EP #166: Why Hard Things Strengthen You with Bishoy Tadros, Host of Mile 40 Podcast

Welcome back to another episode of Every Day in Door Funds, a mental health podcast focused on the importance of finding joy and happiness in daily living. I'm your host Stella Stafnopoulos. This week I am so thrilled to have Bishoy Todros on the podcast. We met at a networking event for other wellness people, creatives, and we kind of just immediately clicked and hit it off. I was so fortunate to be a guest on his show and this week we're having him on Everyday in Door Funds. Bishoy is a life coach, he is an author of two acclaimed books and he is the creator and host of the Myle 40 Podcast. In this episode we really explore how to show up in the face of setbacks in life and what it means to build resilience and how moving through adversity is actually one of the best things that you can do for yourself. Endorphins don't just come out of nowhere and I truly believe that miracles happen on the other side of adversity and hard things. So it was such a pleasure to get to have Bishoy on the podcast today but before we dive into this episode reminder to like, rate, and review this podcast on whichever listening platform that you prefer. Hi Bishoy, thank you so much for coming on to Everyday in Door Funds, it is so wonderful to have you here. Stella, thank you for having me, this is super exciting, I am really really looking forward to today's conversation. I feel like no one knows the Endorphin High better than yourself as you just told me that you ran 20 miles yesterday. So at what point did the Endorphin High kick in for you on that crazy long run down the West Side Highway? Well the funny thing about it was I essentially blacked out the whole run because you asked me what I did this weekend and it took me like a little while to like figure out what did I do this weekend. And then I had to put the pieces together but I will say this and I actually posted about this on LinkedIn yesterday. It's been a very difficult training cycle so to give the audience some background I'm a pretty seasoned marathon runner Sydney is going to be my 13th marathon. So I've been doing it for a while now but this has been one of my most difficult training cycles because of the timing of it so all the training is throughout the summer and as you know in New York it's basically been a heatwave throughout July. And there are countless days where I just do not want to be out there but over time I've learned the importance of getting out there on those days you don't want to be out there. But yesterday the weather was actually pretty nice it was there was a little bit of breeze along the West Side Highway. So the hit kind of came pretty early on because it was like oh this is for the first time in like the last six weeks kind of enjoyable. So that was that was nice. Especially compared to how it has been in New York like truly such a heatwave so hot so humid unbearable. I mean I tried to run three miles down like the West Side Highway a week or two ago and it was like 95 degrees in the middle of the afternoon. I was like I can't do this but you really are a season marathon runner. This is number 13 or coming on 14. This is my 13th marathon so for the marathon there are six world me oh now there are seven so they just added Sydney as a seventh world major up until today I finished all six and that's why I'm running Sydney to get my seven. Wow wow so talk about like learning to embrace challenge and discomfort. These are all themes that are very prevalent in your podcast mile 40 in your personal and professional brand. So it is to no surprise that you've done so many marathons and are continuously putting yourself in these experiences that push you and challenge you. I mean I think it's very admirable but I'd love to kind of start off with just having you share a little bit more about yourself and give my listeners a bit more context to who you are and how you. Came into this whole world of wellness and personal development and personal growth absolutely I love to so for the audience I give you a little bit of a background with regards to how this all came to be the truth is I wasn't a runner my entire life actually didn't start running until I was 30 I'm 37 now so just for context there but where this all began really was in early childhood I was boarding Egypt my was three years old I was diagnosed with leukemia it was the reason that my parents immigrated. They left everything they quite frankly didn't know what was going to happen if they were going to go back and we moved to the States and between the ages of three and 13 I was undergoing chemo radiation when I was 13 I had brain surgery to remove a golf all size mass from the right front to a little bit my brain. And life really wasn't working in any direction up until that point that's when I got a clean bill of health and you know I tell people that as much as the story may come off as being a medical journey it was way more than that because it was you know figuring out how to navigate assimilation figuring out how to acquaint myself socially. Athletically it was a big challenge because at that age you know just for a young boy all you want to do is play all you want to compete and you're in this new world essentially where you start to kind of realize how other other kids are competing and all you want to do is be like everybody else you don't want to feel different. And I constantly battle the narrative as a child of you know being told you know you don't belong on the field or you don't belong on the court or you know the track whatever it may be simply because unbeknownst to a lot of those coaches at the time I was going through all this medical treatment and my parents had to reconcile all that my parents had to you know raise me as normal as possible you know build my confidence you know make sure that I kept my eye on what was important. But at the same time on the outside I had to navigate all these different voices basically telling me you know you just don't belong out here so when I got that clean bill of health. I tell a story about this promise I made to myself in the recovery room it was it was a long surgery six to eight hours and when you have brain surgery you're basically taped up from top to bottom and it hurts to breathe essentially because your body is just so irritated post surgery and in that recovery. I came up with this mantra that I just kind of told myself any barrier or obstacle life was going to put in front me from that point forward I was going to figure out a way Navi I just knew everything was not working. So I'm headed off to high school I really wanted to ingrate myself socially finally and I learned over the course of my my medical journey that failure was going to be part of the journey I was going to have to fail in order to succeed and what that men essentially was not everyone's going to like me. I'm going to put myself in all these circles socially and it may or may not work and I'm going to have to be okay with rejection. Same thing with sports I tell a story about how I went to this Friday night like type of high school out among Allen it was a big football school and all I wanted quite frankly was just to be a part of a locker room to have a jersey on and you just be one of the guys. And I talk about how this team didn't ever cut anybody but I got cut twice before I made it the third time and you know it was just kind of this understanding that I came to early on in life that it's okay like it's going to strengthen you it's going to embolden you and it's going to teach you something along the way I knew I was playing from behind. And that kind of mentality gave me a leg off because what happened after that I went up to college I graduated during the heart of the financial crisis and all I wanted to do of course was work in banking during the financial crisis and of course no one was getting jobs and I talk about how that mentality helped me essentially formulate the plan and it kind of got me ahead of other people in the sense that I wasn't really feeling dejected by the fact that I didn't have a job at the time. I knew I was going to come together and ultimately I got myself into the into the world of banking and I won't go too deep into that story because I don't think it's relevant for the show but eventually I left banking but around right around the time my left banking about seven years later I was really coming to with regards to who I wanted to be informing my identity in the city. I was starting to surround myself by the right group of people in New York I started to realize that the things that typically define success whether it was status money title whatever it may be as you know you know living in the New York world like those aren't the things that are going to you know define my happiness my happiness was a lot deeper than that and there was a lot more that I wanted out of my life than any of that. And this group of people that I surround myself by started to challenge me in ways I'd never been challenged before and a lot of those ways were around you know fitness in general and so I was taking these spin classes regularly and then started signing up with the group of people to do you know just smaller endurance races some triathlon some small running races. And after a couple years that group of people got me to sign up for a half iron man and that's where the title of my 40 came from because it was the craziest thing I had ever done to that point in my life I was turning 30 that year to 70 mile race for anyone who isn't familiar and around mile 40 of that race I completely broke down and you know there were salt all over my skin I was completely hydrated and up until that point training for that race people kept asking me why are you doing this. And I didn't have an answer for them but there I was kind of in that moment all alone and I had to ask myself that very question I said for sure why are you doing this if you paid money. You shut down your life for six months. You were training twice a day. You like basically cut out all your friendships Like your parents have barely seen you like why are you doing this? And it was the first time that in my adult life Where I kind of went into fight or flight mode because I realized I was kind of in a I put myself in a really dark corner I could have walked away I could have my mom was at the finish line. I could have just called her and got in myself out of this race But I couldn't bear to deal with how I would have felt about myself had I not finished the job And I remembered and this was you know the flight at fight or flight reflex where your mind just goes to how you've navigated really dark situations in the past and I started to draw correlations between that moment and my childhood and I remembered when I was a child My parents would celebrate small wins and you know I always tell people like it may have been intentional and may have been unintentional, but I haven't forgotten about it You know whether it was a positive update for our doctor whether it was you know me coming home from school being happy about something Whatever it may have been and I realized the importance of those many celebrations and so I Thought to myself how can I break down the last 30 miles of this race? And so what I decided to do was reframe it instead of 30 miles. I'm gonna frame it as one mile 30 times and I'm gonna celebrate every single mile and so That reframing was huge and I did that and like it was very hard You know don't get me wrong and that's still kind of like cat flashbacks toward that experience but he got me through the finish line so now I got through that finish line and you know time was definitely nothing special and I remember the look on people's faces because they were kind of scared for me but I also remembered Like how empowered I felt I never in my entire life You know really felt truly truly felt that I could do anything I set my mind to up until I had that moment so I get back to New York and I Decided I was going to run my very first marathon never ran one before But as you know being in New York, it's you know one of the best days of the year Are you believe the best day of the year depending on who's listening and? I didn't know how to get in so I had to do some research and I realized that in order to get into the race I was gonna have to raise money for charity. That's how I was gonna get my bit So I decided to raise money for the leukemia of the phoma society and I wrote my story and I shoved it in a drawer The reason being after having that very fraught very powerful moment at mile 40 I started to worry that if nobody donated or nobody bought into my story I was gonna lose this incredibly powerful, you know, momentum that I had just built for myself and this understanding that I could really really do something special So a whole week's went by and I decided to show the story to a mentor at the time And he looked at it and he's like why's your goal just three thousand dollars? And I'm like well, that's all I got to raise He goes you need to make your goal a hundred thousand dollars And he gave me a thousand dollars and he said go and Stella, you know, I tell the story over over and over there and podcasts or speaking engagements or whatever Maybe that was one of the single most important interactions of my entire life because this is a person who Didn't know me that well. We've maybe you know spoken four or five times before that mostly around career But I cannot tell you how important that interaction is where you look somebody in the eye and you mirror the feeling that you see in them What they know that they have and they're just hiding from the world like I knew I had something And I tell people all the time I knew I had a story to tell But I was hiding it strictly out of vulnerability so I decided to share it and then a thousand turned into five ten twenty thirty forty and the story got a lot of publicity and We got asked to ring the closing bell at Nasdaq and AVC was called and featured me during the broadcast of the race that year But you got to understand this was a three month span of like being in the in this Dark corner that I put myself in for this race to now just kind of going for it sharing the story To all this money coming in to now people being like hey like we want to talk to you And the most important thing of all this was actually none of that it was more so the fact that all of a sudden Cancer patients were reaching out and caretakers were reaching out and they were saying hey like this resonates like thank you for sharing this and I started to then realize okay this this is my purpose like this is more what I'm meant to be doing This is where my fulfillment is going to come from and I didn't know how I didn't know what way I didn't know what form and After I ran that race the one thing I did realize when I got back to my job at the time was that Things were not going to be the same anymore and that was the start of the journey and that race was seven years ago Wow, I mean There's something to be said around How some of the best moments in life are not even that over engineered you just Decided to do this and you decided to just raise money and then someone took a bet on you and was like Do bigger and go bigger and you were like okay, okay, I guess and None of that could have been predicted like all the lives and people that you impacted Which is just so incredible to think about I'd love to kind of go back a little bit earlier on in your story as well and Your childhood and battling cancer and when we think about wellness a lot of it must kind of Feel like a luxury now like to have had such a horrible and life-threatening illness And to come out on the other end for so much of your childhood and development you were fighting for survival And when we think about health and wellness a lot of these practices are just to like elevate our lives like we're not thinking about This concept that you know every day where we're facing potential, you know mortality. So How has your perspective on What it means to be healthy and what it means to be well deep-in or shifted from being in such an intense period of time focused on just surviving versus now Shifting to a point in your life where you're focused more so on thriving. How do you reconcile that? Well, you know that there's another element to call out here going through it as a child That's a different element because when you're going through it during those years and I talk about this a lot as well You're kind of naive in the sense that you presume that everyone else is going through something similar You don't realize right like I did not realize as a child that I was the only one Who was getting all the needles? I didn't realize that like I was special because at one point I had a feeding tube I didn't realize that you know my my scars from you know whatever our surgery Were unique. I had presumed Nyevly that every other child dealt with something similar And it wasn't even like a conversation that I was like having with my parents right and that it was just the assumption Oh like and a part of that was because my parents did such a good job of Nurturing me as I was going through it. So as to not make me feel like I was super special They wanted me to you know lead it as normal of a life as possible But the reverse of that is the assumption that other people just understand And they don't and that was you know really the difficult part of it However on the other side of it I am now incredibly grateful for this experience that You know, it was extremely difficult because it showed me the light gave me the perspective like once you start to knock on the door Of some real darkness medically right and the thought of you know death or an incumbent death If things go wrong and you know at a certain point they really shine a light on what's important what's not important And I think that's been something that's kind of carried on with me throughout the rest of my life and kind of enabled me To again, I gave the examples of like how like I was okay with rejection Because I've dealt with a lot worse than rejection the rejection Rejection met nothing to me and it still means nothing to me and I joke around in my wife and so for the context of Of the audience I've written two books and my first book is called break burs and you know, it's all about that mindset and and my journey But the recurring theme in the book like whether it was Whether it was my journey with leukemia whether it was with my career whether it was with sports was the fact that like I will outlast everybody because of my experience because I like I was I've experienced such darkness that it taught me like the power I've just consistency and continuing to show up and the joke is that my wife and I dated three times before we got together and got married And it was like yeah like I'm consistent. I'm going to continue to be here. I'm not going away You you know, so that that's what it taught me essentially Oh, it's just the heat fighting. I think when people face any sort of adversity in life You know humans naturally don't want to lean into challenge like why would we want to do the hard things right? That there's a reason why the word Challenge exists in life because it's not easy And you know, you will outlast other people if you choose to remain steadfast in like showing up every day And actually embracing the challenge rather than fearing it and I I love how there's so many positive reef frames that you've made from such a very difficult time in your life. Because I do believe that that's what's like perpelled you forward. And even mentioning how rejection doesn't scare you really at all. I mean, it's brilliant because we let fear paralyze us in life. We let the fear of being rejected stop us from showing up as ourselves or making certain choices. And so I think having that positive reframe is so important because it goes to show really how powerful our minds are and all the amazing things that can happen if you choose to think a different narrative. Instead of 30 more miles, it's one mile, 30 times. You can break things down into small actionable chunks. I mean, that kind of reminds me of I was on a rowing team in high school. And you know, we would have a 2K race and it was like the most, I mean, it was only 2000 meters, but it was really hard. And instead, we'd break it into four, 500 meter segments. And then it's like, okay, your last 500, it's not 500 meters. It's 20 powerful strokes times, I don't know, 10, right? So I think when you train your mind to break down bigger challenges into small, little goals, it's less scary and a bit more manageable. But I'd love to hear kind of your perspective too on this idea of hitting mile 40 in life. Not everyone's going to do an Iron Man, not everyone's going to run Married Bonds. We face just day-to-day challenges and in life and being in this world. So what is some advice you can share to folks who are not pushing themselves to that complete extreme, but are facing just day-to-day challenges? Like when they hit that mile 40, what's a strategy they can adopt to naturally, or more naturally lean into that reframe? I love that question because as you know, the name of my show is my 40 and obviously it came from that moment. When I started the show, I had this idea of the fact that, you know, the one thing that Unites the Sol is Humans is that we all have obstacles, right? Like regardless of where you come from, where your background is, where your socioeconomic status is, whatever it may be, we all have our obstacles and we all have our barriers. But the one thing that I ascertain from my own experience and from my lived journey is the fact that there's a formula behind all this. And if we come together and, you know, we employ the formula, we can overcome those obstacles. And the funny thing was after about episode 10 of the show, and I don't know if I mentioned this to you before, I was worried that, all right, like how many more mile 40 moments are there going to be, right? Like, you know, like I had a couple of really great stories come on. People tell us you're, you know, something of their most deepest vulnerability about overcoming things like drug addiction, serial sexual abuse, whatever it may be. And, you know, these things are serious. And I remember thinking to myself, well, how much more could there be? And it kind of similar to everything else, I just said, just stay consistent and continue bringing people on. And, you know, if it starts to sound redundant, it starts to sound redundant. And, you know, now the show is way past that level. And I've realized like every single person has a story. Every single person has a narrative. We do not know what people are walking around with. And, you know, what people are navigating on a day-to-day basis. The three values that I've learned that I, you know, drive home are the values that I lived. And those were around patience, perspective and purpose. And those were things that I experienced as a young child. And the way that I've experienced them was I was indirectly taught patience, you know, through the notion that I didn't get the result I wanted when I wanted them. And that goes through, you know, dealing with cancer treatment as a child to then wanting to make friends, to then wanting to become an athlete. I didn't get to my peak athleticism until I was in my mid 30s. And I didn't, you know, get my core group of friends until like I was a lot older than those kids. I definitely didn't get the health results I wanted when I wanted them. But the one thing that I realized was that if you're patient, things will come, but you need to embrace, you know, the idea of patience. Perspective was the notion that your dealt the hand that you've been dealt because you've been built to play it. Like I think that's, that's a really important mindset to embrace. Right? Because if you don't embrace that, then you're going to, you're going to open up more room to fail, essentially, right? Like I think there are two ways you could, it was back to the idea of reframing, right? You called out, if I thought I'd been able to reframe things and that's part of the reframing. It's around like, okay, like I put myself in this situation. So I'm going to figure out a way to navigate it. Like I wouldn't, wouldn't have done all this if I couldn't figure out a way to finish the job. So I encourage people when I talk to them, you know, to embrace that idea. Like things are tough, but again, going back to the mile 40 podcast, like everyone's walking around with something. So if that baseline, you understand that this is your, your hand, at least, you know, embrace a mindset that you were built to play it. Yeah. I mean, that gets you out of the victim mentality too. Like, you know, it's like these things have happened to me. These things are happening, but it's, it's going to show me that I'm built to, to deal with it into overpower. Exactly. Because like it all comes down to the controllables, right? Like, understand what's in your control and control. And what's not in your control, you know, make peace with it. You know, and understand that these are the factors that you need to work around. And that gives you more control once you let go, right? And then, you know, the last element was purpose. And purpose was the lesson that I learned through the literal mile 40 was around the idea that if you put yourself in difficult situations, you will uncover potential, right? And I know it, it's not everyone's going to sign up for an Iron Man. And that's okay, because it doesn't have to be an Iron Man. But it could be in another example for myself. Like, just start writing that book. What's the worst case scenario if you start writing? If anything, you're just going to uncover, you're going to uncover your true thoughts, right? You're going to uncover what your true messaging is. And, and you're going to learn things about yourself that you didn't know. I want to make sure like for the audience doing hard things doesn't have to be, doesn't have to be physical. It could be mental. It could be, it could be having that difficult conversation. Mm hmm. Yeah, it's a big one. It could be waiting out your future wife. Yeah. So like, but I'm right, maybe like it's just embracing that idea of hard things, strengthening you. And then they hold on you and they only each potential. Exactly. And all three of those ideas also like feed off of one another too. Like, you need to be patient to also trust that as well. And also patient with yourself to give yourself the space and the time to show yourself that you can overcome things. It's not going to happen overnight. But if you're persistent with with that belief, you know, over time, you will overcome the thing that's challenging to you. I think that's, you know, so important and really ties into the messaging of everyday endorphins as well, which is about focusing on the things in life that spark joy. So when you reflect on this concept of overcoming hardship in life, how has that informed the way that you think about happiness and how you define what it means to be happy in life? It's funny because I'm a dad of two young girls now. And that changes everything, right? Like being a parent changes everything. And the things that, you know, would have made me happy five, 10 years ago now, like, I don't even have time to think about. It's funny. Like I, I was very social like in my younger years. But now like, I'm an indoor cat. Now like, I don't want to go anywhere. Now I just want to be with the girls. Like I want to like hang out with them, play with them, joke around with them and be with them, you know, as much as possible. But I also genuinely care about the humans that they turn into, right? And, you know, I think about that all the time. I think about like, how do I model that behavior for them? And how do I set them up for success, you know, to be the type of individuals that they want to be, but, you know, that they're also meant to be, right? Like how can they make a positive impact not only on themselves, but those around them? And my happiness now is in kind of rooting out what that looks like, putting the pieces together on how to be a good parent. And being a good parent goes hand in hand with being a good husband. It goes hand in hand with being a good individual, right? And I think that a lot of my happiness now is rooted in figuring out what that looks like. And holding yourself to that standard of like, how can I be the person that I want my daughters to become? Like how can I be that role model and embody those qualities and those traits? Yeah. Like how can I show them what love really looks like, right? Like how can I treat their mother in a way that they, you know, then kind of want for themselves? And how can I treat the stranger on the street the certain way? Right? But at the same time, like how can I take care? How can I love myself in a way that's not pretentious, but that is okay for them to kind of understand like self love is important as well. So it isn't. interesting, if you ask me this question five years ago to give you a different answer, but you know, now a lot of my happiness is rooted in them and a lot of my happiness is rooted in figuring out how that works. I don't have all the answers and I, you know, I'm, I'm figuring it out daily. But it's a different kind of, it's a kind of, it's a different kind of rush in terms of like in orphans too. Like if you think about it, right? Like there are things that happen on a daily basis with children where you learn things about yourself you didn't know. And I think that's that's really cool. Yeah, totally. I mean, I am obviously not a parent, so I can't fully relate. But as, you know, more of the the child persona, when I reflect on my relationship with my parents, as you grow older, you start to realize how much your childhood shapes who you are and your family and how you're raised and who you're raised by. So I can kind of envision and imagine like the beauty that comes from being a parent and wanting to be the best version of yourself so that you can give, you know, your children that opportunity to step into that version of themselves too and to see that role modeled. I think it's so beautiful, this joy, you know, on the topic of happiness, the signature question that I ask every guest on the show is focused on not only how you define happiness, but really, you know, where you get joy from. So I'd love to hear from you. What brings you a bit of endorphins every day? Well, I mean, I'll double down on my children for sure as being the thing that, you know, is top of the list. However, when I think about what I've been building over the last couple of years, and when I think about the very core mission of the platform, and it was a mission that I wrote to myself when I wrote that first book was to help people channel the mindset to overcome obstacles, the personal, professional, or on the playing field. And one of the things that I've really appreciated about this mission in particular is the fact that I've learned so much from the people who have come across, you know, the platform, whether in the form of the podcast or whether in the form of coaching or whatever it may be in the sense that it's a very challenging world out there. Like we're all navigating different challenges, and we all have to your point. We all come from different places, and we've all been impacted in different ways, and we've been wired differently. But what I've come to really appreciate in terms of a driver of happiness is the fact that through vulnerability and through authenticity, we're starting to see the best in other people. And I think that's just so, so, so important. And I think that this platform has enabled me to get a more direct view of the walk that everybody is walking. And it's enabled me to, it's a really gain further perspective. And I think, you know, most people, you know, most people aren't having this. And I think you would agree, because you're kind of doing the same thing. It gives you so much perspective when you're having these conversations on a deep level, right? And selfishly, you take those lessons and then you bring them to your daily life. So I'm grateful for that. Yeah, that's beautiful. I mean, that is one of the best things about podcasting is the storytelling, the connection, and as the host, you're directly benefiting from and get to bring those lessons into your life, which is why, you know, you articulated it perfectly. It's also why I love to do what I'm doing. But I think that's so incredible. And, you know, I really admire the brand that you've built, the conversations you've been having on your show, being an author, also working a corporate job. You wear multiple hats, Visho, so truly, it was such a pleasure having you here on the show and getting to talk to you. Where can my listeners connect with you, find you, and also tune into your show as well? Absolutely. So the podcast is available on all major podcast platforms. My website, www.pishoytadros.com. That's where you can purchase the books. You've purchased them there. I will sign them. You could also buy them off Amazon. And then on socials, you could find me on Instagram, LinkedIn, those are the two that I use most at Pishoy Tadros. So keep an eye out. Amazing. Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure having you on the podcast. Thank you, Stella. Thanks for listening to this episode of Everyday and Dorfens. If you liked what you heard, make sure to follow along, stay plugged into the community. You can do that through a variety of ways. Follow the podcast on Spotify, Apple, or ever-used stream your shows, stay connected on Instagram at Everyday and Dorfens. Find us on TikTok and subscribe to my substack, which is also Everyday and Dorfens. But on the substack, I get to explore some of my own personal musings on what it means to lead a joyful and happy and fulfilling life. Reminder to keep spreading in Dorfens and focus on the things in life that bring you join until next time.