All Can, No Can’t: Beating Sudden Cardiac Death in a CrossFit Box with Jeff Luther

Brad Minus: Welcome back to another episode of Life-Changing Challengers. I am super excited to have Jeff Luther with us today. He has a podcast and is probably one of the coolest fricking I titles of a podcast I've ever seen. All Can No Can't, and that's like everything that we talk about here on life-changing challengers.

So I'm super excited to talk to him. Hey Jeff, how you doing? 

Jeff Luther: I'm great, man. Thanks so much for having me on brand. 

Brad Minus: Oh, it is my pleasure. And I'm really, really excited to hear about everything that you've been through. This is a big mystery for the audience right now. Anyway, all can Oh, can't love it.

Absolutely. So, hey Jeff, can you tell us a little bit about your childhood? You know, like where did you grow up? What was the compliment of your family and what was it like to be Jeff as a kid? 

Jeff Luther: Yeah, that's fun. I grew up in a little town called Fairplay, rural, rural Georgia. Like post office two, convenience stores, rural, life was good.

Like I grew up, traditional mom, dad, three kids, dog, family. We were probably more purple collar than blue collar. Life was good. I could get on my bike as a kid during the summer and be gone all day. I'd go fish. It was so fun.

I could take a 22 rifle out of my house, walk out of my driveway, cross the street and go into the woods and hunt. So it was cool. I mean, life was good. My dad wasn't nice. You know, high expectations. I was never enough, that sort of thing.

But I think we're all dragging around something in a wagon behind us, right? Mm-hmm. Absolutely. 

Brad Minus: Gen X. 

Jeff Luther: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: I have a t-shirt. It says, it says gen, it says, gen X rub some dirt on it. 

Jeff Luther: Yeah. Like, you know, I talked to my kids like, man, the worst position I played in baseball growing up was coach's son.

Yeah. It sucked. The worst part of baseball for me was the ride home. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. Yes, I hear that. My, my dad didn't coach me in baseball, but he make me play it and I was super bad at it. And of course, the ride home from the games but that was his sport. He loved baseball, he did everything, blah, blah.

But he decided to be a soccer coach. Oh wow. And that was just his back 

Jeff Luther: so he could yell at you. 

Brad Minus: So, do you play sports? 

Jeff Luther: I played, football, basketball, baseball. I gravitated to cycling when I turned 13. 

Brad Minus: Oh, you that I gotta hear about.

Jeff Luther: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: I mean, we're talking about cycling, you're talking about at the time, 10 speed on the road, criterium, that kind of stuff. Yeah. 

Jeff Luther: Yep, yep. You know, I like the suffer, so the distance, I learned at an early age that, I liked that distance and suffering, just the long grueling rides.

Brad Minus: Yeah. 

Jeff Luther: In this episode. 

Brad Minus: All right. I'm an endurance coach, so, I've been on those long grueling rides, a hundred mile rides. Been on 'em. Love 'em. And yeah, I get it. It will change your life if you've never been on one. 

Jeff Luther: I tell people I'm a recovering cyclist. I used, say, I'm recovering cyclist now. Say I'm a recovering ultra runner. 

Brad Minus: Oh, well, we, okay, we're gonna, yeah, we need to keep going because I gotta hear about that.

And I know that's gonna come later. 'cause most ultra runners don't even start until they're 30, 40, so. Yeah. But, so what organize, oh, you said, you said football, basketball, baseball in, in, in, in high school. Yeah. 

Jeff Luther: You go to college. I, I went to college. I didn't play any college ball, but baseball was my sport.

I played up through high school. And in high school, is where the pitchers became men. That was the first time as I, I was, I played first base and as a freshman there weren't a lot of first basemen. So I played, I tried out, up for varsity 'cause they wanted a first baseman and that was the first time anybody threw a pitch at me. That was my first real curve ball. And it was fast and the dude was big. And that ruined me, that like, shut down my baseball career. I couldn't hit it. Couldn't see it. Yeah. I mean, I just, I couldn't, I never recovered, 

Brad Minus: been in those, batting cages. Yeah. Yeah. 80 miles, 75 miles.

60. Even the 60 miles. Even 60. Yeah. I mean, it's 60 miles hot, fast. 

Jeff Luther: And you hear it, you hear the seams.

Brad Minus: I played tennis as a kid recreationally, we'd spend all day at the tennis courts in the summer and then going to tennis matches and seeing the difference where the ball came and then going to high school and getting in front of the tennis ball, cannon.

Jeff Luther: Oh, 

Brad Minus: Where did you say you went to school? You went to, in Georgia? 

Jeff Luther: Yeah. No, I went to West Georgia College. It's now University of West Georgia. Nice. What'd you study? Psychology.

I mean, like, you know, I thought that was the easiest thing. So, and I went for two years and dropped out and then did, trade school and dropped out of that and then started the entrepreneur journey, what did you go to trade school for? For my core, 'cause I wanted to go back to college, so I went to a technical school, trade school just to take core classes.

'cause I was gonna go back to college after pretty much failing out. And then I was like, oh my God, I could be earning money and I'm sitting in this classroom again. This is a nonsense. 

Brad Minus: That sounds amazing. That's like, did you ever see back to school with, Rodney Dangerfield?

Dangerfield? Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Do you remember when he was, when he went to the business class? And I was sitting there and the guy's like, we're gonna do this, and then first you must go ahead and this. And he is like laughing and he's like, do you have something to say? I'm like, you can't do it that way.

He's like, what are you talking about? This is the way, it's blah, blah, blah. He says, no, first you gotta grease the fricking government so that you could get your, get your permits. Then you, that might be the way you do things. That's not the way we do things the right way here in class. You don't do it that way in fantasy land either.

Right. So it was so funny. But yeah's what I get, I get that frame of mind. Whenever I think about that, when people that actually are like, ah, college, let's just, let's just start it. Start something. So when was the first business you started? 

Jeff Luther: First business? First business that I started, this is kind of how my entrepreneur journey went.

I wanted to go earn money. First business I started was cutting grass when I was like nine. I killed it cutting grass. I would take my dad's riding lawnmower so I could ride, drag the weed eater in the gas can and go cut grass.

I was cutting grass like 60 bucks a pop. You do two a day and you're getting a hundred bucks or so as a kid, like it was amazing. 

Brad Minus: Obviously you were frugal if you did that. You wanted to keep stacking it for some reason. What drove, what drove that?

'cause most kids are like 120 bucks. 

Jeff Luther: It was always a thing. It was always a thing. It was a new skateboard. It was a new gun, it was a scope, it was always a thing. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. 

Jeff Luther: You had 

Brad Minus: a goal in mind. 

Jeff Luther: But I loved money. Like I loved having the money, but man did I love to spend it too.

Brad Minus: Yeah. Well that's the use of having it. You can't spend it. Right? Yep. Right. But I can see, I think there's like two kinds of people that would look at that, right? They'd be like, oh, I wanna buy stuff and I want to get this, and yeah, I have my goal to get this. But then there's people that just kind of lift up the mattress and go look at all of that.

I did both. Yep. And then it pains, it pains you to take it out and go, do I really need it? Yeah. I kind of like the looks of this a little bit better. 

Jeff Luther: Yeah. Yeah. And like, so the first, the first board that I bought on my own was a Steve Caballero Powell Peralta. Nice. And I knew that I wanted the board, I knew what the cost was, everything about it.

And when I had enough money to buy the board, I was like. Shit, you know, if I spend all this money, I'm not gonna have any money left. So then I kept getting more money. I was like, all right, well, I need to stack some more, some more money under my mattress so that I'll have something to look at when I go buy that board.

Brad Minus: Nice. Yeah. So, all right, so that's the kid. That was your kid journey, and then obviously you did well. What about when you decided that hey, school was not for you? What was the first business that you started there? 

Jeff Luther: So, as school's, not for me. Then, then I went into corporate America.

I was like, you know, maybe I can get a job at a corporation. My dad had worked for a Fortune 100, my whole childhood. Same company, same corporation. They had these pensions. So he always harped big company and they'll take care of you long term, all this stuff. But that, that stopped that era quit. Mm-hmm. So I went to work for Georgia Pacific, which it was great.

It was a great job. But of course, without a degree I was limited to how high I could go. At least I told myself that. So I worked there for a few years. Then they transferred me out to Denver. I went out to Denver for a few years. They transferred me back. And when they moved me back, like I hated my job.

I hated, I hated Friday 'cause I knew I was gonna have to be back there Monday. So I quit one day. I was like, here's my two weeks. I'm done. I didn't know what I was gonna do, so I bought tax liens for a little while. Government, real property tax liens. And then you buy those and the people have to buy 'em back from you and they pay a fee.

So you make a little bit of money doing that. It's kind of a lot of work. Then I stopped doing that and I was like, well, what am I gonna do? So I was about to get married, like literally about to get married. Three, it was three months before my wedding. So I started, lawn care business. I just started cutting grass.

I worked at Home Depot from 4:00 AM to 8:00 AM so that I could get insurance. And then I started doing home inspections. That was my first real adult business. And I grew that into a company that I'm actually in. Negotiations to sell now. Nice. I hope it's nice.

I'm terrified. 

Brad Minus: So, interesting enough, my dad, had an appraisal business. When he was working for someone, it was the interest rates bottomed out. Like, what was it? Two? No, it was 1990. So I was, I was in school 19 93, 19 94.

That area. 19 92, 93, 94. So, he was working for another place and the interest rates bombed out, and he's like, we're flooded. He says, I'm gonna teach you how to do this. Because it was so busy. They're gonna teach you how to do it, and this is gonna be something you can do.

So it was a hundred dollars a pop. Every time you did an appraisal, it was a hundred bucks. Yeah. I didn't realize that. They were going for three 50, right? They was given a hundred dollars to the appraiser and basically you made your own time. You called up to people, you said, Hey, I'm gonna be there to inspect your home.

And then you find comps, which at the time we didn't have the internet, so you had to go to a real estate office. 

Jeff Luther: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: And peer through their books, make copies, take a picture of the house and then come back. Really wasn't that bad because the comps had to be within a mile. So it was like, go to the place, do the inspection, go to real estate, find three comps, go take pictures, go home, write it up.

So maybe it was three hours total per one. So as a college kid, beer, money, I was like, do a couple appraisals a week. 

Jeff Luther: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: 200 bucks. I was good. Right. 

And then I left school for a little while, just like you did. 'cause I didn't know what I wanted to do. I started doing that full time, so I get it.

But I went back to school when the interest rates went up and there wasn't as much, wasn't much work anymore. Yeah. But yeah. So you were doing home inspections. Did you, so now that I've talked to you about appraisal, did you roll, did you started, did you roll it into, did how, when you grew it, it obviously, did you stay, is it strictly home inspection or have you grew it to something else?

Did you start bringing in like, I don't know, titles or something? 

Jeff Luther: No, we stayed, we do commercial inspections, commercial boards especially mostly residential. So no, we hired folks and we just kept, we just stayed on the grind, grinding out inspections. We were probably in 2000, I would say in 2019, we were probably the largest in the Atlanta market.

Wow. That, that's the 

Brad Minus: Atlanta market. That's huge. Yeah. It was. I see y'all looking all modest over there, Jeff, you know, go ahead. That's fine. But I get it. I get it. So, so outside of that, it sounds like you were, you were still staying active? 

Jeff Luther: Staying active. Yeah. I've always been active since, since a little kid.

Yeah. And then, you know, I got my first, I, I got my first road bike when I was 13. Did that, for a few years. Then got into mountain biking, did them both for a while. Got in and then got into running. I liked running, so as I started to work more running, I could just fit in. Right. I could do it at lunch, I could do it after work before I went home.

I could fit it in any time. So running became convenient and then I did it. 

Brad Minus: Nice. 

Jeff Luther: You 

Brad Minus: do any, triathlon though. 

Jeff Luther: I've done. 

Brad Minus: I've done a couple of little sprints. Okay. That's my thing. I love triathlon. Because I love biking and running.

Yeah. I could take the swimmer, leave it. 

Jeff Luther: Man, that swimming is no joke. 

Brad Minus: Oh, it's, yeah. There's a reason why they put it in the front. Yeah. 'Cause it's a full body sport. But yeah, so I'm, I'm into that, but I've done plenty of duathlons. Have you ever done a duathlon?

Is that, that's just run and bike, right? Run, bike, run, run, bike, run. No, I've never done one. Oh, all right. You gotta try that. We have, we've got a local one out here that I just absolutely adore. 5K run, 10 mile bike, 5K Run hard. It's hard. I was, 

Jeff Luther: The running. 

Brad Minus: But the 10 

Jeff Luther: mile bike's pretty easy, right?

Brad Minus: Well, it's just the idea. Well it's a race, so literally, or you just go balls out. It's red line from the minute you start to the minute you end. Yeah. Sprint triathlon, same thing. Sprint triathlon. Yeah. Red line from the beginning. So it's hard, but it's fun. So you stayed cycling and what else did you try?

Jeff Luther: I've done, you know, well CrossFit, I got into CrossFit, and I've done a lot of stuff like that. My latest was Olympic lifting. 

Brad Minus: Okay. 

Jeff Luther: It's funny 'cause I have a runner's build. So I got into doing Olympic lifting. I lifted competitively.

Brad Minus: A lot of CrossFitters though. It's kind of like triathletes will go and then when they hang up the fins and the bike, and then they'll go do ultra running. And then it seems like CrossFitters will get rid of the rope and everything else, and they'll just do Olympic lifting.

So, but yeah, that Olympic 

Jeff Luther: lifting man, there's nothing, there's nothing quite like committing to get under a barbell. You don't know if you can hold up or not. In a split second. 

Brad Minus: What, how did you like CrossFit? 

Jeff Luther: I like it. Like, and I still like it. I did a competition, a partnered competition with my son for my 50th birthday.

I don't think it's good for your body. I really don't. In terms of the wear and tear and the movements. I mean, it was, so we're talking about Olympic lifting. People get into that 'cause they like the precision and they like, the discipline that it takes. And they like, how you can lift more than the person next to you, even though they're stronger than you.

'cause it's all about form. And then we'll take the snatch, you know, which is taking the bar from the, from the floor overhead in one movement in a squat, which is a, it's, it's a very, meticulous movement. And then we'll go to CrossFit and we're doing 30 snatches for time. Really? It just doesn't make sense.

You know, you're ripping this bar off the ground that's probably too heavy for you anyway. It's fraught with opportunities for injury and that's what happens. 

Brad Minus: No, no. There's plenty of like, watching injuries on the thing, so I mean, but that's, yeah. So, yeah, I can see where a lot of people have some contentions with CrossFit.

The first I went to CrossFit and they, obviously there was this one place here that's very meticulous. And so you have to go through two weeks of this foundations class. And they'll literally make you, you've gotta do like the Olympic lifts, you gotta do 'em 10. Perfect. 

Jeff Luther: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: All the lifts have to be done perfect.

10 each perfectly, before they'll let you into the RX class. So that might be something that's d might be 

Jeff Luther: Yeah. That's a little different. They do that pretty much at every gym and not to poo-pooed or talk down, but it's way different when you're doing it for performance for a coach with two or three minutes in between each lift.

When you're doing it under load, exhausted and just want the workout to get over and you're just slinging weight everywhere. You're just trying to get it over your head. 

Brad Minus: I think I did a couple of classes, a couple of wads, and I've done, you know, obviously I'm a veteran, so on Memorial Day and Labor Day, we usually knock out Murph.

Jeff Luther: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: But yeah, that's even, but that's, I mean, it's pull-ups, pushups and, and squats, so it's not, you know, it's, you're not, you're under load, but it's not like crazy. I know that, a lot of people have incidents in CrossFit. There's a lot of stuff.

And then I think, if I'm not mistaken, you actually had an incident during a CrossFit class, right? 

Jeff Luther: I did, yeah. Minor, little incident. Minor. 

Brad Minus: Okay.

Jeff Luther: Yeah. I think you're being facetious. You wanna tell me about it? Yeah, let me tell the first part of the story first only to boost my ego. This was june the fifth, 2021. I ran my first overnight ultra, which was so fun. But just for my ego, I showed up to that race to win. That was the only reason I was there.

It was my first overnight and I was gonna win. It was a 50 K. I didn't, I got second, but still, you know, that I'm fit, so I, you know, I did the thing. I've stretched and ate and drank for the week, did all of my resting recovery, all that stuff.

In June the 12th, I showed up at a CrossFit gym with my oldest son. He was 16 at the time, and it was a partnered workout. One is you have to work really close with your partner.

You count their reps, they count your reps. You have to know when they wanna break. You have to know when they wanna stop and if it's synchronized or even closer so you know how they are physically this entire time. And then the second thing is if you get a little bit of an edge on your partner, like you can really bury him.

So my son and I were working out together. He was my partner and Brad. I was burying him like it was amazing. And my son is, he's a fire breather. I was doing wall balls and I started to get a real heavy heart rate in my neck. I could just feel it, real pronounced. And then it got faster and faster and I was like, oh man.

It's not going away. It had happened a few times before, like long runs in the heat of the day. It would happen, but it would just go away. So I was like, oh man, this is not going away. This is weird. So then I stopped and I stood there with this wall ball for a second.

I was like, oh my gosh, and this is really uncomfortable. And I started getting a little lightheaded. So I took a knee and then I was like, man, this is not going away. And the, there was a dude in the rack next to me lifting while we were there doing this workout, and he put his hand on my shoulder and asked me if I was okay.

And I was like, dude, get your hand off of me. Like, I'm scared, I'm confused, I'm vulnerable. I don't know what's happening. Get your hand off me. And in a flash, like in less than a second, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm scared. I'm confused. I'm vulnerable. I don't know what's happening. Please do not let me go.

Oh my gosh. Then I started to, I was like, I've gotta lay down. So I started to lay over on top of the wall ball, and I was laying my head down on the gym floor. I was going down on my left side, and the last thing I saw was my son's shoes, his metcons, his white met. Cons were walking towards me and I was like, I gotta get up.

What, Jeff, what are you doing, dude? Get up. And I knew in my, like my brain was sending the signal, but I had no, it was like, I had no hydraulic fluid in my body. I couldn't move. And it's not like the movies, you know, where you see the dude, he's, he's shot from head to toe bleeding everywhere. You know, he is dying, but he still crawls over.

Yeah, there was none of that. And I was out, man, I just, it was like somebody walked up and turned the lights out and my heart stopped. 

Brad Minus: What 

Jeff Luther: happens? 

Brad Minus: So obviously the rest of it's here is, is what you, is what you were told. What happened when the lights came back on?

Where were you? 

Jeff Luther: So I'll fill the gap in, but when the lights came back on, I was in the gym. I was in the floor, and I was screaming like I was screaming and I can still hear the echo 'cause this is big. It's a giant lum, but just a big metal building, right? No air conditioning a fan. So you can imagine like how hot it is.

It's June. And when I stopped screaming, I could hear the echo of the scream for, another second or so. And everybody was just looking at me like I had five heads.

I can't even imagine. So, I mean, were EMS was, was EMS there yet? Yeah, they had just gotten there. They were getting this stretcher ready to put me on the stretcher. And I looked at the coach, like first when I woke up I was like, what are we doing?

And like, are we gonna finish this workout? Like what gives and why am I wet? Because they had a, they had an ice machine there at the gym and somebody went and got a bucket of ice and dumped ice on me. They thought I'd just passed out from heat. Yeah. 

Brad Minus: So 

Jeff Luther: they were slapping me around for a little while, doing that whole bit.

But I looked at the coach and I was like, oh my gosh, I am so sorry. 'cause I had this horrible taste in my mouth. I was like, I must have gotten drunk last night and came and did this workout and passed out. And he was like, no, you're so far off base. Like, no, that didn't happen, and I don't really even drink, you know?

So that would've been outlandish, but I could not remember the night before. 

Brad Minus: Crazy. Oh my God. So now I would, at this point I'd be freaking out. But that's got to show you at least a little bit of the community that CrossFit breeds, 

Jeff Luther: So I went down and they, you know, somebody came over, they stopped the music, all that stuff. So they're slapping me around, trying to get me to come to, and then they put water on me and they're like, oh, he is just hot.

The director of safety at the Charleston Aquarium is there. And so they're doing all this stuff and she's like, maybe we need to feel for a pulse. So she went for a pulse and there was no pulse. And she's like, he doesn't have a pulse guy. Like there's no pulse. So she starts giving me chest compressions and then she sent someone to get the a ED.

There's an a ED there. So, and my son is watching all this, you know, the 16-year-old kid is watching this whole thing happen. So they put the a ED on me. And the a ED is not like on the movies. It's not like you just connected to somebody and you shock 'em and they come back to life. It's not like house.

It has to detect a rhythm. So they put it on me and they said, no rhythm detected, do chest compressions. So they're giving me chest compressions and it observes every, every minute, I think. So every minute it'll check and see if there's a rhythm. So after a minute. I had an electrical signal, so it shocked me.

And when it shocked me, it is like the movies 'cause you come up off the ground. My son told me that. Yeah. So when it shocked me, I, it, I flatlined and it gives an audible flatline, like the la the beat, just like the movies. So my son loses, his mind just freaks out. Fortunately our weightlifting coach was there, so she coached him and she coached me.

And she, she said she had to pick him up. She had to pick him up and, and drag him. He was fighting with her. They all came around and created a partition so that he couldn't see what was happening.

Wow. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. That's amazing. So obviously this director of safety, heard the flat line, then she went back to work on compressions. Right. 

Jeff Luther: Yep. Then yeah, because you want that 

Brad Minus: actually, you want that flat line. A lot of times, and what we don't see in the movies, in the movies is it's like, oh, he's flat lining shock him.

When it's, when there's no pulse or when there's an irregular pulse, they'll hit it flat line, go to compress compressions, and that will restart the heart. 

Jeff Luther: Yep. So, and that's what happened. I had an irregular rhythm. My heart rate was 386 beats a minute on that.

EKG. Holy crap. Yeah. So what happened is I went into ventricular fibrillation where the ventricles just, they just vibrate. Yeah. Wow. So then it just stopped. It was like, ah, that's too fast. I'm out. 

Brad Minus: It's, yeah, that's ventricle saying there's the finish line. Right. She got you to a flat line, did chest compressions. Mm-hmm. Did they, so, oh, you said you woke up and EMS had just gotten there, so obviously she'd gotten you back to a regular rhythm. Yep. Or at least a rhythm enough to wake you up. 

Jeff Luther: Yeah. So it spooled again, it observed again, and then it said initiate shock.

So it was the second shock. Someone said two, and my son says three. So the second shock it was when I came to, but I'm, but I really don't know. 

Brad Minus: All right. So you get into the ambulance by this point, son.

Did your son, did he. He calmed down? 

Jeff Luther: No, she took him. Jen took him. She's like, all right, man, ambulance here. Your dad's gonna be fine. Let's go. And so he thought that she was taking him to the hospital and she was taking him home. Okay.

She knew I was dead. She's like, what am I gonna do with this kid? Oh, wow. 

Brad Minus: Wait a second. So he takes him home? She takes him home. Yeah. She takes him home. Yeah. And then mom is there, your wife. Yeah. Right. And she at least gotten a phone call by then? 

Jeff Luther: Nope. No. Nope. Nothing.

Yeah. 

Brad Minus: So did she tell her? 

Jeff Luther: Yep. 

Brad Minus: I can't 

Jeff Luther: yeah. 

Brad Minus: So, 

Jeff Luther: that, and so then the calls started coming in. Calls were coming to Jen, calls were coming to cash, and somebody called, my wife at the time 

Brad Minus: And said, no, he's going to the hospital. Yeah. He's got a heartbeat. Or was she like, damn, 

Jeff Luther: I think at the time she's like, 

Brad Minus: damn 

Jeff Luther: it.

Brad Minus: All right. So how long did you get a diagnosis? 

Jeff Luther: I wasn't even gonna go to the hospital. I was like, I'm fine. I'm totally fine. Just a little, little dehydrated from my race, so we could go. 

Brad Minus: I need to change your,

name on your titles here. I need to change it to Clark Kent. Okay. An already idiot. One of the two. 

Jeff Luther: I wasn't thinking clearly, obviously, but I also had a bunch of stuff to do. Like, that was my son's birthday party day that day. Oh. So I was like, I can't go to the hospital.

He's having his birthday party. I gotta go home. So I go to the hospital, this is on a Saturday, and then they start like, man, the EMTs were so condescending when they were there. What? Yeah, they were so condescending. You know, it's just like the way I felt was the fat old guy showed up at the gym and had a heart attack.

That's how I felt. You know, like they got better things to do. Ah, you know, some of these fat old people just going to the gym and having a heart attack another, another Saturday at the fire department. But they were like, you know, what made you think you could do this? Or do you know how hot it is? And have you been, have you been drinking?

They meant like drinking water. Yeah. Yeah. You've been hydrating. I was like, yeah, I, yeah, I've been hydrating. Yeah, I've done this before. Yeah, I think I got this. Did you take pre-workout? I was like, no. 

Brad Minus: That's a legitimate question, you know, if you're Yeah. If, you know, if you got a little bit of nitro, if you got some extra nitrous in you that there, that's been, there's been a link to that.

So especially when you're So that one I'm going to, I'm gonna give it to them, the dr the drinking, then I'm gonna give that to 'em too. But them being condescending, I was part of s for a while. Okay. No way. 

Jeff Luther: No way. Yeah. It was, I would say a humbling experience. It wasn't humbling.

It was a negative experience. I was like, guys. I'm the customer. Like help make me feel good. I'm vulnerable. Like, this sucks. This is awful. You're making it worse. You're, you're making it like it's my fault. Like you're inconvenienced. Yeah, that's what it was.

That's, that was what it was. It was, they were inconvenienced 

Brad Minus: some, it's very rare, but some of them are like, oh, all right, so this is just a ride to, you know, if it was, Atlanta EMS or was it like a county EMS or was it a private No, 

Jeff Luther: It was Charleston County EMS Okay.

Brad Minus: Yes. So yeah, some of them are like, you know, for them just to go throw leads on you and put you in the thing and take you to the hospital, they wanted some action. So like, they want to cut somebody out of a car.

Or they wanted at least give you, they wanted to be there to go, oh, we need to give 'em CPR. They wanted to be the one to shock you. They wanted to be the one to give you, epinephrine, you know, in the whole bit. That's what they wanted. But they got there and basically what they were babysitting, they hooked you to the leads to make sure you'd be okay.

Three in the fricking ambulance and took you to the hospital. Yeah. So for, yeah, that sometimes it's very rare though. Most EMS guys are very good about that. You know, they don't want you to feel like that. So, I'm sorry you felt like that as a, as a former EMS guy. I, I apologize.

But anyway, so you got to the hospital, 

Jeff Luther: gotta the hospital that was on, that was Saturday. It was like 10 o'clock. And then that process started over again. They were asking me about recreational drug use. Yeah. They were like, you know, we, there's no link here. There's, 'cause I had no troponin, so they couldn't, they, 'cause they thought heart attack, there was no troponin.

And so I explained, you know, I just had this long run. I probably should have trained better for it. And you know, like, and I was tailing off of two previous races long runs during the week. I mean, I had been really hammering it. So then they said, okay, well that explains the enlarged right ventricle and this, and this went on for two days.

And then Monday someone comes in, a new doctor comes in, they go through the whole same series of tests, MRI, all that stuff. And I was diagnosed on Tuesday, late Tuesday. They came in and said, all right, well, you know, we got really good news. We have a diagnosis for you. You have a RVC. I was like. All right, well, you know, what is that?

And they said arrhythmogenic, right? Ventricular cardiomyopathy. It's like, all right, thanks. You know? So then they left and I start, you know, I do what any smart right patient does. I look it up on WebMD and I'm looking up all this stuff. I was like, oh my gosh. Like, I, like, I can't exer, you know, the first thing they say is, you have this, this heart disease.

You don't exercise. And it was the day that, that soccer player, Christian 

Brad Minus: Ronaldo? 

Jeff Luther: Yes. Was it Ronaldo? No. The soccer player went down on the field. Oh, and they, yeah. 

Brad Minus: I know who you're talking about. 

Jeff Luther: Who was that guy? Christensen e Christensen. Anyway. Yeah. But it was the same day, same day, same disease, the whole bit.

So the doctor comes back and, he said, all right, well, we're going down first thing in the morning to get your, they wanted to give me a pacemaker. They're gonna have a pacemaker put in. You need to figure out which side of your chest you wanted on. Or you can get a, an ICDA subcutaneous. Yeah. Defibrillator.

I was like, I, I don't even know what you're talking about. Like, slow down first, let's talk about this exercise thing. So he said, he said, yeah, you know, you exercise exacerbates your condition. Your condition is exercise induced. So it's a gene that mutates that causes the muscle fibers in the heart.

When they tear, they get infiltrated with fat and scar tissue. So then I have a bad electrical signal, like my mitochondria has scar and fat. So the electrical signal doesn't travel that well. And that's what happened. My signal got hung up. So I was just spinning and that, I guess that causes the VF too for you.

You know, it'll hit right so many times, but that you can't really pump any blood. Interesting. 

Brad Minus: So they stuck with that diagnosis, stuck with that di to this day. Okay. So you're still getting treated for it. So did you end up with the ICD or the, the pacemaker? I ended up with the ICD.

Jeff Luther: You know. No leads in the heart. I don't need to be paced. 

Brad Minus: Right. You didn't even pace. That's absolutely right. It's if it happens to send a quick shock over and sometimes you don't even know it.

You know, actually. Well, actually I have a friend that ended up having one, so I was afraid for him. So I've done the research, and yeah. Most of the time it's one or two things. It's one is you'll feel it if there's actually something going on,

Jeff Luther: yeah. No, no, no, no, no. I've had it happen. I've never felt a thing. 

Brad Minus: Right, right, right. When it happens, you don't feel it. When you do feel it is when you need to get it replaced or get a battery check changed or something. Yeah. I've seen people that have, gone back to working out and stuff.

Obviously it's like moved and sometimes it releases and they've gotta replace it, but they're still getting the shock. On the whole, the technology's gotten so good and medicine's gotten so good. You've got it.

Like you said, when it works, it works and you're not really feeling it. 

Jeff Luther: I've had no issues. I mean, I've had some VF here and there. It just comes up when they do my downloads every week.

They'll send me a report and say, oh, hey, were you feeling anything on July the 22nd? 'cause you had VF for 14 seconds 

Brad Minus: okay. All right. But on the whole though, now you're feeling pretty good and 

Jeff Luther: Yeah, I feel fine. So that was on June, let's see, June the 16th, I think is the day I got it installed.

They tell, you know, you can't do anything for 30 days. Don't lift anything heavier in a gallon of milk, that kind of stuff. So July 19th after my 30 days was up, I did what any smart male athlete would do. I bring to here, back to the gym. Okay. So that was the first thing I did.

And my son wanted me to go back, you know, he wanted to see me, yeah. Be okay and lift weights. So I go back to the gym and I'm doing, a heavy barbell complex, the Bayer complex. It's like you're under load for, I mean, it's like 40 seconds. And it happened again.

I was in VF for 46 seconds, so no shock. 'Cause it has to, you have to be in bad rhythm for a minute. Yeah. And almost that, so that is when like, I had the same taste in my mouth. I started to pass out. Everything happened that had happened before, but when it happened before, I didn't know what was happening.

So this time I actively knew that I was dying. I was like, this is it. Like I am. I am dying. That's exactly what's happening. I'm dying. 

Brad Minus: Did you go, like, sit down at, at a wall? Did you just stay on the bench? Did you lie on the bench? What did you do?

Jeff Luther: No. So I was in the, front of the gym and there was, a counter there, like where they have the computer and the sign in sheets and all that stuff. So I just happened to be there by it, and I leaned over on that waiting for it to go away. Okay. 

Brad Minus: And after three, I 

Jeff Luther: was waiting to get shocked that I knew the shock was coming, but it never, the shock never came.

Brad Minus: Took you out of Fi fb. Yeah. Yep. And did you finish the workout? No. No. That's, I'm kidding. I'm totally kidding. Yeah, I'm totally kidding. So, all right. So the second, so this happens again. What, what's going through your head? And now you've, you've, did you, I'm, so you stopped, did your, and your, did you let your son just keep going? Finish the workout? 

Jeff Luther: Oh, yeah. I pretended like everything was fine. After he dropped the bar, he's like, what are you doing?

You all right? Because I was looking at my watch at my heart rate and I was like, well, I can't figure this out. They're like, oh, yeah, I'm fine. It's been a while since I've worked out. I'm probably not gonna finish this workout, but I feel good and, you know, I just covered it up.

Like everything was fine, but really all I wanted to do was hug somebody. I just wanted to connect with another human. That's all I wanted to do. And I couldn't, 'cause I had to pretend like everything was fine. 

Brad Minus: All right. I don't think your son would've minded you freaking given him a bro hug disguised as a, Hey, I'm hanging on for dear life.

But yeah, that's just how I feel. Wow. That's crazy. So now, all right, so now you've, you've had the main event and then you've gone through treatment. Now you had a smaller event. What changed? What is now, what have you, what did you start changing in your life to make sure that doesn't happen again?

Jeff Luther: I immediately stopped everything. I was like, oh my gosh. I was scared to drive. I was scared to take a shower 'cause I was scared to be in a bathroom by myself. As people say life is short.

You know, I don't even, I don't know, is life short? Who knows? But I know now I know. Death is real. I can tell you what it tastes like. It doesn't wait for an invitation. It doesn't call ahead to let you know it's coming. It doesn't matter if it's convenient for you or not. And that's like, we all know death is real.

Yeah. It's like this abstract thing. And when it happened to me, it became so real. You 

Brad Minus: got like PTSD from this last one. I mean, I'm not going to, but that's what it sounds like. 

Jeff Luther: Oh yeah. I lived in fear every, you know, it's about to happen again.

About to happen again. Yeah. I've gotten way better. But also it was like, okay, so now I really do have this disease. Now I really am not supposed to exercise. 'cause I thought the doctors were idiots before that. It's like, ah. I've put my heart through way worse than this. I mean, this is nothing, it's just a fluke.

It became real. 

Brad Minus: So, all right. You're not gonna make me believe that you completely stopped exercising. So, so you, you're living in fear through this time, so now there has to be another change. 

Jeff Luther: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: What was going on in your head?

How did you combat that? 

Jeff Luther: So, when I tell that story, like I do a keynote talk. When I tell the story, I know what people are gonna say to me. They say, oh my gosh, you must be so grateful. Oh my gosh, God has a plan for you. Oh my gosh, I bet you look at life so different. But I was so angry and so bitter, and such a victim.

That I couldn't find gratitude. I was not grateful. I was so mad. So then I had to figure, and I was sitting on the couch, you know, I couldn't do anything. I didn't exercise. So that sent me into depression, like deep depression. It got really dark for me for a while, and I was like, I've gotta, I have to get my life back.

I don't know how, but I've gotta get my life back. So then I just started like, you know, small gratitude. I would just write down, it started out with three things every day. What was I grateful for? And it was like, you know, I mean, I'm grateful that I have a wireless mouse. I mean, it was just stuff. And I had to, I had to do the exercise.

And then one day I was walking on the beach and I was like, I've got to figure this out. I've gotta get my life back. I was like, okay, what's great about this. I was like, I have this and I don't have a shellfish allergy.

That was what I came up with. And I was like, I have a bad heart and I'm grateful that I don't have a shellfish allergy. Where in the world does that make sense? And so my brain just started working and just, I just started thinking. I was like, you know, it's weird. Some people have a shellfish allergy, some people don't.

You know what? Some people don't have one their entire life. Then they sit down at an all you can eat buffet and eat like a hundred shrimp, and then they get the allergy. How does that happen? And I was like, ah, you know, everybody's body's just different, I guess.

Maybe my body will respond differently to this disease. I was like, all right, well, I'll do some research. So I started doing research. What can I do? What have other people done that have had this diagnosis? And I found some things that people had done.

I found some things that I shouldn't do. It's like, I would rather die living, you know, doing what I wanna do otherwise, then why be here? Hey, I really wanna stay alive to do the things that I hate and not do the things that I love that doesn't make sense to me.

So I had to figure out what I could do, and I started exercising again. I went back to the gym.

Brad Minus: Did you really? 

Jeff Luther: I really did. 

Brad Minus: You went back to the CrossFit gym? 

Jeff Luther: So this is, here's what I did. So I did my research. I found things that I could do and now, you know, it's not, so here's the thing, like, I may be getting a little ahead, but you know, like people are scared to die in a plane crash, right?

Mm-hmm. It's not the plane crash because the plane crash is instantaneous. What we're scared of is the 90 seconds it takes to get to the ground with everybody screaming and peeing their pants. That's what we don't want. So that's what I didn't want. I don't want the ride to the hospital getting shocked every minute until I die.

That's what I don't want. So I had to figure out what I could do and like, catecholamines are bad for me. Everything that, all the chemicals, all the neurochemicals, whatever they're called, like neurotoxins, not toxins, but like your, you know, adrenaline, endorphins, dopamine, right? Those chemicals are bad for my heart.

So I had to figure out what I could do first. I had to figure out the environment. I had to figure out how to control upstairs, how to keep all those things under control. And I found a coach. It was the coach that was actually there with me the day it happened the very first time. I was like, all right, look man, I can exercise, but it has to be on these parameters.

I need someone to help me write workouts. I need, a quiet place where I can do all this stuff. I need someone to not motivate me, to not cheer me on. I need no music and I need you to make sure I don't die. Will you do it? And he said, hell yeah, I'll do it. Hell yeah.

So I went back. We had a one o'clock appointment at the same gym. They had just done a 12 o'clock class. When I walked in, gym was completely quiet. Just him and me there, lights out everything.

He said, all right, warm up for four minutes. Light pedaling on the Echo bike. So I did, and the whole time, Brad, I was like, oh my gosh, it's coming. I can feel it. I can feel it. It's coming. Almost manifested it. Nothing happened. So then we started actual warmups where I started breaking a little bit of a sweat, a little bit of effort.

I could feel it. I knew it was coming. Nothing happened. So then we started the workout and the thing that I could do was. Heavy load for short periods of time. That was the only real thing that was gonna be one, beneficial for me. And two, to prevent the high heart rate, long periods of time that causes the adrenaline and also the fast movement to get the endorphins.

So I started those deadlifts and I worked out, I probably worked for maybe 15 or 20 seconds and I dropped them and I was like, man, I can't do this. I quit. 'cause I was terrified. Like I was terrified and I can't verbalize dramatically enough how scared I was.

It was awful. And I said, I quit, like I am done. And he was like. What do you mean? I said, I quit. I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not supposed to, and now I'm crying, so I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not supposed to do this. I can't do it. And I guess, 'cause I was crying, he said, well, what is it? Does this thing hurt you?

What is it? I said, no, I can't do it. I quit. I can't exercise anymore. I'm done. In that moment, I truly, truly became a quitter. I quit. And if any of your listeners have ever been there, I am so sorry. It's the bottom. Yeah. It was so awful.

Brad Minus: I had two incidents, but unfortunately nothing close to, but I understand the feeling. I overheated in a triathlon and passed out, woke up in the med tent with, ice underneath my el. And I was like, all right. And I looked at him and I'm like, okay, I'm good. Can you send me back?

Can you bring me back to where I ended so I could finish? And they're like, are you absolutely nuts? You're dumb. We already got rid of your chip. We already took care of it back and no, you d nfd. And I was like, you know, body hair.

And then of course, a couple years later I got two flat tires and I only carried one tube. Yeah. And that was the worst. It's not because of, it being scared or anything, or this thing going on. It literally was just the fact that, and that wasn't even my, I mean, it was my fault.

I should have had another tube. But. It was external things that were happening. 

Jeff Luther: DNF is bad. Well, under any circumstance. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. If you could, you could sit there. No, it's, it's internally, right? Yeah. Like, no one blamed me but me. Like it was me.

I'm the one that blamed me. No one cared. They're like, you got two flat tires, and it could happen to anybody. It just was, it was bad luck. That's what they said. Bad luck. Right. You know what I mean? You got heat exhaustion. It was hot. It was 102 degrees. I mean, that would've hurt anybody.

The thing was, is that I grew, I, I've been training in Florida and I'm like, that shouldn't happen to me. But like I said, it's not even close to what you're feeling, but at least I have a glimmer of what you felt like. 

Jeff Luther: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: You 

Jeff Luther: yeah. I'll 

Brad Minus: So, but obviously you've gotten through this.

Jeff Luther: Yeah. So it, in that workout. I, I really, I quit. He's like, all right, I get it. You quit, but let's do this. I just need 30 seconds of work and then we'll be done. I was like, no, you don't understand. I, I quit. Like I quit. And so we argued and there was a lot of cussing and mostly from me, and he said, look, I don't have a client until four o'clock.

I'll wait for you. Just give me 30 seconds of work. I was like, alright, I'll give it to you. And I was hoping something bad was gonna happen just to prove to him that I was right, that I didn't need to be doing that. So I did it. I did, I did 30 seconds and dropped the kettlebells. And he's like, that's amazing.

That's a win. We're done. I was like, ah, I could probably do 30 more seconds. He's like, yeah, do it. Do it. If you feel like doing 30 more seconds, do it and then we'll quit. So I did 30 more seconds and I was done. He said, that's more than I could have hoped for. That's amazing. You have to be proud of yourself.

And we're done. That's it. You came in here and you won. And I, I did the entire workout. It took a long time, but I did the entire workout, 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, and I got my life back.

Like, that's when I got my life back. I was done with the workout. I was just about to finish, you know, I had a little bit left and I'm going, okay, I can do that. I can do this work, I can do this. I can do 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off. It's not what I'm accustomed to. You know, I'm not burning it down, but I'm choosing, this is my choice and I did it.

I was hopeless. I was absolutely hopeless when I quit, I was hopeless. And in that same workout, I got my life back. It was amazing. And I owe it to Phil Glas. It was amazing. 

Brad Minus: Okay, I gotta ask about that first, but No, but first I gotta say this coach is fricking brilliant.

Yeah. Brilliant. 

Jeff Luther: Best thing anyone's ever done for me. 

Brad Minus: Tell what, what was this? I missed this whole thing. You said Alaska and then Oh, Phil. Phil GLA is his name. Oh, Phil gla. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm like, you went to Alaska. I'm like, I'm like, what? So I, I almost was like, was it some kind of competition in Alaska that you went to?

And I'm like, okay. Man. All right. So you felt like you got your life back. Yeah. So what has, what, what's been going on in your, I mean, obviously you've been, you, you know, you've got, you still got your, your company. But did you, what has gone on since then? 

Jeff Luther: So I, so after that I was like, all right, well, I can do this.

I was still afraid. I was still very much afraid and, you know, and like, I still, I couldn't, like, I couldn't watch the CrossFit games. I couldn't, I couldn't watch it. I couldn't watch, like my son wrestled. It was hard for me to watch wrestling 'cause I had this whole thing in my mind about adrenaline and endorphins and all those things were happening.

I had to, I was constantly trying to block that kind of stuff out. Then, I couldn't really do CrossFit. I would go to the, to the workouts, but I had to like. Take my rower and put it back in the corner and not watch anybody else. And I just couldn't, I couldn't find my place.

So then, I like that competitive edge. So then I, started, that's where I started doing competitive weight lifting. I was like, all right, well, can you train me to lift heavy stuff? You know, and we could do it in short bursts. And that way I'm not getting the adrenaline, I'm not under load for extended periods of time, and it still gives me something to chase.

So then that's when I started doing that. 

Brad Minus: It's finding what you can do and excelling. 

Jeff Luther: That's it. 

Brad Minus: No, 

Jeff Luther: for, you know, every obstacle now you just look at it, or I, I'm like, all right, well there's the obstacle. What's the opportunity?

Because there's gotta be an opportunity. 'cause somebody else has had this obstacle too. So you find the opportunity. And that's what I started doing. And then there were a couple times, like one day, well, I've got a, I've got a big setup in my. Garage now so that I can work out alone. And I don't get those catecholamines neurotransmitters, that's what they're called.

Neuro transmitters. Yeah, neurotransmitters. And I was setting up a workout one day for me and my son, and so I'm writing out the workout and I was like, but I'm gonna do this, this, and this. And he said, well, why are you not doing the same workout as me? I was like, well, I can't, I can't do what you do.

I'm like, I can't go that, I can't burn it down. And he looked at me, he said, yeah, you can. You're just scared. I was like, that stung. So then I started to kinda meddle a little bit with doing more intense stuff. And there were some times I've burned it down a few times. I mean, you know, we did that competition.

I didn't go completely crazy at that, but I stick mostly to lower intensity, higher weight stuff now. 

Brad Minus: Okay. So it sounds like what you've realized is that you could burn it down, just not as frequently as you did. 

Jeff Luther: Yeah. And I think that's a good trade off, right?

Because I will say when this whole thing started, my plan was to accelerate the disease to get a transplant. That was my plan, not a good plan. And that's where I was, that's what I was gonna do. And I'm not bragging about that. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. That doesn't sound like a good plan at all. The rate of people getting transplants 'cause that's, yeah.

'cause you wouldn't get put very high on the list 'cause they would've said that you did it to yourself. Well, and my age. And your age. Yeah. Well, all right, so you, I'm assuming you're 50. Yeah.

Okay. So I'm a few years older than you. Of course, we're always gonna have these obstacles. Your obstacle was that, that fear. And you had to find a way to break through it to find something that you can do and keep yourself healthy, fit, and not damage your heart anymore than it already was.

Right to stay there and you found it. And I think that's that. I mean, that's the way to go. So I started coaching because I got hurt. Well, I was getting ready for my first marathon in my second life, and that's a whole different story.

I was at a bootcamp class and we're doing suicides, right? And I literally, I'm at the, I, all I have to do is touch the line and come back. And I'm done with that set. So I get to the line, my foot sticks, so my foot sticks and my body turns. And you hear the, like, everybody heard the pop of my disc.

Oh. I mean, everybody heard it. It was obliterated. It was S five, you know, L five, S one. And it was gone. I had the adrenaline, the oxytocin, the endorphins, everything was running. So I finished, yeah. And I'm like, oh, I just must have cracked my back really heavy. It's not a big deal, blah, blah, blah. It's still running.

I finished the workout. Now I had a chiropractor appointment that day. Anyway, I literally was going to the gym, back to the chiropractor, and I'm thinking, okay, so I did something. He'll fix it. I'll be fine on the way to the chiropractor, my legs get numb. My back starts to throb. I don't know what's going on.

I walk in, literally walk into the, to the chiropractor almost at a 90 degree angle. 

Jeff Luther: Oh my gosh. 

Brad Minus: And the, the girls at the desk go, okay, let's get you in here. Dr. B, Bertrand, she was with another client like, let's get you with some ice. Let's get you on your stomach. Let's get this thing going.

So I do that. Then Dr. Dr. B, we, I slowly make my way over to her, to her office. And the one thing you're not supposed to do as a chiropractor, the one thing you don't do when somebody's in trauma is adjust them. She adjusted me. She tried. Now here's the funny story. If you ever been to a chiropractor's office, never.

So they have these tables just like in a regular doctor's office, you know, there's that white, paper that you lay on. So it's just across the head of the table. Where your head goes. Now, if you're on your stomach,

you've got this. So you don't, when you drool and stuff all it's on the white paper. Right? Right. That's just being sanitary. So I'm on my back. She does a couple things and she goes, okay, I need you to stand up and go over to, this other table on your side. I'm like, okay, no problem. And I put one foot down and the pain is so bad I pass out.

Jeff Luther: Oh my gosh. 

Brad Minus: So I wake up and Dr. Bertrand, she was like, are you back with us now? I said, Dr. B, what are you doing up here? You know why I said it? 

Jeff Luther: Thought you were in heaven. 

Brad Minus: You're the first person that got that 

Jeff Luther: wow. '

Brad Minus: cause when I woke up, all I saw was the white paper.

Jeff Luther: The white paper. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. And I said, Dr. B, what are you doing up here? Wow. So anyway, I can't get off the table and I ended up, they put me in the other room. They got me stem, they got ice, they got all this stuff, nothing worked. Ended up calling the ambulance and I got wheeled out. I got wheeled out of there with a full fricking lobby of people like, which is what we hate.

Yeah. Hearing people in the background going, you know what? Something just came up. I'm gonna have to reschedule. Don't call me. I'll call you. Yeah. So that was my, my whole story figured everything out. My, neurosurgeon and my orthopedic surgeon both said the same thing.

They says You're not a candidate for surgery. And you'll probably never run again. You might be able to squeeze out a couple miles as a warmup, really slow before it starts to hurt you, but you're gonna have to find something else. I started researching everything, trying everything,

and basically what I ended up doing was using Grey's Anatomy and talking to people to a point where I changed my running form to take all the impact off my back. So 40 marathons later, five Ironmans. 50 some odd iron half marathons and a ton of five Ks and 10 Ks later I'm still here.

So that's my story, which I've never really told. But basically that's what got me into coaching. I'd gotten all this knowledge and then people started asking me, well, how are you doing this? 

Jeff Luther: You, did you shorten your stride? 

Brad Minus: Shortened my stride. Started a leaning look forward. Basically all the concepts of barefoot running. Okay. It's not because natural running is your body doing exactly that. Taking all the impact off your knees, your back, your hips.

Yeah. I had to change my form three times before I found one that I was able to keep going. But meanwhile, still getting massages, still going to chiropractors still, still being very heavily on recovery. Do a lot of, you know, foam rolling and, and all that stuff.

And, you know, when I do feel it, I gotta go back and check my form again. You know, I gotta get somebody to video with me and I gotta figure out, okay, is my left foot falling too forward? My right foot, my hips out of place, what's going on?

But it's very rare that it happens now, but also was a lot of core work, so develop those muscles around the spine, and work the core so that it stabilizes, 

Jeff Luther: we don't give the core the attention that it deserves or the attention that it needs. 

Brad Minus: So what you've been doing that since then, 

Jeff Luther: you've been for 

Brad Minus: exercise.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I know you've been, Olympic lifting. That's great. 

Jeff Luther: Yep. 

Brad Minus: And you're hitting CrossFit, sounds like. 

Jeff Luther: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. 

Jeff Luther: I started running a little bit, getting back into that. Oh, good. But you, that's, that's just kind of been my routine.

Like today's workout was floor dumbbell, bench press, GHD sit ups, ring dips, and, hold a heavy sandbag for 40 seconds. Nice. 10 rounds of that. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm changing it up a little bit. And summer is tough too, like dog days of summer, you know, it's just, there's no real target, not a lot going on.

So, so that's kind of been my routine. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. I hear you. I mean, obviously you and I have kind of the same weather. I'm in Tampa. You're in Georgia. So, I mean, it's muggy and it's wet and hot. So that doesn't help. You know what, you had just barely glanced over it, but I heard you say something about you give a keto talk.

Did you say that 

Jeff Luther: key? A keynote? Public speaking, yeah. Oh, okay. That's great. Yeah, I give a talk about, about the whole incident in the 30 seconds, really what happened and, yeah. That's awesome. 

Brad Minus: Yeah, 

Jeff Luther: it's fun. 

Brad Minus: I love speaking. I've done talks on podcasting and at conventions and stuff like that, on the technical side a little bit more, and obviously through running and stuff, I love speaking, so that's awesome.

How often do you do it? 

Jeff Luther: Oh, not often enough. Probably like every other month. 

Brad Minus: Where. 

Jeff Luther: Nashville. Beautiful. 

Brad Minus: There. 

Jeff Luther: Yeah. It's a full-time job to try to find

the places to get the talks. 

Brad Minus: So do you started looking at TEDx TED Talk and stuff. Sounds like you got I just got, 

Jeff Luther: I just submitted my first application for text and Warton. 

Brad Minus: Okay. 

Jeff Luther: Hey, 

Brad Minus: it's gonna happen. 

Jeff Luther: Yeah. You gotta find that thing.

What the thing is that causes, whatever it is, causes tension or That's controversial. Yeah. So you gotta keep trying. 

Brad Minus: Yeah. No, no, no. I haven't gone that far yet. That's exactly the reason why I haven't tried was I feel like, and it might be an imposter syndrome thing, I just feel like I haven't found that piece that people would be interested in.

You know what I mean? I've got a ton of stories. Somebody's interested. You know about people. I've got, you know, my first client had ms. And was taking, a junk load of medicine and stuff. And we worked for a year to get 'em up to a half marathon. Then he decided that he was, then he started doing half marathons like every weekend, whether it'd be organized or not.

He ran, five, six miles a day during the week and then one half marathon on the weekend, then take Sundays off. That was his routine for years. I caught up with him at a race a few years later, and I talked to him and I was like, how's things going? He goes, oh my God, it's great. He says, I'm on a third of the medicine that I was on when I talked to you last.

He says, my doctors think I'm doing great. I've had a flare. I haven't had a flare up in years. And I, and, and I asked him like, oh, so are you still doing a half marathon a weekend? He says, every weekend my clockwork. He says, if I, if I can't find one that's organized, I run it myself. And, that's awesome.

Yeah. And I, and I go, well, you know, you could take a weekend off, you know what I mean? Every third week you should take off, just to make sure. He goes, Uhuh, he goes, I'm so scared that the minute that I start to take off, that I'm gonna have to go back on medicine and I'm gonna start getting flare ups again that I'm not doing it.

Jeff Luther: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: I'm like, God bless you. You knock yourself out, man, if it's working for you. Right. It's working for you. So, yeah. But yeah, so I've got stories like that. But, I don't know if, yeah, I don't know if, worth it. I've heard a ton of stories on running and stuff, and I, I don't know.

Like I said, it might be imposter syndrome, it might be a contact thing. I don't know. But that's great that you're doing keynotes. What kind of, organizations have you been giving these keynotes to? 

Jeff Luther: Corporations. I give 'em for entrepreneurs organization.

Nice. It's, it's more motivational. Right. So it's not tactical. Right. It's fun. I enjoy it. Excellent. Well, 

Brad Minus: I like to hear that. Well, I see that you are, active on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

You got your LinkedIn right there 

Jeff Luther: know how that popped up. 

Brad Minus: How's that been going for you? 

Jeff Luther: It's good. That one's fun. You know, I do like every other episode is just me.

Talk 10 or 15 minutes about something, but it's fun. 

Brad Minus: Good. And I'm assuming Apple, Spotify. 

Jeff Luther: Mm-hmm. 

Brad Minus: All right. All the great usual suspect. So go take a look at that. Remember, again, it's all Can no can't. Motivational podcast. And listen so you can get more of Jeff.

If you're watching on YouTube, please go ahead and hit that, like that subscribe, hit that notification bell so you always know when another episode is dropping. If you're listening on Apple or on Spotify, I'd appreciate it if you gave a review and you know that I don't even care that it's a bad review because all it's gonna do is help me evolve the podcast and help more people.

So. That is the benefit of reviews. Now, don't get me wrong, it's okay if you to give a good one too. You know, we like those. Jeff, hey, thanks for joining us. Really appreciate it. Yeah, this was fun. 

Jeff Luther: Thank you. 

Brad Minus: This was a good time, you know, and you helped me, you helped me actually get out a little bit more of my story as well, which I never get to do.

Yeah. So I appreciate that. And, yeah. So for all of you out there, for Jeff and myself, thank you for listening and we'll catch you in the next one.