The Strenuous Life

A conversation with Kyle Shepard

Father, husband, Navy instructor, BJJ brown belt

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.

– Theodore Roosevelt

Kyle, thanks for writing Resilient Mental State and welcome to Vale Tudo. Is resilience found or made?

Certain genetic abnormalities aside, we are all born extremely capable. The environments we are raised in significantly nurture the type of bodies and minds we have as we enter adulthood. This is why parenting, teaching, coaching, and supporting our youth is essential if we care about them and the world. There is no more important job.

I was fortunate to have two loving parents who encouraged me to get outside, explore different pursuits, and challenge myself. My dad was a collegiate wrestler and brought that mentality to many of the games we would play. One of my favorite memories is from a game we would play in the pool. While treading water in the deep end, each of us would push, pull, or dunk the other in attempt to cause panic. Whoever quit and swam to the side of the pool lost that round. He would often grab my foot and pull me back when I’d attempt to quit and tell me I could go longer. While I didn’t always take it well, this demonstrated there is always more in the tank. It wasn’t until I was 15 or 16 years old that I was big and capable enough to cause him to want to get to the side for the first time. As he attempted to swim away to safety, I grabbed his foot and pulled him back while saying “never quit” right before I dunked him underwater one more time.

My childhood helped build the perspective I have on resilience today. That being said, all adults have the capacity to build themselves regardless of childhood as there are many aspects of my upbringing that I decide to reframe. I could easily dwell on the hardships or aspects of loved ones that were challenging. I choose not to. The only thing we can change about the past is our perspective of it. I prefer picking productive perspectives whenever possible.

I believe all people are made, first through molding in their youth and then through self-forging. To be human is to have the capacity for reasoned choice regardless of external circumstance. We are constantly building (or destroying) ourselves with each choice we make as adults. Our choices and perspectives influence our reality.

And thank you my friend, the burpee record wouldn’t have been possible without COVID. I had just received my purple belt in jiu-jitsu before moving to Southern Maryland from Guam. Having no gym or team to get training in with while everything was formally shut down caused me to look for challenges at home. Burpees used to be an exercise I avoided unless specifically prescribed in a workout all my life. It wasn’t until we did a 50 burpees a day for 50 days challenge when I was still in Guam that I became quite proficient and efficient and dropping to the floor and getting back up. The gym owner who created the challenge is a professional mma fighter, CrossFit athlete, and all around stud. Rarely did I beat him in anything but that burpee challenge was one of those times. It was him who challenged me to go after the burpee record I was unaware of until that time in the early days of COVID. Less than a year later, I was able to get it done.

What is fitness for?

Life is an endurance event with plenty of times where the other adaptations such as stamina, power, and strength are needed. Anyone can get after it for a brief amount of time but it’s prolonged time that will break most. While I’ve done various sports including cross country for a few years, endurance is not my strength. I’ve recently gotten back into OCR and have consistently been rucking and trail running to change that. The physical adaptations feel great but the real benefit has been to my mind.

I recently did John Dailey’s 2025 Ruck Challenge - 25lbs on your back for 20 miles. I had never rucked more than 5 miles to that point and had never covered more than half a marathon on my feet at one time. I gave it a go with a buddy one Saturday afternoon on a great trail around a lake nearby. The first 15 miles felt relatively good maintaining ~16min/mile pace. Then I hit a wall. My hips and back started screaming even though I could still breathe through my nose and subjectively felt fine from a cardiovascular standpoint. It was nighttime at this point so I shuffled with my headlamp for three miles at a 30min/mile pace. Excruciating but exactly what I was looking for in this challenge - testing my mind through my body. As I entered the last two miles, my hips started to loosen up and my back felt stronger as my mind was made up that I was going to persist with a good attitude. The last two miles were both sub 20 min and my spirit has never felt stronger.

This experience was not flow, it was just grit. Flow comes from operating on the edge of your abilities but staying within them. Grit is required when you step beyond your edges or the world requires you to due to illness, injury, or some other unforeseen form of adversity. I’ll experience flow quite a bit in jiu-jitsu when I’m training consistently, doing a workout I’m adapted to, or other challenges where I’m already competent. I prefer the intentional forms of adversity that make me too uncomfortable to flow. I believe growth occurs outside of flow. The goal is to train hard enough that flow is possible when the competition or unpredictable stressor arrives.

My favorite OCR obstacle is related to my previous answer around discomfort. No one is flowing when they’re carrying a bucket of gravel miles into a OCR race. It’s pure grit and I love it.

My why is my wife and children.

All of my training is intended to make me the most robust version of myself so I can effectively and consistently show up to live each day to the fullest with them - everything else is just extra. The end goal of my training, therefore, is to build skills that will translate into being the most resilient and capable husband, father, and man I can be.

What do you eat?

The round fellow on the left is me at 28. The guy on the right is me at 38 years old and I’ve never felt better.

At 28, I was arguably in the best overall shape of my life from a strength, power, and speed standpoint. On top of consistently doing CrossFit and HIIT programs, I was also doing triathlons and other endurance events. My diet and knowledge around it, however, was absolute shit. I believed having a Powerade with breakfast was something an athlete would do. My friends joked that my kitchen looked like I was prepared for the apocalypse because I only had frozen, canned, or high processed foods with a long shelf life. This is the same year I met my wife. On top of the countless reasons as to why I love her, she’s the best chef I know. Dating her caused me to begin to consider the quality of the food I was consuming. In preparation for our wedding, she bought the 21-Day Fix Program as means to somehow attempt to look better than she already did. In effort to keep her motivated, I told her I’d join in. The program involves a daily, guided fitness regimen but is centered around colored containers for each food group that you get a certain amount of each day based on your gender and size. The workouts were significantly easier than what I had been doing beforehand and I wasn’t hungry at all throughout the three weeks. When we finished the program, I was shocked to see I had lost 15lbs. This short stint taught me about portion control, mostly in the distribution of foods I was eating. Balancing that diet out and experiencing the subjective and objective effects of just 21 days was a game changer for me.

I’m fortunate enough to have never been starving. I do, however, consistently make myself experience hunger. While I’ve done a 100-hour water fast, I’ve found little return on investment for anything beyond three days and I don’t do those more than a handful of times a year. There’s plenty of research on the probable benefits of intermittent and prolonged fasting, but my main reason for doing it is to test my resolve when mildly compromised.

Can I maintain a productive attitude when hungry?

Can I still get after it when tired?

Do I need to eat every day in order to perform?

I’ve gotten to a good place with those answers over time.

If it weren’t for my wife, my favorite meal would simply be steak and potatoes. Because of her, this is a hard question. What comes to mind is her seared tuna on black rice covered in some mouth-watering cucumber, tomato, and avocado concoction; her white chicken chili; her seafood risotto; or her beef bulgogi. My wife would say the weirdest thing I eat is kimchi only because she hates the smell. I can eat it at work and she still smells it on me that evening (worth it). Other weird things could be sardines, shrimp without removing the tail, or kiwi without removing the peel.

I’m not rigid in my diet so I’m always willing to compromise for particular occasions and then just have a better reason to get after it beforehand or after. There aren’t many foods I don’t enjoy so travel is always fun to explore other types of food recommended in the area, particularly ones I haven’t had before. It comes back to the portion control lesson from before. I love quality food but I’m always down to eat whatever makes sense in the circumstance I’m in to continue to perform. Food is fuel and there’s nothing inherently wrong with consuming different types as long as you do so with conscious intent.

Favorite supplements?

Science has allowed for the creation of peptides, hormone replacement therapies, stem cells, and all kinds of supplements that appear to be incredibly beneficial, especially for injury recovery or performance sustainment while aging.

I’ve never been able to consistently take any supplements aside from 5mg of creatine which only started two years ago. At almost 40 years old, I could dominate my 25-yr old self in every way and I don’t credit creatine for that fact.

You see companies out there like Ways2Well, however, who are offering personalized supplements based on identified deficiencies in a client’s bloodwork. This will be something I explore whenever I subjectively and/or objectively notice a decline in performance. Until that time, I’m seeing what I can accomplish with a balanced diet, adequate sleep, and a lot of movement.

What does your scorecard measure?

The primary metric I care about is validation, first and foremost from myself. I know what is virtuous and what is not in each of my choices and actions. I, just like anyone else, have been guilty of coming up with bullshit justifications for doing less than my best. I believe a lot of misery in the world results from misalignment between individual action and virtue. Blaming others or making excuses might ease the mind but we can’t lie to our souls. If I know I’m doing the best I can with what I have while continuously trying to improve, all the other related metrics will begin to fall in line.

Internal validation by itself, however, is limiting. We can only get so far on our own. If I care about my family, community, colleagues, or anyone else, external validation from those people is essential. External validation is what I measure alongside the metric of self-respect attempt to earn every day. Simultaneously, I do my best to earn the respect of the people who matter most. While I can’t control the outcome, I can regularly check in to ensure my actions are aligned with our shared values and goals. If I believe I’m doing the right thing while intending to support someone else, but they tell me I’m not, then I’m wrong.

Past accomplishments, credentials, words, or material possessions don’t mean shit if your actions aren’t of character and worthy of respect. A metric I will forever chase in myself and from those who I respect.

Thoughts on recovery?

Trauma is very real but very individualized. It results from a mismatch between our expectations and reality. We will all encounter potentially traumatic events throughout our life such as loss, failure, abuse, and life threatening circumstances. What may be traumatic for one is just another day in the office for another.

The military has evolved their training quite a bit to effectively prepare warfighters for combat. Realistic training/experience coupled with premeditation on the possible is the best way to prepare for and hopefully mitigate the effects of a traumatic experience. Only so much can be done at an organizational level though when it comes to preparedness. Individually, we must embody these principles to maximize their effects. A question worth asking often within all domains of life:

Are you visualizing your own worst case scenarios and adequately preparing your mind, body, and spirit to productively meet them if they come?

My primary job in the military is an audiologist so I love your reference to hearing protection. Noise-induced damage is the most prevalent injury in the military every year and it’s not even close. On average, 10% of the tested population will experience a significant change in their hearing sensitivity. This is because hazardous noise is prevalent, the damage is typically painless, and the consequences are progressive. This reality parallels well with the other invisible injuries that accumulate throughout life. Everything has a tipping point.

One can do everything right but still be forced to swallow life’s toughest pills when least expected. When struggling with a traumatic event, support systems are imperative. I’m old enough to be impacted by the false belief around asking for help being a weakness. Seeking support when needed is a sign of strength. It requires self-awareness and courage to empower another person for you to lean on. There are countless resources in the world willing to support all forms of trauma and illness. Establishing these networks and knowing when and how to use them when needed, however, is a personal mission many don’t consider ahead of time. I often say perceived support is just as, if not more important, than objective support. If I know I have various forms of help surrounding me as needed, I’m much more likely to endure when adversity inevitably comes. We can’t help those who don’t want it and if we try to it’s only treating symptoms while an underlying infection spreads at best. What differentiates post traumatic disorder from post-traumatic growth, in my opinion is the utilization of the primary foundations of resilience: experience, support systems, and developed strategies. None of these can be effectively utilized unless previously established. Pursue challenging experiences, cultivate networks that you can give and receive support from, and develop strategies that enhance self-awareness, management, and recovery. Resilience is a skill that can be trained.

Beyond trauma recovery, my preferred personal recovery habits are cliche because they’re simply just movement when I’m awake and adequate sleep when I’m going to completely rest. This isn’t to say I don’t rest my body when awake, I’ll just focus movement in my mind from a book, game with kids, coaching, or good conversation. I have a steam tent that I also love to cook myself in when my body is cooked. I’m small enough to fit inside and cover the top with a towel. It gets more miserable in 20min within that cheap thing than any fancy dry sauna I’ve ever been in. Great passive way to challenge my mind and spirit while the body recovers.

Can we train our minds?

I believe we need to train our minds in all ways and doing so through the body is one of the most effective. There is no better way to simultaneously challenge the mind, body, and spirit than intentional, physical exertion. As I always say, the physical benefits are just by-products of the primary benefit of training the mind to be resilient. I’ve found these lessons can be applied across domains for the patient and willing.

There are some incredible people out there like your buddy who just seem to naturally get it without researching it (although I’d bet they’ve had some fantastic role models/mentors in their life to cultivate this natural character). My dumbass needs to research and train it. I love reading books and posts on resilience as I feel like I’m continuously evolving my perspectives and language around one of the skills most important to me. Stoicism is obviously great for that but so are many other philosophies and sources of wisdom.

If there was one other skill I’d say is equally as important as resilience, I’d say it’s curiosity. I will never have it all figured out and that’s what makes life so exciting.

What one new thing should readers do this month?

A standard plank for time. While there aren’t many physical benefits of doing a plank for more than a minute or two, there are countless mental and spiritual benefits. Isometric holds, like a plank, test your resilience through your body. Just a constant stimulus of gravity while you attempt to override every physical signal within yourself telling you to quit. I guarantee anyone can do a plank for as long as possible immediately after reading this and then beat that time the following day by at least a few seconds if they will themselves to do so. One of the most fulfilling experiences within a muscular endurance challenge like a plank hold is when your body begins to shake from the stress running through your nervous system but you breathe through it with a resilient mental state and eventually slow everything back down without dropping. Stress is not linear. You can move through the wave of a stressor calmly without the external stimulus changing. Planks have taught me that. A question I’ll never stop exploring:

How can we use lessons from intentionally stressing ourselves to keep expanding our capacity in ways that matter most to us?

Thanks, Kyle. I hit you with a lot, but you’re resilient.