Casey Pepper | Unconventional Shifts: Rugby to Mindful Living

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:01]:

Welcome back to the Weird and Strong podcast. I am your host, Jeremy Grinsteiner. And this episode, we have Casey Pepper on the show, a former rugby player who is now working to join the ranks of many coaches. I had the pleasure of meeting Casey back in October and getting to see him share openly with a big group of coaches about his experience. And from there, that led us into this podcast episode where we jam on all things from rugby all the way through to popular culture and the ways that people show up. So, without any further delay, let's get weird. Casey Pepper, welcome to the Weird and Strong podcast. How are you doing today, man?

Casey Pepper [00:00:42]:

Dude, thank you, Jeremy. I'm doing great. Doing great. Loving life. We got a little bit of sunshine, some great clouds. So it's a great day. It's a great November day in Western New York, I'll tell you.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:54]:

Yeah, it's very similar here. Today I was out with the dog and got to enjoy some sunshine and soaking up every last little bit of not.

Casey Pepper [00:01:04]:

Yes. Oh, absolutely.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:08]:

Cool. I have a weird question for you. Are you ready?

Casey Pepper [00:01:13]:

Oh, I'm ready.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:14]:

Okay. If you could be haunted by a ghost and you get to pick who that ghost is, who would you.

Casey Pepper [00:01:27]:

Wow. Wow, that's amazing. Immediately, I go to, like, okay, what super cool historical figure out there. I'm like Abe Lincoln, like Custer. Somebody that can tell me something. Right? You know what? Nikolai Tesla, I gotta go with. I just. I want to have.

Casey Pepper [00:01:50]:

Over the last few years, I've become an absolute truth Seeker. And if there's anybody that knows what the full truth is, in my opinion, it's him. He knows there's too much of his stuff covered. I also like conspiracy, so I think too much of his stuff is covered up. And I think just having some awesome. Assuming I get to have the conversations with him.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:14]:

Not just him, just, like, knocking things over.

Casey Pepper [00:02:18]:

Yeah. Randomly using his ability to funnel electricity into random spots, or for some reason.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:26]:

Pigeons start following you. I personally, I love that so much because I also am a Tesla fan. I have Wardencliffe Tower tattooed on the inside of my arm. So, yeah, I dig that a lot. That's super cool.

Casey Pepper [00:02:45]:

I would really want to tap into his knowledge on the theory of three, six and.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:52]:

Mean, just, like, throw a rock at whatever topic. I would just like to have an iota of what he understood and.

Casey Pepper [00:03:01]:

Sure. For sure.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:03]:

So you talked a little bit about this interest in Tesla and interest in conspiracy. What are the ways that you show up unconventionally in the world? What makes Casey Pepper weird?

Casey Pepper [00:03:19]:

There's quite a few ways and then there's also a lot of ways where I'm like, oh, man, I really am kind of basic sometimes.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:27]:

You know what? One of the most common things when we get started with a lot of people are like, I don't feel like I'm weird enough. I was like, it's okay. Everybody's weird in their own way.

Casey Pepper [00:03:38]:

Absolutely.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:39]:

Yeah.

Casey Pepper [00:03:43]:

For me, I've always been a huge fan of the snowfall, the winter, the cold. I'm getting a little less tolerant of that as I get older. I don't think. I know. I caught hypothermia in a rugby game. And ever since then, my bones just haven't handled the cold quite as well. Okay. A little extra layer here, a couple of socks and whatnot.

Casey Pepper [00:04:09]:

But as I'm getting older, I've noticed a lot of my friends and a lot of people that around me in the general population are like, we're moving south, we're getting out of this cold. And I'm like, I actually think that this is going to be the place to be. I don't like cities. I live in a moderate sized city. So, I mean, the conveniences and whatnot. But I love the idea of just getting out, having a couple of acres, having my own spot, and just being that independent. I'd love to start like a little compound with some friends, some like minded people that where I think that is weird. I don't know if that's weird or not because in my circles, that's starting to become more and more prevalent of a thing.

Casey Pepper [00:04:54]:

People are like, you know, I think I just want to break away from the Matrix and just be a little more self sufficient. I was talking with a guy at work today about these people that were like, he's got a homE, we've got a home. So we're similar there. It's just like all these other extras and things that these simplicities that we financially pay for that they don't. And they're out there just like just as happy or happier growing their own food with a little bit, with far less. I guess that's where another spot weird. Like, I'm constantly trying to reduce my footprint. And I'm not talking carbon.

Casey Pepper [00:05:39]:

I'm just talking about the things that I own, the impact that I have on my little area. At the same time what we're doing. I signed up for the enlifted level one. We're also at the same time trying to expand our footprint and our impact. Right. And do that positively. I tell people that I'm going to be a life coach and they're like, so you're just going to tell me how to live my life, right? No, I'm not.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:06:17]:

Yeah, that's a really interesting thing. Just from a concept of this, wanting to gather with the like minded individuals and create a little settlement or something like that. It's like if we rewind back 150 years, I was like, that's just what everybody was doing anyways, of settling the countryside, creating little towns. That's like the story of the Wild west as it sits. Or like the story of the founding of the US, or even just like, human civilization period is like, oh, hey, we found this cool little spot. We're going to gather together with my family and a couple other families, and then all of a sudden it turns into London or like Paris. We forget that that's how all of these things start. And it's interesting how we convince ourselves that that's like a modern novel thing now in hindsight.

Casey Pepper [00:07:22]:

Yeah. Right. So, yeah, essentially what we just talked about is we'd like to start over. We'd like to start everything over. You know, maybe that's exactly what the world needs. Like, yeah, it's okay to have cities and this and that. Listening to some of Chase Tolison's old podcast, they talked about just like, carpet bombing DMT to make everybody. Yeah, man, I totally see it.

Casey Pepper [00:07:51]:

And it's like, you can't do that because they don't Agree to it. And this and that. However, that might be our version of the great reset, right? Building cities on this positive mentality and keeping currency as we know it, like the fiat, the fake currency out of it, and literally keeping barter and trade alive and skill.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:08:21]:

It's been an interesting thing. Yeah, interesting thing of how we tend to many of the things that we start to see as social ills or we see as problems for ourselves. Think about health, wellness, just like, even just social issues, social unrest, things like that. Of how much of this comes from groups of people just being too big.

Casey Pepper [00:08:50]:

Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:08:50]:

And yet, while we. This has been a topic of thought for me and let you dive into this as well, even though we're more connected than we've ever been, I feel in talking to so many people that we're the loneliest we've ever been. We're the most isolated that we've ever been. And where do you think that comes aside from just our situations? Where do you think that has been coming from?

Casey Pepper [00:09:23]:

That's a great question. And it's universal synchronicities, right? I've been thinking about that a lot as well and even noticing it a little bit in myself that I've been feeling not alone but lonely again. Going back to another chasing he talked about, he mentioned just quickly about the six foot distance. I think it's like within 6ft your body will pick up the vibration of somebody else's heartbeat and vice versa. Right? So if you're 6ft apart from everybody, you're not picking those up. So even though you're seeing somebody and you can touch on social media, like you can see everybody on social media, but there's no physical contact, there's no vibration and actual feel. So even though you're seeing people, there's an emptiness, a loneliness from, I think, potentially a lack of vibration that's of something that's not your own. Even sitting next to a tree, you can start to feel a little bit if you're really diving into that and thinking about it and being intentional with that.

Casey Pepper [00:10:44]:

Right? Yeah, I mean, that's a heavy one that you've really touched on. So talking about the loneliness, I actually find it interesting, though. Here's also one of my little dilemmas. I hate the corporate world, but I live in it. So I got an email the other day and I do love that the corporations are really starting to dive into the mental health and all that and promoting just overall health. So I got an email from them talking about what's starting to become an epidemic of loneliness and what researchers and everybody are seeing across the board and what they're hearing. And I thought it was really interesting because again, it just hit me right at a time where I was like, you know, I feel kind of lonely lately. And then boom, like, there it is.

Casey Pepper [00:11:43]:

I'm like, oh man, I got to pin this one for later and think about it. So it's clearly becoming a very prevalent thing. So that's where, again, torn, I've recently started coming back to work three days a week and the companies are forcing it and a lot of people are resisting it. However, I think in my experience so far, people that are coming, that are actually coming back and getting those close interactions are starting to notice that they feel less lonely and whatnot. Sure, for me, I used to be able to pick my computer up and go down and visit my buddy and essentially my two nephews down in Florida and take my computer work from home for a week down there. And that's been limited. And so I get selfishly a little bit upset by that. But at the same time, I have plenty of time off that I can take.

Casey Pepper [00:12:43]:

And I get to be around other people and just have those interactions, those close interactions, problem solving, right? Whether it be a problem at work, a problem in my social life, I've got somebody else that I can just bend their ear rather than be stuck in my own thoughts, telling me my own stories and trying to solve it on myself, right? I think that's a huge piece of it. It's just being physically present. Social media. I deleted my Facebook years ago, although I still have a Facebook app because I use. That's. And that's cool. You get to see everybody's highlights. And then there's a lot there, too, right? It starts to make you look like, oh, am I not doing enough with my life? Like, I go home, I make my dinner, I've got my stuff, and all these people are out doing, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, they're out with this person and that person, and they're doing this stuff.

Casey Pepper [00:13:50]:

Like, you're seeing their highlights. So there's got to be some introspective there. Introspection, that word reflection. What am I doing? Celebrating your wins. Actually acknowledging what you're doing for yourself and see where you're getting it out. And maybe there are opportunities, and then if you're seeing that somebody's out all the time doing those things, you know that that person's willing to go out. Like, ping. I'll be like, hey, can I join you? Just for the night? Let's connect.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:22]:

Yeah. There's a moment and a lesson that I've come back to for myself of being a bit of a nerdy kid growing up, there was always this sense of waiting for the cool kids to invite you to the party.

Casey Pepper [00:14:38]:

Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:40]:

Even people who I've grown up with who work the quote unquote cool kids. This is like a basic. Universal. Basic or universal? But as far as American culture goes, what I've heard is this is very common for a lot of people of this waiting to be called to action, waiting to be called to adventure, waiting for the cool kids to invite you to the party, waiting for whatever is going to happen. And the reality is that if we continue to sit and wait and wait and wait, what are we actually saying no to?

Casey Pepper [00:15:19]:

Yeah. Yes. What are we saying?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:15:27]:

Yeah.

Casey Pepper [00:15:28]:

Right. You're. You're. You know, I. I heard something recently similar to, like, what are we saying no to in relation to dating and people talking about their body count or how many people they've hooked up with or whatnot. The comment was and this, I think it was kind of more in regards to masculinity, but it goes both ways. Are you judging somebody by the number of times they said yes or the number of times they said no? Right. If your body counts two and you've said yes 100% of the time and.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:16:07]:

Only had the two chances to say yes versus the person who said yes to two but had 100 chances.

Casey Pepper [00:16:17]:

Right. Or even yes to your body count is 15, but you turn down 100, what do you think that.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:16:33]:

Having that ability to self select in those situations, what does that. What does that say over the person that says yes 100% of the time?

Casey Pepper [00:16:42]:

Right? Yeah. Right? Yeah. Is there a deeper understanding of self if you say yes to everything? And I've been guilty of this at work, like, hey, do you want to join this committee? Yes. Sure. Why? Because it's going to make me look good. Right. But what's my conviction? Is it actually something that I want to join? Is this somebody that I actually want to hook up with or hang out with? Do I want this person in my circle? Where are we looking and where are we looking for that validation? Right. The beautiful thing is, I think we're really starting to see it, that we're starting to get a turn in society across the board, where people are starting to look at that and mean, like, there's a lot more no's coming on and that touches on boundaries.

Casey Pepper [00:17:44]:

Right. There's a lot of this one, a huge lack of understanding of boundaries and what they actually are, and there's the perception that they're cruel, when in reality they're kind. It's an act of kindness in saying, no, you're protecting yourself, you're protecting somebody else because there's not a true interest there. Right. So if I say yes to somebody that we're out at a bar and whatever, and we want to go back and hook up, and I say yes, but I don't have any true interest in it. I've led you on, I've misled you, and now you're going to think that there's something there that really isn't there. And I just used you to raise my body count to look good when in reality, to somebody that is in tune, that doesn't look good.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:18:43]:

Yeah, absolutely. Taking our focus back a little bit more onto you, we've talked to great about a bunch of higher level topics and things that are interesting for both of us. ArE these types of things that you've thought about most of your life, or is this slowly things that you've been coming to over time.

Casey Pepper [00:19:11]:

I would say over the last. How old am I? 39. Three ish years. It's been coming at me like a tidal wave.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:19:25]:

Has there been a specific event or a specific reason that has triggered that tidal wave to come at you?

Casey Pepper [00:19:35]:

Yeah, pretty much. There's been a couple of things. I played rugby. I just recently retired and played for 20 years. A huge part of the rugby culture is the drinking culture, right?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:19:49]:

Yeah.

Casey Pepper [00:19:51]:

And even during that, when I first got out of college, I was managing a bar, and so drinking was just. That became my identity six nights a week. The reason I didn't drink on Tuesdays was because, one, everybody needs a night off, and my buddy didn't bartender at the other bar on Tuesday. So I would just go of that kind of carried on all the way through. I went over at backpack Europe for. Well, I played rugby in Wales and then backpacked Europe. And while I was in Wales, they started calling me hollow legs because I could just hammer down beers and you'd never know that I was drunk. And I'm like, yeah, that's a great skill.

Casey Pepper [00:20:26]:

That's not a skill, by the way. That's a problem. So fast forward essentially that. Doing that for even another ten years, until I was about 35. Between 35, 36. A buddy of mine had said, he's like, I think everybody needs a coach of some sort. And I was like, yeah, I think you're right. So I linked up with Chase.

Casey Pepper [00:20:54]:

I heard him on a podcast with. I don't know if you met Chad Curtis at all while you were down there, Chad and Melissa, or a couple other podcasts with him. And then he did one with Chase, and I was listening to that, and that's when I heard Chase talking about his idea of what it means to be a man and all that. And I was like, that's the guy I want to be. And so that hit me. So I started working with him, and even while I was working with him, I knew I started to slowly make the changes. And then I met this girl, and she was absolutely amazing. The second I met heR, I'm like, holy smokes, this is a game changer here.

Casey Pepper [00:21:39]:

And then it ultimately ended up not working out because I was still living that lifestyle, right? I was still going out, getting hammered, and that was a trigger for her. And then all of a sudden, once I heard that, I was like, okay, time out. We're going to cut back on all this. The drinking, the nonstop going out and doing that, I can still be an effective rugby player without doing all this drinking, and then all of a sudden, unconsciously, I started to feel. Right. That's what really hit home for me. I was like. I started to feel all the feelings.

Casey Pepper [00:22:16]:

And essentially what I was doing while I was drinking was numbing. Right. And then in allowing myself to feel, I started to get really curious. And some of know I had a roommate at the time that he was really deep into a lot of the conspiracy, and I would take those in, try to break them down and whatnot. But a lot of that led into, again, going back to hearing about what Tesla actually is and then discovering, figuring out what it is to be a man, and it's not the guy that's going out and getting hammered all the time. And again, talking about the body count and all that, those two points that were within a year of each other were the catalyst for me to just be just shed and drop this perception of what I thought a man was and completely reformulate it and learn learning boundaries, both with family, with friends, with myself, with food. That was a big one. Still is.

Casey Pepper [00:23:21]:

Yeah. And then just being true to that and learning to say no. So those are the catalysts. And that was about two and a half, three years ago. And from there on out, I've just been drinking through a fire hose trying to take it. Know. I linked up, know, just the enlifted podcasts and listening to Mark England and then going down to the unlifted event, and I was like, okay, this is a whole new world. It felt very similar to rugby, right.

Casey Pepper [00:23:56]:

Because it's just like a large group of humans all going towards a common goal and know, very similarly know. BuT nobody was numbing themselves, and there wasn't any drinking. It was just sharing, and it was all like, just huge positive vibes. And, like, I think I found my new culture here. Right?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:24:17]:

Yeah. In that experience of getting exposed to the enlifted crowd, you got pulled up on stage.

Casey Pepper [00:24:26]:

I did.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:24:27]:

Tell me more about know. Tell me in the audience about, like, what was that experience like for?

Casey Pepper [00:24:37]:

Yeah, so this is the last day of the Enlifted podcast, and I had the enlifted live event, which, if anybody's listening to, whether you're an enlisted coaching or not, if they're going to do another one next year, is, my understanding, should absolutely go. It's a world class event. It's wild. And I was not paid for that. Like, I just had this life changing experience while I was down there with the breath, work and everything. And so I was know the last day Mark said he was going to call me up on stage, and I'm sitting here, and I'm just basically very raw. I felt just so raw, like a fresh wound ripped open. I'm like, okay, all right.

Casey Pepper [00:25:24]:

I was excited to go up. It's amazing because I'm up there in front of these guys that are world class coaches, and they don't need to hear me talk like they know what they experienced. So there was an imposter syndrome a little bit. So I get up there, and Mark asked. His first question was, what did this weekend mean to you? And I just. Just started crying right away. I couldn't hold it. Know, it carried on from the Saturday night, the breath work, and this letter that Mark had everybody write, where we write ourselves a thank you letter.

Casey Pepper [00:26:02]:

And I ended my thank you letter just naturally writing out, I love you. And I'd never told myself I love myself before. I didn't understand what that even meant to see or hear from myself. And I was like, holy smokes, I do love myself. And this is like. So I was just, thank God for Jenny, because she was able to reel me in and be like, okay, we're going to work through this, and let's read that. And then I had a very similar. And then that went into breath work at that point.

Casey Pepper [00:26:39]:

I'd been waiting for this for three years. Like, this huge cry of release of everything, and it just came on. I was just, like, pouring rain and tears. So I'm up on stage doing it again now, right in front of everybody. Like, I told Mark, I'm like. I cried like a damn man. He elaborated on that. Right.

Casey Pepper [00:27:06]:

It's not that, like, sniffling, like whimpering. You're just, like, crying. It was big, heavy tears, and it's like, there's a smile on your face because you know what's coming out, and it's an emotional release, and it felt amazing. So once we got into it, honestly, I felt natural up on stage. I felt like I was almost at the point where I was feeling like Oprah. I'm like, and you get a car and you get a podcast, and you get a super cool.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:47]:

In looking at that. Is that a moment that you get? We're a little over a month away from that. People listening to this. It'll be about two months after that, after the event in Richmond back in October. What can you imagine that experience? Where's that experience going to carry you towards? What's that going to do for future Casey?

Casey Pepper [00:28:14]:

Oh, man. Yeah. Well, one, I've created a whole nother network, and it's a network that I'm in, but I'm not quite in yet. It's that network that I've been reaching for as a result of it. I signed up for enlisted level one I'm already thinking about before I even start level one. Adding on level two that weekend is what solidified me in knowing what truly fulfills me and where I want to go and what I want the rest of my life to look like. And that's coaching and getting into and just helping people. I think I told Mark in our call after, I don't care if I make a dollar off of it, what I get out of it, seeing, helping somebody through something or helping them get themselves through it, rather, is where I find that true fulfillment, right? I'm helping small businesses right now save pennies and do that, and there's some fulfillment in that, but there's not that kind of touching back on that loneliness piece, right? There's not that intimate touch that there's somebody right there, and I can see them, I can hear them, I can feel their vibration, right.

Casey Pepper [00:29:46]:

For that, that's the easy, obvious one, right? I'm going to be a coach. I'm going to have a network. We had nine people staying in the house that I was at, and we still all keep in touch. Like you said, it's a month and two months by the time this drops after, but it's just great people. And I know at any point I can reach out to them, know, work through stuff with them and chat with know. I keep in touch with Chad still pretty regularly. I mean, I was a member at their gym for a long time, so that helps. And honestly, it's like in my personal relationships, so being able to open up like that in front of 80 people has made it so much easier to open up like that in front of one.

Casey Pepper [00:30:44]:

And so when it comes into specifically talking about a relationship where getting into a dating type where you have to be open and sharing and vulnerable, right. That's allowed me to really feel it. It took me to another level, another depth of being able to offer that to somebody. My connections from here out are that much deeper. Right. We're going from quantity down to quality, and that's hard. Holy smokes, is that hard?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:31:34]:

This is perhaps a bit of a leading question, especially since I know you've listened to a couple of episodes at least. Out of all those connections, what's the most important connection that you've now found?

Casey Pepper [00:31:49]:

Yeah. Well, that whole community, that enlisted community has been that huge connection, and I've really tapped into the know again. Chase. I worked with Chase directly. I went through his primal man pathway. I've really, really been tapping in with Chad and Melissa ever since then. We've grown a lot closer. I got Kyle Stubbs out in James Moore, so now I'm picking out individuals.

Casey Pepper [00:32:29]:

It's not just the enlisted podcast. It's like these individuals and seeing all that, there's this whole new community that's really rad. Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:32:42]:

I'm going to ask it a slightly different way. How has this improved your connection to yourself?

Casey Pepper [00:32:51]:

Yeah, I did not follow that one.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:32:55]:

Let's see if he picks it up. It's all right, man.

Casey Pepper [00:33:00]:

Oh, man. Yeah. Laying in Dogwood Dell in just a puddle of my own tears was amazing. And I have really tapped into my relationship with myself and become acutely aware of my feelings and how things interact with me again, like alcohol and food and exercise and. And honestly, just being around other people, I've learned to trust myself a lot more. You know? You know, you know, just feeling. Right. You get a feeling, and a lot of times you're like, I don't know that that doesn't match up.

Casey Pepper [00:33:50]:

And then it's like, you know, you know, you know, oftentimes it. It's like, oh, that was right. And it's like, trust in your gut. And good or bad, another chase being is. And actually, I think it might be Joseph Campbell, if I remember correctly, right, any feeling felt all the way through is know whether. Whether that be a good feeling or a bad feeling to fully feel it. And I have embraced fully feeling everything and just leaning into it, I've been able to lean into, you know, Eric and Jenny were talking about in the relationship breakout session. In order for there to be us, it has to be you first.

Casey Pepper [00:34:35]:

Right. You have to take care of yourself. You have to understand yourself. And then there's the concept that you can only offer somebody as much love as you are willing to offer yourself. Right. I'm sure it's more eloquently put by somebody, but essentially, right. I can't give you more than I'm willing to give myself, and I can't feel more for you than I feel for myself. So if I don't love myself, there's no way I can possibly love you.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:03]:

Yeah, that's a very important distinction, and it plays in very nicely. Looking at some of the topics that we've talked about, this idea of loneliness, we hinted upon it a little bit of being at work and saying yes to everything like this. People pleaser type of defense mechanism that we learn for ourselves of. Well, if I don't say yes to everything, that means they'll never come back. And because I am being disconnected from self, could you imagine that those are very easy things for us to come to? Or do you feel any correlation or connection there for yourself of your past experiences, your current experiences of ways that you've behaved because you've been disconnected from yourself?

Casey Pepper [00:35:59]:

Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's the hard part, is the integration of the connection to yourself. And it's also the really cool part, because you get to actually see. You come back to see all of the things that your disconnected self had done and is looking at again right now. I am a part of every group that has come my way at paychecks because I'm like, that's how I get ahead, and that's how I make sure that I'm seen. And it's like, well, I joined that to say yes. And now I'm sitting here going, this is not a group that resonates with me, and I am ineffective. I'm essentially sitting here just going, glad you guys got up this go.

Casey Pepper [00:36:46]:

This ball going, like, if you need a cheerleader, hey. So now I'm at a point where, how do I politely exit that and realign myself and say, it was great. I appreciate the opportunity, though. There are going to be better places for me to serve and be served. That's a cool integration piece. When you come back and you start to see all that, and there's a lot of awareness and a wake up there, right? So you start to see it small, like, oh, that's at work. And then it's like, oh, well, that's everywhere. Friends call.

Casey Pepper [00:37:34]:

And I've never said no, so I'm always there. You talk about relationships. If you never say no, then you're always just available. And then it's just like you become that doormat, essentially, right? Like, oh, Casey will take care of it. Jeremy will do it. They always say yes. And it's like you start setting your own stuff aside, going back to that lonely know. Is it possible that we're so lonely because we don't know ourselves? We're so disconnected from ourself that how does anybody truly get to know us? And how do we get to know anybody else if we don't know ourselves? And how do we offer the best version of ourselves? And so then not only are we disconnected from everybody else, but we're disconnected from us.

Casey Pepper [00:38:30]:

And now we're just a meat suit without a soul.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:38:33]:

Yeah, exactly. There's a lot that you've touched on there that I resonate with as well, of that lack of personal connection and how it spreads out across so many other aspects of our lives. As you started to make those changes for yourself, finding this new connection for yourself, what's been the biggest takeaway so far of finding that and being able to set some of those boundaries or start to unwind all of the commitments that you've created for yourself, what have you noticed? What's been the best part?

Casey Pepper [00:39:12]:

So one of the immediate notices is the amount of time that I now have to reconnect with myself even deeper. Right. Going for walks and listening to or meditating or working out or just getting my work done. So I'm not working overtime because I'm not in all these meetings. Right. That one true currency. I'm taking some of it back. I'm putting more value into my time.

Casey Pepper [00:39:48]:

That's been a big thing. And honestly, I've noticed that the connections that I do have and have kept and that I will say, coincidentally, were true with right and whatnot, have become that much stronger and deeper. And those friends that were good friends are now family. Everything's more meaningful.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:15]:

Super cool. Take a bit of a right hand corner away, because I'm interested in this, because rugby is not a sport that we see a lot of in the US. Or at least it's not the most visible. Much like my chosen sport, it's not the most visible. Most people don't know what it is. And what drew you to rugby? Is that something you started off young? Did you start off a little bit older? How did you get into it and what drew you to it?

Casey Pepper [00:40:45]:

Yeah, great question. So I started when I was a freshman in college. I think I was 19. I played football. I wrestled, lacrosse. I feel like there was another one in there. Track. I tried out at least a little bit of every sport.

Casey Pepper [00:41:04]:

I was pretty athletic. So I got to cOllege. I took the first semester and said, I need to make sure I get my grades before I commit to any sport. I got my grades for every point on my GPA. I also put on ten pounds. So I had a three, five, and I put 35 pounds on. I was like, okay, I need to figure something out. So there was a rugby team.

Casey Pepper [00:41:33]:

So I was like, okay, soccer, basketball, rugby, it was a small school. It was like 800 students. So I'm like, terrible, terrible soccer, terrible at basketball. Rugby is super intriguing. So, yeah, I just showed up and somebody decided one of the guys was like, dude, you're huge. You should come play. We'll see. And I just fell in love with it immediately.

Casey Pepper [00:42:00]:

It became my favorites of all time, of all the ones that I played or did. So I played for essentially four years in college. Ironically enough, my stepdad is. Well, my coach ended up becoming my stepdad, so that just kind of drove everything home and seeing what he did with it. So he was an amazing athlete. He was on an Olympic bobsled, on the Olympic reserves team for the 1980 Olympics from four man bobsled. Just randomly happened to show up. Somebody got hurt and they're like, hey, we need somebody for the day.

Casey Pepper [00:42:43]:

Can you do it? And then all of a sudden it took right off. But he also ended up playing international rugby. So I was like, okay, cool. Not only have I found a sport that I can do for four years in college, but I can do it afterward, after college. And it's not like you have to be drafted. There's men's teams all over the place and it's just show up and be willing to play was really all it took. And I started to get pretty good at it and so I just carried it know, I got the opportunity through one of the teams to go over kind of an exchange program with another team over in Wales. And so I went over there and played and I came back a completely different player with a completely different level of commitment.

Casey Pepper [00:43:30]:

And.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:43:33]:

That was that. Something like, did playing in Wales, in the UK feel drastically different than playing here in the.

Casey Pepper [00:43:43]:

Yeah, yeah. The pace at which the game moved was a lot faster. And what was really nice that I learned it changed my game completely was it wasn't as much about the physicality as much as the avoidance of the physicality. Yeah, it's like, great, you can bulldoze somebody over, but that stops the play. So it's a continuity of play. So if I can go in and just get an arm tackle that I can shoot through and then offload to somebody versus just bulldozing them and being a wrecking ball, which I was also really good at. And that's actually what helped preserve my game. So I've ended up playing for 20 years and I fully credit it to the fact that I learned how to avoid those big giant hits and play a cleaner game.

Casey Pepper [00:44:47]:

It's taught me.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:44:50]:

A lot more tactical than the sledgehammer approach. Those big hits, they have a cost for everybody involved.

Casey Pepper [00:44:59]:

They do. Yeah. I heard a study that the average rugby player, through all the contact in an average game, endures the equivalent of three car accidents.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:12]:

Yeah, I believe that.

Casey Pepper [00:45:14]:

Yeah, I can tell you every Sunday. And then it grew into, like, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I can confirm I felt that.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:23]:

Yeah, exactly. And you may not have been the person even on the receiving end, like, even just on the giving end, you're going to feel it.

Casey Pepper [00:45:29]:

Yeah, absolutely. That's exactly it. Because there's definitely times I was on a full steam ahead, and I'm like, I'm really sorry, bud. You're in front of me and I am going too fast to move without falling. And so it's through you and, yeah, that hurts both parties. Absolutely.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:51]:

Yeah, totally. What was that moment? Like you said, 20 years. That's a hell of a career in anything, really, from a time period standpoint.

Casey Pepper [00:46:01]:

Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:46:03]:

What was that like to make that decision to retire?

Casey Pepper [00:46:08]:

It occurred over four years and five different retirements. But that was really hard because you get concerned, right? Because it became my whole circle, so to step away, and I'll admit I had a couple of years left in the tank easily. So the reason I retired is I started to notice a diminish in the return on investment that I was putting into the game. He's showing up for Tuesday Thursday Saturday practices, or Tuesday Thursday practices, Saturday games, and then I'm in pain until Wednesday. And honestly, the work that we talked about that I started four years ago or so, that's what helped me be able to take that step away and also see where I was coming up short in my goals of what I wanted to be as a human. I wanted to be more than just the guy that threw the parties and ran people over and was a great rugby player. There had to be more than that. There had to be a bigger depth to my character than that.

Casey Pepper [00:47:33]:

And I certainly struggled with that. Even after I had retired, I went back and I was like, oh, I'll just play one more game against the team that I initially started with. And then that led into, well, I'll just play one more game. And then they're like, well, we have these regional playoffs that we could really use you for. And I was like, all right, cool. And then after that, yeah, that one was my last game. I was like, okay, I made it to a championship. We didn't win, and that's okay.

Casey Pepper [00:48:11]:

I just started to notice a lot of things about myself and how. Where things were going and what I wanted, and I was like, you know what? This is a great walk off point championship game regardless, right? There was just some things that the team was turning over. I was definitely one of the oldest guys on the team, which never really was an issue, but I just started to notice I was going in a different direction. And before I had said, no, that's not a direction I want to go in right now. I want to finish this out. I decided to actually follow that path this time and say, you know what? Let's see where this goes. There's two teams that I'm linked with that are travel teams, so I can pick up a game here and there. And that's the beauty of it.

Casey Pepper [00:49:06]:

There's a tournament up in Saranac Lake where they have a game that's like 60 and over. You can always kind of grab a game.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:49:16]:

Yeah. But you're coming at it from the aspect of playing it for the game's Sake versus the grind and the achievement.

Casey Pepper [00:49:25]:

Yeah, absolutely. And that's where I looking at that and lifted event with the nine people in the house, I'm like, holy smokes. This feels like an away game. This is really cool. So I've started to see some synchronicities there, and I can still have that same feeling now. It just might be on a higher plane. The conversation is a lot different. There's a lot more depth there and more feeling.

Casey Pepper [00:50:02]:

Right. And it's funny, the whole time I'm down there, I'm like, we should be getting beers. Like, there's nine of us in the house, and we're having a great time. Who wears the beers? And somebody did. We ended up grabbing a four pack of the Guinness Zeros, like, the know, just because we were curious. So that was the closest we this whole weekend. I was. I.

Casey Pepper [00:50:27]:

I completely attribute to that experience that I had up on stage with Mark and the breathing to the fact that I was completely allowed to feel because there was no numbing.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:50:43]:

Was that. Was that the first time that you can remember actually allowing yourself to feel fully.

Casey Pepper [00:50:50]:

Yeah. To just be like, you're in church, like, here I am, Lord.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:50:56]:

Let's feel this full surrender.

Casey Pepper [00:50:59]:

Yeah, dude. Surrender. Oh, man, what a topic that I've been battling with just so many things in life, just trying to surrender to what will be, will be. And that that's also what's meant to be. And you may want exactly what it's going to be, and it might come to you at a time that you are not wanting. Like, I want it now. And it's like, well, this might be four years out, so just letting that be.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:51:33]:

Yeah, it's a tough one. We talk about that topic quite a bit on the podcast of this impatience that we tend to have or where we tend to dig ourselves in and make ourselves even more stuck just simply by this hubris that we can fully control our reality.

Casey Pepper [00:51:57]:

Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:51:58]:

In noticing that for yourself, what can you imagine that's going to do for you as you get into your level one and possibly level two certification and build this new career for yourself as a coach?

Casey Pepper [00:52:15]:

Yeah. So I'm still battling with that one. Right. Because ideally, for me, what I'd love to do is to have that become the full time. And I'm sitting here on this podcast with you and I'm like, am I going to be able to host a podcast? What does coaching actually look like? I have a lot of people that come to me and ask me for advice and things like that, so I'm doing some of that and have been able to do a lot of that through management. But I think the success that I'm looking to get out of enlifted level one and enlifted level two are dependent on the fact that I am going to allow myself to surrender to what is there and feel and keep myself unstuck right now. It's like I pull my feet out of the mud, I take two steps and I sink right back in. How do you keep that momentum? Right.

Casey Pepper [00:53:30]:

I'm anticipating a lot of deeper work and I feel prepared for level one through going through the primal man pathway with chase, I've forced. Stepped a lot of stuff out of my life or forced up my way through it rather than past it. And as you do that, it's like, okay, well, now there's this next layer. And this next layer.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:53:59]:

Even the pro coaches out there will agree, is that that doesn't really ever stop. That's an ongoing process, always. Because you got the big obvious stories out of the way, which ones are lurking in the corners that you haven't even realized or looked at or what new interaction that you have in your life? What new role are you fulfilling that's all of a sudden plucking you on the nose in a way that you didn't even know was going to cause you some feels. Yeah, having the tool set and having exactly like you said, having a network behind you of people who are willing to listen, people who are willing to tell and share their stories as well. It's such an underrated portion of life that many people are missing. And yeah, it's red to hear you going through this because circumstances different. There's a lot of similarity there. As with many folks on this podcast, I talk to and hear so much of my own story in theirs, which is beyond cool to hEar.

Casey Pepper [00:55:12]:

Yeah. Oh, man, this has been awesome. This has been a great conversation. I'll be honest, I was pretty nervous coming on. Like, I don't know what I'm going to talk about. All right. Imposter syndrome. Like, who am I?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:55:27]:

All right. The other part of this is there are many people on this podcast that aren't coaches, because this isn't necessarily always the podcast for coaches, for you and for those listening. Is that what we're looking to achieve with the Weird and strong podcast is to continually showcase people doing unconventional things and living unconventionally. Even being somebody like you who's living a conventional life in corporate America, you're still dipping your toes, you're still being yourself, which in of its own right, is the most unconventional thing you can be.

Casey Pepper [00:56:07]:

Yeah. Which is wild, isn't it? Being your most conventional is the unconventional piece.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:56:16]:

Yeah. In a world full of people trying to be other people, being yourself is truly weird.

Casey Pepper [00:56:27]:

Yes. Dude, I love that. So, a question for you. Well, I have two questions for you. You said that your sport is also relatively unknown. What sport was that?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:56:41]:

Weightlifting. Olympic weightlifting.

Casey Pepper [00:56:42]:

Weightlifting, okay. Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:56:46]:

Not exactly mainstream. A little bit more mainstream these days. But when I would show up in a corporate job or something like that, or in a social setting, they'll be like, oh, so that's like powerlifting. No, powerlifting is powerlifting. Weightlifting is.

Casey Pepper [00:57:05]:

Absolutely.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:57:08]:

I'm sure many times of rugby gets confused, especially in the US, with cricket or something completely not even related. Or that's like football, right?

Casey Pepper [00:57:20]:

Yeah. So that's like football without pads, right? Yeah. For the most part, yes. For the sake of a 45 minutes conversation that you don't want to be a part of. Yes.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:57:31]:

Just to let you have that one, you had a second question for me?

Casey Pepper [00:57:37]:

Yeah. So when for you, did you start to identify with or notice that you would call yourself weird? And I got a follow up to that, too.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:57:55]:

Yeah, totally. For me, it was quite fairly early. I noticed I was just different from other kids and was. There's obviously, there's times where we feel like that's where that's a negative for us. And I found for myself that the more often that I leaned into that and just spent more time being me, that the happier I was and the cooler things I started to. We're talking young, like grade school age from first grade onwards. And then once you start getting into the larger. Got into the larger schools of middle school and high school and things like that.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:58:45]:

Yeah. There were some, like I was swoopy haired emo kid and theater. But there were, there were many, many attempts from that point onwards into really into my 30s where making the attempt to fit the mold of, especially my late 20s, going into my thirty s of, well, I have to have the job, I have to have the career, I need to fit the specific mold that everybody's told me I should be doing. And every time I did that, yes, there have been successes, yes, I've seen, I've achieved things in my life that I'm proud of that those were always the points of my life that had the biggest burnouts flash out. Things just would melt down. It would go great for a while and then it would melt down. Burnouts, just not feeling fulfilled, not feeling like it's a right fit. And so that's where I've continually come back to being myself and continually exploring what that is and what that needs to be to be true for me.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:59:59]:

And having a platform like this of a podcast and everything else that I get to do in the world of the internet and putting content out there is my ability to allow others that opportunity as well, to experience what it's like to be themselves.

Casey Pepper [01:00:19]:

Yeah, dude, I love that. I love that you discovered that so young, too. So my follow up question was going to be like, when did you learn to embrace that as a positive? And sounds like you did that fairly young, which is amazing.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:00:33]:

Yeah, it's embraced it fairly young. But then there are the moments where you get told that that's not right, or that's not the way you're supposed to be, or that's not the way you should be doing something else, or you see somebody else doing something over there and it becomes that new shiny toy. We're like, well, I want to go that direction. I don't like where I am right now, so I'm going to go and try to fit into their idea of what they should be. And, yeah, it's a constant practice, and seeing it and being aware of it is one step, and then being able to embrace it and live it in whatever form that takes, those are the next steps, and that's the steps that carry you through forever until the end.

Casey Pepper [01:01:18]:

Yeah. Oh, man, I love that. You just triggered a core memory that I used to say I was the captain of the weird team and I was like, oh, man, I did embrace that and it would just be like, it was more geared towards my sense of humor. And people are like, you're so weird. I'd be like, yeah, that's me kept into the weird team. People are like, oh, my God. I'd be like, yes, you rang. Just like, dumb little things.

Casey Pepper [01:01:49]:

But then that carried on to being the guy on the rugby field in a Speedo.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:57]:

Even through all of that. What did that give permission? How did that affect the people around you?

Casey Pepper [01:02:08]:

I felt like it allowed them to be their most authentic self. Right? Like, if he can be this goofball and everybody loves the guy, then I can just be me as well. Right. It allows me to essentially give them permission to be themselves.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:02:28]:

Yeah, exactly. This is my observation of when you were up on stage at the event, because it was. It was an authentic version of you, of speaking from the heart and experiencing it, being vulnerable. Even some of us who've been in coaching for a while, that hits us, too, and it allows us the courage to step up as ourselves even more. And so thank you for your courage and your vulnerability in that moment, because it was incredibly cool to see and experience.

Casey Pepper [01:03:06]:

Dude, thank you. That's amazing. I think there's a couple of the people that were in the house were just like, dude, you were amazing. To hear you say that brings me right back to the moment makes me want to just Continue on. Right? Start and keep going. Right?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:29]:

Exactly.

Casey Pepper [01:03:31]:

Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:32]:

As we come up to the end of our time today, keeping ourselves on the clock, any final thoughts, any final nuggets of wisdom that you want to share with the audience?

Casey Pepper [01:03:46]:

Oh, man. We've touched on a lot and a lot. That means a lot to me, honestly. I hope even if one person hears this and gets something out, it gets one thing out of it. To me, that's amazing. I guess my final thought would just be, and this is, again, something that we just talked about and continued to work on this. If you don't know yet, discover who your most authentic self is and then start aligning the rest of your life with that, and that no matter what, there will be days of ups and downs, you will find that you're happy.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:04:27]:

Absolutely. And if you're struggling with that, we know a couple of guys you can at least have a conversation with to pointy in the right direction, right?

Casey Pepper [01:04:36]:

Absolutely. Yeah. Awesome. Definitely.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:04:40]:

I know you're just getting started in the coaching world. Anything that you'd like to promote, anything. If people want to get in touch with you, how can they do that?

Casey Pepper [01:04:48]:

Yeah. So I don't have anything professionally set up yet, though. I have an Instagram. It's my personal Instagram. It's Sultanpepper, just like the king. S-U-L-T-A-N Sultan Pepper three six nine. So you can certainly find me there. That's pretty much the only social media I have.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:05:07]:

All right, so yeah, you can connect with Casey there and we'll keep an eye out there for what's to come. I'm excited to see how that path takes you as you become and embrace being a good coach.

Casey Pepper [01:05:22]:

Cheers. Thank you. Yes, and I'm excited to share. I appreciate you having me on.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:05:29]:

Likewise, man. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for being here. And most important of all, thank you for being you.

Casey Pepper [01:05:37]:

Yeah, cheers. Thank you and same. I love this podcast, man. I love it.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:05:43]:

I appreciate that a lot. And for all of you listening, much appreciation for you listening all the way through, especially. So thank you for being you as well. And until next time, most importantly, stay strong, folks, and stay weird.