NICK THOMPSON ｜ Breaking Bad Legacy
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Summary
Nick Thompson is the CEO of The Atlantic and author of the book, The Running Ground. He talks about the legacy his father left, and how he is trying to break the string of mindsets that have hindered him, not helped him.
Transcript
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Whether we acknowledge it or not, there are certain behaviors and mindsets that are etched
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And if we cannot be aware of what those are, we lose any hope of having power over them
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and charting new paths for ourselves and for our children.
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Today, I'm joined by Nick Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic and author of the book, The Running
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Ground, to talk about the legacy his father left and how he is trying to break the string
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We talk about how to adapt when plans don't work, the power of the meritocracy, how to
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overcome the victimhood mentality, creating powerful and healthy outlets and the mantras
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that have served him well and that he wishes to instill in his children.
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You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart your own path.
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When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.
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You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.
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At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
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Gentlemen, welcome to the Order of Man podcast.
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I'm the host and the founder, and I'm glad that you're here.
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We are celebrating this year, our 10-year anniversary, and I just want to tell you that
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I am very grateful for you tuning in, for you listening, for you applying the information,
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serving your families, serving your businesses.
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I was having a conversation just yesterday with my girlfriend, and we were talking about
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how society tries to make women more like men and make men more like women.
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My job is to rebel against it and help reclaim and restore masculinity to its rightful place
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and help men step up and use their masculine characteristics for the benefit of themselves
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So I've got a great conversation for you today.
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Just before I do, I also want to say that I'm very grateful for my show sponsors, Montana
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I'm sure many of you have heard and read and subscribed to The Atlantic, but he's guided
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this publication through a very, very major digital and business transformation era.
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And under his leadership, they've grown their subscriber base.
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They've returned to profitability, which is something they weren't.
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They've won multiple national magazine awards for excellence.
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And this is really a reflection of Nick's background as a technology journalist.
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He was an editor for Wired and the digital head of The New Yorker's website.
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And his career has been defined by taking these editorial standards and also this entrepreneurial
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mindset of growth, which has really placed him at the forefront of innovation in the space.
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But he's got a great new book called The Running Ground, A Father, A Son, and The Simplest
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It really outlines and charts his journey as a runner from marathons and ultra marathons
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to the very interesting and complex relationship with his father.
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He talks about endurance and discipline and the transformative power of sports.
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But really, it ties together his own personal stories and narratives about life, his breakthroughs
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and midlife and a reflection on legacy and purpose, which is what we focus on today.
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It sounds like you just completed the New York marathon this past weekend.
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There are all these people who are like yelling from the sidelines that I saw my book, but I'm
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a competitive runner and I have like a specific goal.
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Everything went haywire the last two weeks and like start the race.
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And I finish it, you know, 30 minutes slower than I'd hoped.
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And I, you know, gone into the year, like I'm going to win my age group.
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I ran a 306, which is totally cool and totally like reasonable, but it didn't feel like I
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just felt out of my body the whole time, but whatever.
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Yeah, that's a, well, the, just the sheer fact that you're running those distances and
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I know you've run a lot longer distances than those is mind boggling to me what the
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Not to mention the respiratory illness you were dealing with, but it sounds like you
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I mean, like just, you just keep going, you know, like, you know, I started the race.
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I made up all these specific plans, wrote them out.
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I was like, I'm going to run the first five miles at six 30 pace.
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I'm going to evaluate like, what is my heart rate?
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And I'm like, you know, I don't know, maybe I can do this.
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And then I go through 10 miles also at six 30 pace.
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I'm like, oh boy, this is like, something's really wrong.
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Like, this is not the way I'm supposed to feel here in this race.
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And so I'm like, okay, let me dial it back a little bit.
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And then I was like, okay, this is really not the way I'm supposed to feel.
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This is like, feels totally different from any marathon I've run in 25 years.
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I'm just going to, you know, just think about moving forward.
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I'm going to like concentrate on my mantras, right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot.
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I'm going to think about my hands moving through space.
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I'm trying to draw energy from the crowds, taking as much nutrition as I can.
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And I know that I'll finish and I'll like give encouragement to other runners who are suffering.
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And that's what I'm going to do today and get through it.
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Yeah, I, you make it sound so simple, you know, and I've had difficult times and challenging times,
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but I really think it can be that simple if we make up that decision ahead of time.
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I like that you're talking about this idea of having mantras, that you have your goals set out and you just know what you're going to accomplish even going into it.
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Because I've seen so many men who will say, you know, I want to run a marathon or I want to do a Spartan race or I want to do, you know, some grueling physical exercise or event.
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I, uh, you know, I'm, I like literally have a plan with a spreadsheet and it's like, this is the pace.
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And when I'm running, I'm looking at basically at three variables.
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And you can, you can put other variables in body temperature.
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You can put power, but like those three are the ones that matter.
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I looked at what my heart rate was at different paces, compared my training for this cycle to the other ones and like, you know, mapped it out.
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And in a rational world, in a world where like I hadn't gotten sick and nothing had gone wrong, I was going to run, you know, somewhere around 240, a little, maybe a little slower, you know, based on all my previous workouts, maybe, you know, 243, 244.
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Like part of like getting into a Spartan race or marathon or part of like succeeding is keeping yourself healthy.
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And, you know, I had a lot going on in the last two weeks and I wasn't able to stay completely healthy.
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I feel great today, but my, I have, I wear a whoop and like your recovery score, one out of a hundred based on your resting heart rate, respiratory rate.
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I was like one out of a hundred, two out of a hundred, four out of a hundred.
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I think I averaged single digits last week, but this morning, 95 out of a hundred.
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You know, you said, obviously you're, you're done with the marathon.
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And, uh, I think I only got a 94 or 95, maybe once or twice after a very specific regiment that, that we can talk about maybe, but what changed for you to go from one to two now up to 94, 95, 96.
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I think, you know, I think there was a lot of, I had a lot of stress.
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I mean, I had a lot of travel the last two weeks, right?
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I was like, I went to, I ran the grand Canyon, which is amazing.
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So, but I'm like traveling West three weeks ago.
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And then I went to Georgia and then I went to Nevada.
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Like, there's a lot of like, I'm working with Atlantic advertisers.
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Um, and so there was a lot of like, um, time changes.
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And so that puts stress on your body and you're quite sure when you're going to sleep.
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It's like a really personal book that reveals a lot about my father and a lot about myself.
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It's the best thing I've ever put into the world.
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And I worked really hard on it, but it's also like, it's so personal that when people
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don't like it, you feel like, well, wait, they don't like you.
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And so there's this extra stress that comes in when you put a book like this into the
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And, you know, what are your family members going to think?
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What are your kids' friends going to say about it?
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And so I had this other stuff like spinning in my head.
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I've got some kind of respiratory infection, traveling like a maniac, stressed about the
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And then like, you know, I'm recording podcasts, I'm on TV, I'm traveling all over the place.
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So all those things combined just sort of made my marathon prep not so good.
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My favorite thing, I have this guy, his name is Alan Rubin, who, he's one, he ran like 20
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He just, he's like, I think he's run 37 consecutive New York marathons and like not trudging, just
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And he said to me, he's like, Nick, marathon gods, they just don't like it.
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If your mind is on anything except the marathon, even if what it's on is promoting a book about
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Well, it sounds like you were able to get it done and you're feeling better.
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I'm curious what you were talking about when you said your mantras, do you have specific
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mantras that you use or how do you reframe when maybe you are struggling or hurting or things
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You know, I've seen a lot of guys who they'll have these impeccable plans in place and they
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work great under the perfect set of circumstances.
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But as soon as one new variable is introduced, the entire plan crumbles.
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It's so brittle and fragile that they may have not made a plan to begin with.
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So it's a really, that's a really insightful and important point.
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So what I do is I, I have one basic one, which is, it's basically a three pattern, right?
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It's like, if you're a musician, you're like one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two,
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But I'm thinking right foot, left foot, right foot.
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And you're basically like, you're emphasizing your right foot hitting the ground and then
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one, two, and then your left foot hitting the ground, one, two.
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And what that does is it, it allows your mind to kind of shut some things off.
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So, cause sometimes during the race yesterday, I was like, my God, like everything is so
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But instead, like you think you get into the mantra and you're like, okay, now you're
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And then it also, it keeps your body balanced, right.
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When you're like in a race, when you're going badly, like sometimes you start to lean too much
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Well, if you do that, like your left hip's going to be shot.
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And like the next mile is going to be even harder.
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So when you're the sort of the, the equation of running, right.
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It's like power times efficiency divided by mass.
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And power is like how much force you can put in the ground, the cadence, which you can
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Efficiency is like how well you move through space.
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Given the amount of power you put in, like how are you moving through space?
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Are you able to move efficiently through space?
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And so I would, I think about the efficiency of how I move and like trying to make sure
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that I'm like moving through space as well as possible.
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So that's like part of the, part of the mantra.
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And I had another one, which was, I would just say out loud to myself, like continuous
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The only thing that matters in this race, it doesn't matter if I run 306, 315, 257.
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Only thing that matters is that I keep running.
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So I just said to myself over and over, continuous forward motion.
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And so I'm trying to really meditate and get myself through it.
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Like I had made all these contingencies in my document for what I would do with my horror
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Not one of them had me running, you know, over 250.
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Um, so I was, I was like off the charts and I've like literally like off the charts I
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Um, and so I was just trying to like meditate and keep going.
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And I remembered, I remember once, you know, the, the race that I just like, I, I ran the
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New York marathon when I was like, I don't know, it's the first time I ran it.
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And I, uh, I drop out of mile 23, part because my knee hurts, but in part because I was like
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It's not hard to, you get 23, you just go through central park.
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Then you finish, you take the subway, you go home, you're home like a little bit later.
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I hate that I dropped out of that race still bugs me.
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Well, I think those, you know, sometimes we take those failures and we internalize them
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and we make them mean more than they actually are.
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I think we overweight them or over index them and we start to wrap up our identity in that.
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But I think those failures are there to teach us obviously a lot of lessons and what not
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And I think for any man, the idea is that make yourself better.
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Just, just chalk it up and make sure that the next time you don't do what you did the
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last time and know that you did the best you could with the information and the resources,
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the mindset you had at that time and get better.
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That is like a hundred percent it, you know, and I, I've got three boys, you know, we have
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this funny saying when like, when things like, and two of them play very high level intense
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soccer for their age groups, just like, you know, traveling all over the place, playing
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with all kinds of teams and whenever they lose a hard game, right?
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They lose and like something bad happened or they lost this, like one of them lost this
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They're like one of their rivals in New Jersey.
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It's just like, if you're from New England, it's this moment where you're saying, but I
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But the reference is this, like, it's, it's, it's really just for new Englanders, but it's
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So the Patriots, when Bill Belichick, they're in that like amazing Belichick Brady era and
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they lose the first game of the year, 31 to nothing.
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I think to maybe to the bills and in the press conference, the there's like 15 questions in a row where
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they're like, do you think this team is as strong as it needs to be?
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Like, do you think that Tom Brady has gotten too old?
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And every time Belichick's like, uh, you know, we're on to, we're on to Cincinnati.
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Um, you know, uh, actually we're getting ready for Cincinnati.
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You know, we're like, do you think like you think you're, and so it's, it's this hilarious
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thing where all he can say is on to Cincinnati, on to Cincinnati, on to Cincinnati.
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And what he was doing was he didn't have to do that press conference.
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He didn't have to say, he wasn't just like humiliating the reporters.
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We're not going to think of ourselves as losers.
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What we're going to do is we're going to get ready to play the Bengals and we play them in
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And that team went like 14 and two and won the Superbowl.
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And so, um, it's Laura in new England and Belichick's reputation may be a little complicated.
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We'll leave it outside of this podcast for now, but it was this kind of like amazing.
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And I remember watching it and thinking it was like football coaches sometimes are kind
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of goofy and dorky, but it seemed like he was actually at like something pretty deep
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And so when my kids lose a soccer game, we're like on to Cincinnati.
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And so I came home, I was like on to Cincinnati, right?
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And I'll figure out like how to like make myself less vulnerable to respiratory infections.
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And I'll figure out how to, you know, make sure I'm resting my body.
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Like I, the day after the race, I made a list of everything that happened in training, right?
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I was doing amazingly and I kind of overdid it and I know when I overdid it.
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And I sort of went through and like, these are the things to learn from do that after every
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I had a friend that often, and I haven't talked to him for a long time, but he used
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You know, we, we were business partners for a while and I might gripe and moan or complain
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And I think if more men had that mindset, we wouldn't dwell so much on our past failures
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and look at the opportunities presented before us, even, even recognize them.
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Cause it's amazing to me how often when you dwell on past failures that you become completely
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incapable of seeing the opportunities that are lying right in front of you.
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And you like, you just, you, you become, you sort of absorb the failures and you take
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them into you and, you know, there's just like this, there's wonderful kind of this
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So my, it's a little bit different, but it just popped in mind and it was, you know,
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my grandfather, my, uh, my mother's father, right?
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So he's not really a character in the book, but he was an arms controller and he worked for,
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um, uh, he worked for every president from FDR to Bush, right?
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And he wrote this incredible thing and he wrote, it's like in his diaries, I think it
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And he was like, if you look at the dynamics between the United States and the Soviet Union,
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and you look at all that has gone wrong, it seems inevitable that there'll be a nuclear
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What are the odds that there'll be a war today?
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Well, they're less than 50%, but they're not zero.
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And you multiply it by the number of years in the future, like my life will end in a
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The way to look at it is, you know, is there anything I can do today to make the risk of
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And then what if, is there anything I can do tomorrow?
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And if you look at it that way, well, then suddenly it seems like, well, maybe you can get
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And so he had that attitude, like, I'm just going to do whatever I can do every day.
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You know, obviously nuclear war is very different from all the other things we're talking about,
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but like, I'm going to do everything I can every day to make the risk be less.
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Like he was there when the Berlin Wall came down and, you know, it was an amazing lesson
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for life of like, you look at the situation that is, and maybe it looks impossible and you
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And then if you do, if you do well today, it makes tomorrow's task a little easier,
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Like you're in a very deep hole, but you've come up a little bit.
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And that's, I think just a great attitude towards life and a great way to get through
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Like, okay, things are bad, but you know what I'm going to do?
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And after I've done the next thing, right, that doing the next thing, right, will be
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And that's just a great, great way to get through this stuff as opposed to, oh my God,
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And like really taking in all that pain and then letting it like slow you down.
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Man, I'm going to step away from this conversation very quickly.
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We talked a little bit about a plan in this conversation and nobody plans for divorce.
00:21:56.420
Uh, but when a man does go through divorce, which does happen often, um, sometimes he
00:22:02.060
feels like he's losing everything, uh, his family, his purpose, even in many ways, his
00:22:09.120
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00:22:24.580
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I think it goes back to your mantra of the right foot, left foot, you know, just put
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the next foot in front of the other and let the chips fall, uh, fall where they may.
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We often talk about in our organization, what's the next best thing.
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So regardless of what you did right now, what is, whether it's a, a to-do list, like I'm holding
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up my planner right here, um, or, you know, running a marathon, what is the next best
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move, chalk everything else up and do that and have faith that things will work out.
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You know, you talk about your boys, uh, playing soccer, your two oldest boys playing competitive
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It sounds like, uh, it's actually the two youngest boys.
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Older boy loves to hike and loves to do all kinds of stuff.
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I know they run, uh, short distances over long periods of time playing soccer, but do
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He did a mile time trial last night and like, like bumped into somebody at the start and like
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really slowed down and then ran like a six Oh two and came back and was upset that he didn't
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go under six, but that's blazing for an 11 year old.
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He actually made me ask the general counsel of New York road runners, if they would lower
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He said he's going to run the New York marathon with me in three years.
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I went, I went weightlifting with the 11 year old this morning.
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So I go to the gym and like did box jumps competitions.
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Um, and, uh, they're just, they're loads of fun and they work really hard at their,
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The older guy is like, he played, um, you know, plays on this club soccer team, got you
00:25:44.280
when, you know, sends people pro it's a great club.
00:25:47.140
And, uh, but he also can do high school sports.
00:25:49.740
And so this winter he's doing swimming just cause he thinks it'll like improve his
00:25:53.440
cardiovascular system without adding wear and tear on the body.
00:25:59.680
Um, but if he like sticks with it, he's not going to be a good swimmer.
00:26:02.940
He's not going to, it's not like his team's going to win the state championship, but he's
00:26:06.760
going to like make himself stronger without extra wear and tear, which is a really sophisticated
00:26:14.120
Yeah, it is for that, for that age to be able to think about that.
00:26:17.040
But that's probably a lot of what you instilled, uh, overtly and maybe covertly just through
00:26:24.160
And then seeing that I'm really interested in the legacy component of this, because the
00:26:28.980
way I understand it, your father got you into running.
00:26:32.400
When, when you were young, you were what, four or five years old when you were, you started
00:26:38.000
Like, you know, I, when I was like five or six or my dad wasn't an athlete, didn't
00:26:43.820
like, couldn't kick a soccer ball, like did not shoot basketball, but like in the late
00:26:48.600
seventies running, boom, he starts running and he takes me out there.
00:26:54.700
And then I remember running like around Pine Manor college, which was like two miles from
00:26:59.640
And I think I ran like two or three miles, but that seems nuts for a five or a six year
00:27:04.220
And I couldn't be misremembering something from later because he left.
00:27:21.500
It sounds like based on what I've, I've read and seen with you and your father, you know,
00:27:25.240
out of the picture at a fairly young age, um, got you into that, which at this point,
00:27:30.260
I'm sure you attribute a lot of your success to him getting you into running.
00:27:34.360
But then it seems like, did you, did you abandon running for a while and then start running
00:27:42.240
I mean, it wasn't like, uh, you know, I ran with him and I would, and so he gets, you
00:27:46.060
know, he, um, comes out of the closet, realizes he's gay when I'm like six or seven.
00:27:53.040
His life gets a lot harder, not coming out of the closet in the middle of the AIDS crisis
00:27:58.660
doesn't help, but you know, he also really turns against the world that he had worked
00:28:08.120
Um, you know, and he, you know, he spends the first half of his life trying to like climb
00:28:13.000
his way into the American meritocracy and then spends the second half of his life trying
00:28:17.960
Um, but he, you know, so when I'm between six and 15, like I'll go running with him when
00:28:24.500
I go and see him down in Washington or I spend like a week with him in the summer, travel
00:28:28.540
We always go running, but it wasn't, it wasn't part of my identity.
00:28:31.020
Wasn't something that I thought I was particularly good at or cared a ton about.
00:28:34.920
And then in high school, um, I, I thought I was pretty athletic and I tried out for the
00:28:40.420
varsity basketball team and, uh, I don't make it.
00:28:43.160
So I tried for the JV, definitely make that don't make it trying out for the JV too.
00:28:50.100
I remember going in like going to the gym and they've got like 12 kids made the JV
00:28:58.160
Uh, and so I joined the track team and then things click and like, thank God they clicked.
00:29:03.860
It like gave me confidence, which you need as a high school, you know, high school boy
00:29:08.560
So that, that was when I got back into the sport.
00:29:13.140
And then, um, from there, I mean, really just been involved with that.
00:29:16.820
I, I, I wonder, you know, with, with my kids, you know, I have three boys and a girl
00:29:21.600
with my, my boys in particular, you know, I always want them to like follow in my footsteps
00:29:26.540
and like the same things I like and like the same sports.
00:29:29.500
But as I get older, I realized, you know, some of them are, um, to some degree to varying
00:29:33.420
degrees and the others are just going to like something else.
00:29:36.800
But I think for me, it's just making sure that they incorporate some of the good characteristics
00:29:43.280
I have, which are few and far between, but that's what I'd like them to learn if I got
00:29:49.900
Like you can't like the kids, they might like what you like.
00:29:53.460
Um, you know, my view with parenting is whatever they're passionate about, support them.
00:29:59.820
And if they want to like, they want to get good at chess, right.
00:30:02.140
They want to get good at rock climbing, like take them to the gym to go take chess, sign
00:30:05.300
them up for chess classes, like drive them there.
00:30:07.380
You know, I played soccer as a kid, but it wasn't really my thing, but they like decided
00:30:12.620
And then during quarantine, we were up in the Catskills.
00:30:16.640
My three boys, my wife, me, our grandparents or her parents, we play family soccer every night,
00:30:21.260
like three before, just like out there kicking at these little kids and, uh, they got good.
00:30:27.100
Um, and it's been, it's been wonderful to watch them, but what I do think they get, and I do
00:30:32.500
think they get from their mother and they do get from me is they get a sense of like, they
00:30:38.420
definitely get a sense of that, that discipline matters, that work ethic matters.
00:30:43.820
And then if you try hard, you, things kind of work out better than if you don't.
00:30:47.060
And my oldest son has taken that into his academics and he works, it's just works like
00:30:53.080
Preps so hard for his debate tournaments, works so hard on his papers.
00:30:55.760
You know, he's, you know, I'll go downstairs at six.
00:30:59.940
Um, you know, the older boys take it into everything.
00:31:04.420
Like, and I hope, I hope when they're old, they look back and they're like, it was a gift
00:31:09.580
They didn't put pressure on us, but, um, they set a good example, but who knows?
00:31:13.660
It's like, parenting's, you know, you can screw things up.
00:31:15.740
Like they might have, here's, here's a funny story.
00:31:18.560
So I, uh, you like, you just don't know what's going to happen.
00:31:21.120
So it's quarantine and all the marathons are canceled.
00:31:24.940
And so I'm like, I'm going to run a marathon by myself in prospect park.
00:31:28.620
I'm going to run 26.2 miles, 13 loops around this little two mile loop.
00:31:41.000
Cause I'm like racing a marathon and like everybody else is just out there jogging.
00:31:45.780
And so you just, you've totally changed the experience.
00:31:50.780
There's like a million people on the sidelines.
00:31:52.080
They're screaming, there's signs, there's jazz bands.
00:31:56.520
And you know, like it's, it, it's a totally different thing.
00:32:00.180
Anyway, so I finished the race and I've like really exhausted myself.
00:32:03.940
I go back home and then I like, I like crossed some red line and I like, I start like
00:32:13.440
So I get on all these blankets, put the space heater next to me.
00:32:20.820
I was like, man, there's like a difference between a 95% effort and 99% effort and a
00:32:30.320
He's like, so he says to me, he says, dad, you know what I'm learning from this?
00:32:39.280
The next day I'm out in Prospect Park and I'm going for a walk, walk meeting with a
00:32:45.920
And this little kid in a blue jacket like comes running by me.
00:32:53.060
He was like, I came out here cause I wanted to run.
00:32:55.260
And so like clearly the exact same act, the exact same thing has like turned one kid
00:33:01.280
And the other little guy is now like into the sport.
00:33:03.820
So just as a parent, you don't, you don't know, right?
00:33:08.640
You think you try, you support, you love, but you can't quite know what your influence
00:33:16.840
What do you think spells the difference for a young man like, like yourself and literally
00:33:22.560
millions of others who have grown up without a permanent father figure in their lives?
00:33:27.340
What do you think is the difference between somebody who takes that information, even
00:33:32.180
subconsciously and decides to use it as an excuse to sabotage themselves or somebody who
00:33:38.520
decides to take that information and say, you know, I'm going to be a better father.
00:33:44.900
I'm not going to follow in those footsteps and I'm going to create a new legacy for our
00:33:51.380
Because they're like, it's like the gods have done this thing where the mistakes that
00:34:02.800
your parents made, it's almost like those are like passed through the ether and they
00:34:10.040
And I remember like, God, I remember this conversation that's coming to mind when I was like 16 and
00:34:16.240
like one of my friends was like cheating on his girlfriend.
00:34:20.240
He's like, you know, my dad cheated on my mom and I just can't stop myself.
00:34:25.780
And he's just like, no, it's just the way it is.
00:34:28.060
And like, maybe that was an excuse, but here's the craziest thing, right?
00:34:32.720
My father watches his father and my father, you know, I read all my father's diaries
00:34:41.020
And like, if there's anything, anything that my dad like had a hard time handling, it was
00:34:47.160
his father's drinking, his father throwing his career away, partly through alcohol.
00:34:53.720
And then his father, like in moments of desperation, threatening to commit suicide to his son, my
00:35:00.640
father, you know, as part of like a kind of manipulation.
00:35:05.360
And my dad, like those three things, like dad, they burn my dad, right?
00:35:20.840
And then in multiple occasions, threatens to commit suicide to me in order to kind of manipulate
00:35:31.380
Again, I didn't even know this when I was going through this.
00:35:33.240
And my dad is like saying all this crazy stuff to me.
00:35:35.860
I didn't realize that he was like doing the exact same thing that his father had done.
00:35:41.740
You would think that when your father sets a bad example, right.
00:35:46.160
What you do is you take that and you'd be like, you know what?
00:35:50.460
Or you're, you know, you grow up and your dad has left, right.
00:35:56.580
And I'm going to learn from that and I'm going to do my best.
00:35:59.140
Nobody, you know, like sometimes marriages don't work.
00:36:03.480
But like the lesson should be, we take the mistakes and we reverse them.
00:36:08.920
And sometimes what happens is we take the mistakes and we repeat them.
00:36:13.180
And like, so what I'm trying to do for my kids and what I, like I write in the book,
00:36:17.600
I want to break the string of Thompson fathers who've disappointed their kids.
00:36:23.100
And there are things that my dad gave me, like my dad gave me nonstop love.
00:36:29.220
Like there's like, and I forgave him for the, like the madness and the terrible things he
00:36:37.120
But I don't want, my kids might resent this or that.
00:36:41.740
They might resent things that are going to come.
00:36:43.600
They might resent, like they might feel I put too much pressure on.
00:36:46.060
They might, they might think whatever they might like resent being in this book.
00:36:49.380
But I don't, I'm not going to repeat the mistakes my father made.
00:36:54.580
And that is like, that is a central part of my life.
00:37:04.280
What would you say are the biggest lessons that you learned from him?
00:37:08.640
And maybe the biggest pitfalls outside of the behavior, maybe some of the mindsets that,
00:37:14.200
uh, you are trying to break that string, as you said.
00:37:18.140
I mean, the, the central thing that I, that I, that I believe, right.
00:37:24.920
It ties into a lot is, you know, he lost his ability to stay focused.
00:37:40.400
He lost the ability to say like, I'm going to start this thing and I'm going to finish
00:37:49.840
You have to have that to run a marathon and you ran multiple marathons.
00:37:53.340
Like you have to go out and you have to run every day when it's rainy, when it's hot,
00:38:00.980
But by the time he was in his fifties, sixties, seventies, you couldn't get anything done.
00:38:07.040
He couldn't like, he couldn't start a project, finish a project.
00:38:10.840
And so part of what I try to do is just to like, remember that, remember that, you
00:38:18.180
You can lose the ability to focus and to get things, you know, to move things from the
00:38:22.940
And that's a really important thing that I try to like, try to hold onto.
00:38:29.160
And, you know, my dad, when I turned 40, my dad put a note on my Facebook page and he
00:38:35.080
was like, Nick, you know, things are going well for you.
00:38:37.900
Like great wife, three lovely kids, job's cool, doing well, but all men's lives fall
00:38:44.500
Like there are forces in this world that are too big.
00:38:46.660
You know, it happened to your father, it happened to me.
00:38:49.300
I was like, A, there's 70,000 people who follow this Facebook page, man.
00:39:01.760
I want to try to like, look at what happened, right?
00:39:10.460
You started to say that like the world was out to get you.
00:39:13.680
You started to say that because you had come out of the closet, the world was against you.
00:39:18.780
It's hard to be gay in, particularly in 1980s Washington, particularly when you're a Republican.
00:39:23.760
But like, that's not, it doesn't singularly explain all the professional troubles, right?
00:39:34.940
And you find your niche, you find your lane and you do the best you can.
00:39:37.300
And if you start blaming external factors and this and that, like you think the wind is
00:39:42.560
always at your face, you forget that sometimes it's at your back, right?
00:39:45.220
And so my dad kind of, he didn't, he just, he wasn't centered and confident enough.
00:39:54.200
And he wasn't like as comfortable, he wasn't comfortable enough in his skin to really like
00:40:04.340
And so, you know, that's what happened to him after 40.
00:40:13.140
It's so interesting that we, we tried to put that on other people.
00:40:21.040
I'm sure his intentions were probably, probably good, but it's just so etched into people's
00:40:27.300
DNA, this victim mentality, or like you said, that the world is out to get them, that they
00:40:35.120
That's mind blowing to me because there's swaths of people who believe the exact opposite.
00:40:41.040
So how could it be that that is absolutely objectively true if other people can see that it's absolutely
00:40:51.220
It's one, it's one of the things that like, and it's, it's a, it's a really complicated
00:40:55.620
thing to deal with because back to my example of my dad, there is no doubt, right?
00:41:00.700
That like there are people who didn't want him to get jobs that he wanted to get who like
00:41:06.860
Was that he's gay and they didn't want a gay person in that job.
00:41:10.340
And not only that, maybe even worse, he had made a very positive moral decision to be
00:41:17.680
Like, and he had decided that he was going like, and he believed that, and this is particularly
00:41:22.480
true in like 1990, that the more people who are out, the easier it'll be for gay people
00:41:29.100
And that like, part of what has to happen is for folks to recognize that their friends
00:41:39.260
Like he did some other things he didn't have to do.
00:41:41.880
He doesn't have to like bring cross male prostitutes to the dinner party in Washington.
00:41:50.760
Like there, you know, and he would say, well, you know, I've got to be open about my
00:41:56.440
I'm like, dad, like you met that dude on the internet last night.
00:42:06.120
And, you know, there, so there are things he did to kind of like sabotage himself.
00:42:10.000
And then he also just, he constantly believed that this injustice, like this is why it's
00:42:16.800
I was like, dad, well, you know, I don't know, fill in the job application.
00:42:20.500
Like, you know, maybe if you finish the book, right.
00:42:24.160
Like then, like, you'll be able to sell the book.
00:42:27.760
I would have the old joke about like, Jesus, why haven't I, or God, why haven't I won the
00:42:33.140
Like you have to actually, you have to do things for good things to happen.
00:42:38.360
How do you now then instill in your boys, the, not this victim mentality, but, you know,
00:42:45.140
I guess here's how I choose to look at it because I don't think this is objectively true
00:42:49.880
either that the world is conspiring for my benefit.
00:42:59.540
I think most people don't really care about my success.
00:43:02.560
Most people don't really have a vested interest in whether or not I succeed or fail.
00:43:06.980
Most people are probably going to forget about this podcast a week or two after I pass away.
00:43:11.520
And that might sound pessimistic, but that's the realistic perspective.
00:43:15.200
But if I get to choose something, I'm going to choose that the world is conspiring in my
00:43:27.860
I mean, A, you know, like make it clear, right?
00:43:32.980
I'm like a six foot tall heterosexual white male.
00:43:35.320
Like things are like, there are lots of structures in life that are built to like make things easier
00:43:39.700
But they're also like, there are lots of situations where A, the red carpet's not going
00:43:45.980
And B, they're going to be all kinds of like complicated obstacles for, you know, whatever
00:43:52.100
So I say to them, like, you know, if you don't, they always will have, like, there's always
00:43:57.220
I didn't make the soccer team because I wasn't close enough to the coach, right?
00:44:00.560
Or I didn't make the soccer team because, you know, for whatever reason.
00:44:08.740
What I love about soccer and the thing that I think is teaching them all this great stuff.
00:44:18.000
And so they play like my 15 year old, he'll play a bunch of games this week, right?
00:44:24.760
So he's playing for like a private high school in Brooklyn, playing against other private high
00:44:30.580
He'll play in a league where everybody speaks Spanish.
00:44:33.480
The refs speak Spanish and it's all immigrants, right?
00:44:35.820
And the league was like, basically was shut down briefly because of ice raids and the
00:44:40.920
He plays with men from the Caribbean who have a game that they play near us.
00:44:45.760
And it's like a bunch of guys who like play pro when they were young or really good.
00:44:48.840
And now they're in their forties or fifties and they love my kid, right?
00:44:52.460
And then he plays for his club team, got you in Queens where, you know, like the kids,
00:44:57.440
like my wife and I might be the only two parents who are both born in the United States.
00:45:01.800
It's like immigrants from all over the world, right?
00:45:03.440
So he's getting this like incredible experience of different people facing different things,
00:45:09.140
Different people who've grown up in different circumstances, different people who have no
00:45:12.640
money, people who have lots of money, people who, right?
00:45:15.960
Who's like, you know, the parents are like prison guards.
00:45:22.520
And what he's realizing is that everybody's coming from these different backgrounds, coming
00:45:30.820
You're going, you're just, you're playing against each other and you're playing like,
00:45:33.600
you know, and, you know, you're getting to see everybody as equals.
00:45:40.860
Like I was a reporter and I would go travel in Africa or go travel in Asia, right?
00:45:44.880
And you go and you travel into like a, you're traveling in Senegal, right?
00:45:49.760
And you go out there as a reporter and you're like, this is the, you know, this is in the
00:45:53.140
And you're like, you're a white person in Senegal.
00:45:55.300
And like, you kind of attract a bunch of attention and it's kind of weird.
00:46:00.640
When you go on the soccer field and you're just one of the people there, like you're
00:46:10.840
And if you're bad, you get told to sit on the side.
00:46:17.740
It was a great way to meet people when I was traveling.
00:46:19.480
So anyway, so what I try to instill with my kids is to recognize like you have wind at
00:46:28.780
And there's going to be wind at your face for all kinds of different reasons that you
00:46:33.980
But like you go out there and you do your very best.
00:46:36.560
You try to compete in the most meritocratic way you can.
00:46:39.500
And if you don't get it, you analyze why you didn't get it and you try to do better the
00:46:46.700
I like that story of, of how your, your children are playing with all sorts of demographics
00:46:56.260
You know, I think about that with the military when I was in the military, you know, and we're
00:47:01.680
in Iraq and we're dealing with incoming rockets and mortars.
00:47:05.060
I'm not worried about whether the guy next to me is black or white or brown or who knows
00:47:09.100
what color or what sexual orientation he is, or what is even what his political viewpoints
00:47:14.960
I'm worried as to whether or not he's going to have my back and I have his back and he's
00:47:22.940
But you know what I think is challenging is so much of these social institutions, whether
00:47:27.000
it's military service or church congregations, or even community involvement, even just knowing
00:47:33.700
your neighbors, like who lives next to you is going away.
00:47:37.240
And so we become so isolated that now all we look at is, or easier to look at is immutable
00:47:44.180
characteristics as opposed to what's going on beneath those, those characteristics.
00:48:19.480
It is one of the best institutions in American life for getting people to like understand and
00:48:26.960
love each other, no matter what their backgrounds are.
00:48:31.940
And it's what's like, one of the things that I love about running is that it's, it's totally
00:48:40.260
Like no one can say you ran fast or you ran slow because of like, you know, because of
00:48:46.700
your skin color, because your sexual eye, like you ran faster, slow because of you, right?
00:48:49.820
You go out there and like, if you run, if the fastest person wins the race, like fast
00:48:53.900
Sometimes when you're applying for a job, there can be all kinds of reasons.
00:48:56.340
If you didn't win the race, you can say, well, it's because my dad would say, well,
00:49:05.380
Some cases they probably were, but you go out and you run and it's you.
00:49:08.500
And it's like a really, a really beautiful thing.
00:49:13.820
I think we need many more things in America that allow us to be with each other and understand
00:49:22.680
There's this wonderful, there are all these studies about what can make people from different
00:49:28.940
political backgrounds, like talk and understand each other.
00:49:31.360
And you take, you take two people who like really disagree on abortion, right?
00:49:36.600
Maybe they disagree on abortion because of lived experience.
00:49:38.740
Maybe they disagree because of politics, maybe disagree because of religion, who knows?
00:49:42.040
And you put them down, you put them across the table and you're like, talk about abortion,
00:49:46.260
And they won't listen and they won't learn, right?
00:49:48.420
But you put them down across the table and beforehand you, you, you realize that they're both from
00:49:52.720
They both grew up in Dallas, maybe lived in places.
00:49:54.300
You say, well, you guys are going to talk about the Mavericks or the Cowboys for five minutes,
00:50:01.520
And then actually you have the conversation and then you learn, right?
00:50:04.360
And like, you learn why this person is really against it or why this person is really for
00:50:07.860
it or what, you know, and like, then you can understand each other, right?
00:50:11.040
And so like, one of the things that we need to get better at in this country is start where
00:50:20.280
And then actually you learn from the disagreement.
00:50:22.160
If you start at the disagreement, you forget the commonalities.
00:50:25.160
And so like, you know, okay, like I'm really interested in AI.
00:50:30.380
Now let's get to where you and I disagree or that's a, it's a, it's a much better way
00:50:37.080
And we need more things like that in America right now.
00:50:40.540
And I, that's part of the reason why this podcast and others are so powerful because you get
00:50:44.500
to have conversations with people of all walks of life.
00:50:47.960
Some you agree with, some you don't, but you are having real dialogue with good faith.
00:50:53.420
I think that's important trying to understand each other and come to some understandings
00:50:58.760
about the way that, that the world works and the way that men can drive forward and move
00:51:04.700
It's a, it's pretty incredible that we get to do work like this.
00:51:10.720
You have people coming in from like all walks of life and it's so hard for men, right?
00:51:14.060
And it's hard for men for like lots of reasons.
00:51:16.900
One of which is like, we don't, we don't talk, you know, like it's harder to get men
00:51:23.860
It's harder for men to admit their vulnerabilities.
00:51:26.600
It's harder for men to be open with one another.
00:51:29.400
And if you can't do that, then sometimes you can't get to the stuff you really need to
00:51:32.860
So it's like, yeah, when you wrote, it'd be like, can you be on this podcast?
00:51:39.860
It's a, it's such a powerful dialogue and opportunity to come to some mutual understanding.
00:51:44.200
So with the work that you do with, with the Atlantic, how, how, how is running?
00:51:48.880
Cause that's such a big part of your life and a big part of this book.
00:51:53.620
Uh, you were with the New Yorker, you were with Wired.
00:51:56.300
Now you're the CEO of the Atlantic, which I think for four or five years now, like, how
00:52:00.500
has that helped you be a better CEO, be better in your, your career aspirations and pursuits?
00:52:10.080
Um, you know, one is it does give me like running does give me an outlet, right?
00:52:19.220
You know, I'm, I'm here at the office, work really hard, focused on the to-do list, but
00:52:24.600
I run to the office and I run home from the office.
00:52:34.600
So it's, it's a mental space and I could do lots of other things from the mental space.
00:52:37.960
There are also habits of mind that running, particularly running intensely teach you,
00:52:43.660
It teaches you sort of the stoicism I mentioned earlier, right?
00:52:47.140
Like you go out, you run every day, you get better, right?
00:52:49.940
It teaches you this attitude of like, I'm going to do the best I can right now and I'll
00:52:54.400
I'm going to do the best I can and then I'll be better.
00:52:56.580
It also like, it gives you endurance, which is really helpful for hard things at work.
00:53:02.180
Like, um, you have to, you got to get through a big, I don't know, I've been all hands coming
00:53:08.660
I've never lost my cool in all hands, even when like really hard stuff happens.
00:53:13.240
Um, why have I never lost my cool in all hands?
00:53:16.120
Maybe it's because I like can keep my concentration in a long marathon, right?
00:53:19.720
Maybe the way, reason I keep my concentration in a long marathon is from all these all hard
00:53:24.300
You, you learn how to, um, you kind of learn how to do that.
00:53:29.580
And then you also like, you learn a lot about goal setting and pacing, right?
00:53:37.760
Like what is the right goal to set and what is the way to pace yourself to get that goal?
00:53:47.760
You learn, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to set a goal.
00:53:55.760
And then when I'm out there, I'm going to pace myself, right?
00:53:59.360
And actually you've learned like some pretty good lessons about, well, now, all right,
00:54:03.300
I'm going to try to get 1.5 million subscribers to the Atlantic, right?
00:54:12.840
And running the way to get the best performance is to hard, easy, hard, easy, hard, easy, right?
00:54:21.080
Like you're, you're, you're beating yourself up and then you're recovering, beating yourself
00:54:26.260
up and then you're recovering, beating yourself and then you're recovering.
00:54:28.760
In a job, the way to get the maximum performance is like steady effort, steady effort, steady
00:54:33.740
So there's like different cadences to working and to physical training for running, but there's
00:54:40.500
And I think there's a lot of the, you know, everything you do in life, right?
00:54:45.700
From the way you get up and get out of bed to like how you make your breakfast, how you
00:54:48.960
brush your teeth, like creates habits and creates like habits of mind and creates this personality
00:54:54.260
And I think that it helps you become who you are.
00:54:57.500
And I think the habit of running every day, like kind of makes you into, I think it makes,
00:55:08.660
It can take up too much time, but I think in general, if you do it right and you contain
00:55:12.860
it, it can make you into like a more centered person who's able to work a little better.
00:55:17.560
So that's one of the reasons why I love this sport so much.
00:55:21.100
Well, I have yet to have found the joy of running, but I do run on occasion, but that said,
00:55:31.280
There's all kinds of stuff that you do that is the same for you, right?
00:55:34.720
That's giving you the mental space that's giving you like the goal setting, right?
00:55:44.740
It's fascinating to see somebody who's as passionate about their own personal pursuits
00:55:49.860
and also their career aspirations, you know, with the work that you've done with the Atlantic
00:55:53.180
and other resources and magazines and publications.
00:55:59.100
And I'm excited to get this information out to the guys.
00:56:01.920
Tell the guys where to connect with you and learn more about what you're up to.
00:56:08.920
You know, as I said, it's like the best thing I've ever written.
00:56:13.040
It's my story of running, the story of my father.
00:56:14.920
Like, please pick up a copy, read it, write to me.
00:56:21.560
I post a video every day about technology policy.
00:56:24.220
I'm on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, NX Thompson.
00:56:36.880
I host a podcast, The Most Interesting Thing in AI, about AI.
00:56:40.100
I'm just a, I'm like a curious, interested guy.
00:56:43.180
And I love Ryan that you invited me on the show.
00:56:57.720
And we talked about it at the end of the podcast, as you heard, that finding something, finding
00:57:03.340
an outlet is really what's going to help you make sense of the chaos and the world around
00:57:09.400
The world can be hectic and frustrating and confusing and everything else.
00:57:14.480
But having these positive and healthy outlets will help us show up more fully in our professional
00:57:23.440
So check out the new book, The Running Ground by Nick Thompson.
00:57:27.640
As a reminder, make sure to check out our Divorce Not Death call, preview call tomorrow night,
00:57:42.620
All right, guys, we will be back tomorrow for our Ask Me Anything.
00:57:46.220
Until then, go out there, take action, and become the man you are meant to be.
00:57:50.280
Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.
00:57:53.280
If you're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be,
00:57:57.280
we invite you to join the order at OrderOfMan.com.