com slash zip finally that’s zippercruder.com slash zip