When Jenny tells Forest Gump to run, well, that’s what he does.But he didn’t just run.He became an All-American kick returner for Bear Bryant’s University of Alabama football team. Later in this 1994 film, Forest runs across the country at least 4 times, inspiring a following that runs with him over the course of over 3 years, 2 months, 14 days, and 16 hours.But despite his love of running, even Forest got burnt out.
Doing the same thing for years can wear on a person.Conor Pendergrast started running years ago.But his diversification into becoming a triathlete gave him new insights into the importance of diversification, community, gamification, and more.He joins the show to explore lessons that apply to athletics as well as work.
We discuss:
- The importance of community
- A key component to achieving goals
- The critical nature of recovery
- The advantages and limits of gamification
- The role of culture in success
Connect with Conor on LinkedIn
Music courtesy of Big Red Horse
Transcript
Rob Dwyer (00:02.104)
Conor Pendergrast, you are Next in Queue. How are you, my friend?
Conor Pendergrast (00:06.774)
I'm doing extremely well, thanks for all the help, are you doing?
Rob Dwyer (00:10.066)
I am fantastic, as people may have gathered from your fantastic accent. You're joining me from across the ocean. Introduce yourself to the audience who may or may not be familiar with you, and tell us a little bit about Conor and what you do.
Conor Pendergrast (00:32.726)
would be very happy to do that Rob. Hello audience member. I'm in your ears. My name is Conor Pendergrast. I am coming to you live from Birmingham in the United Kingdom, not from Birmingham in Alabama. And I live here with my wife and our two kids. We have precisely zero pets, which I'm very pleased about at the moment. yeah, I currently run a small coaching and consultancy for customer support, surprisingly.
You'll find that well, I say customer support, but what I really mean is like anything customer related. You'll find that a customer customer success dot CX Previously, I worked at a company called Expensify I was on the senior leadership side of customer support there as well for close to a decade and then before that started a company also worked for my parents' company for a while and just a mishmash of different things a lot of them technology related and mostly framed around
helping customers to do more with software is the major thing there.
Rob Dwyer (01:35.192)
There's a lot going on there, so we need to talk about Birmingham. No one calls it Birmingham here in the States. So if it's in Alabama, it's Birmingham. Like it's a ham. Yeah, you gotta get that Birmingham. That's how that's what we do in America. We take everyone else's names and words and then we spin our own pronunciation on them. That's this classic classic American.
Conor Pendergrast (01:44.138)
What do you call it? Yeah. Birmingham. Okay.
Conor Pendergrast (01:59.158)
Mm-hmm.
Rob Dwyer (02:05.759)
Conor Pendergrast (02:05.826)
Well, it's just reinterpreting ideas in a fresh new way. Let's put the spin on it. Here we tend to say Brom instead of Birmingham because Birmingham is just a very long name.
Rob Dwyer (02:10.57)
I love it.
Rob Dwyer (02:18.058)
Yeah, sure, sure. I want to talk about the pet situation. Exactly zero pets. Is this a new development or is this a long standing number?
Conor Pendergrast (02:26.23)
Hahaha
Conor Pendergrast (02:31.358)
It's not, it's not really a long standing number. we did, my wife and I did have a cat before we had kids and, and that was absolutely fine. But now I, I look at anyone with any sort of animals and with children and I just have no idea how they can handle it. I mean, I, like, there's a lot about having kids, but it's just reframed how I, how I see other people handling the world. And I'm very impressed by, but the pets in particular, like, I, cause maybe it's just cause I, I have this
perspective on it that I realized that they're sort of like toddlers but they never grow up. Especially, you know, if you get like my brother has a rescue greyhound because he's a wonderful, handsome, hipster man and he of course has a rescue greyhound and she's just like, she's not gonna...
be independent, you know, at least with my four and a half year old, he's talking today about moving out and his frame around that is when he's 10 years old, but that's fine. But let's say, let's say, let's say he's, he's delayed a little bit on that by like, say three years and he wants to move out and he's 13 years old. In nine years, that's, that's one of your things. In nine years, a dog's still gonna, still gonna be living with you and, and, and chewing everything. So I think that's, that's my frame of, although,
Rob Dwyer (03:38.232)
Go for it.
Conor Pendergrast (03:56.258)
have a sneaking suspicion that at some point I'll get overruled by the entire rest of my family who seem a lot more keen on having pets. But that's all right. That's all right. It'll just give me another reason to get out of the house every morning.
Rob Dwyer (04:10.968)
I'm gonna, as someone who is older, has grown children and has gone through that whole pet thing, I'm gonna give you some insight, Conor, into what your future looks like. First of all, you will end up with pets, whether you like it or not, and you'll just have to deal with it. Probably more than you want. That will likely happen. The second thing is,
Conor Pendergrast (04:14.55)
Mm.
Conor Pendergrast (04:20.962)
Okay.
Conor Pendergrast (04:26.944)
Okay, yeah, thank you.
Rob Dwyer (04:37.368)
When your child moves out, your child doesn't ever really move out. It's always kind of a temporary thing. They'll come back every now and then and it's like they haven't moved out. So I just want, I want to prepare you that certainly, I think we're both on board, your youngin is not moving out at 13. That's not happening.
Conor Pendergrast (04:43.251)
Yes. Yeah.
Conor Pendergrast (05:02.21)
Great, cool. Yeah.
Rob Dwyer (05:04.248)
But even at 17, 18, whatever age that is, when they move out, it's not over. So just be ready for that.
Conor Pendergrast (05:14.568)
Yeah, so I'm 38 now and it's only about maybe in the last year and a half where I feel like even when I go to my mom's place, I'm actually an adult in that situation now and like I'm actually taking responsibility for things. like, it's, I don't know, it's their house. You just don't want to turn on their toes or something. I don't know.
Rob Dwyer (05:29.74)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rob Dwyer (05:37.708)
Yeah, I think that is when it when it changes when you're bringing the grandchildren over now all of a sudden you're not the child anymore.
Conor Pendergrast (05:45.314)
Absolutely. Now I'm like, need to know when I know I'm just going to tell you when I'm making the meals because because we have a timetable and I get hungry and also the children do but I get hungry.
Rob Dwyer (05:55.522)
Right.
Right, right. Today we are not here to talk about children or pets. But we are. It does tie into why you get hungry. We're going to take a little bit of a different spin and talk about goals. And peer support and the value of being a generalist, but we're going to.
Conor Pendergrast (06:08.524)
but it does tie into why I get hungry.
Rob Dwyer (06:27.832)
come at all of this through a very different lens. So you have a particular hobby that I learned about the first time that we had a chance to chat. I am both somewhat envious and also I feel like it's too late for me and I have flat feet. So I would like you to tell us about this hobby and just give us a little bit of the backstory and then we'll dive into some.
salient points.
Conor Pendergrast (07:00.806)
I would be happy to. Well as I've already told you my age, so I'm 38 and that puts me in the nice middle-aged camp and as a middle-aged white man people would probably guess that I do triathlon because yes I do triathlon and yeah so I think that that's evolved you know my athletic journey as I would call it started a long time ago started poorly than it
Then it got slightly better and then slightly better. And eventually we get to the place where I am now, where I'm actually like a consistent, I would actually call myself an athlete now and a multi-sport athlete in that I do swimming, biking and running in all those various permutations and thoroughly enjoy it. do, there are some parallels definitely with customer support and with career growth. And I'm hoping to talk through the various stages that I've gone through.
in my multi-sport and my athletic journey and see how we can apply that to people's careers and people's work as well.
Rob Dwyer (08:01.186)
Yeah.
Rob Dwyer (08:07.448)
For all of my audience members who are not terribly familiar with triathlon, you've already established the sports that go into it, but walk us through the length of each of those within a triathlon. We're not talking about just hopping in a pool, swimming a lap, then taking a bike around the block, and then running across the street. There's a little bit more to
Conor Pendergrast (08:13.012)
I said a word and I didn't define it.
Conor Pendergrast (08:28.044)
Mmm.
Conor Pendergrast (08:38.4)
can be. You know, I'm, I think I'm pretty open about what a triathlon is. So you can, you can go for the very long, let's talk about the very long in a minute, but you can also have the like relatively short races. So where you have a triathlon that lasts even as little as let's say 20 or 30 minutes, that's, can still be a triathlon. The shortest version that you'd hear of in a triathlon is called a super sprint, which is, it gives you an idea. You know, they, go pretty fast.
And typically that would be 200, is it 200 meters? Let me think. Usually 200 or 250 meters swim. So in a 50 meter pool, that would be four to five, four to five lengths of the pool. But most triathlons would be open water, which is I think where a lot of the scary part comes into triathlons is open water swimming. And then you do a 10 kilometer bike and then you do a two and a half kilometer run. But you could also range up to
what's called the Ironman distance, which is let's just say considerably longer than that. So that's, my God, that's, my God, I'm trying to work out whether I say it in kilometers or miles. So let's say it's a 3.8 kilometer swim, 180 kilometer bike, and then a full marathon. So that's the 42.2 kilometer.
Rob Dwyer (09:53.451)
Either.
Conor Pendergrast (10:03.246)
run at the end. That's called an Ironman, it's an iron distance or the full distance and I haven't gone quite that far, I've done half of that and it took me an extremely long time but I did do it in a very beautiful place in New Zealand called Wanaka and at Challenge Wanaka which it was extremely difficult, it almost put me off triathlon entirely but I think I kind of jumped into too difficult a race. Now having said that, that is not all that people will do so people will do
longer versions of that. We all go into the distances because they're kind of more complicated and they'll typically get stretched across two days for example but you can do like a longer distance race triathlon that would include a double marathon in it but if you've never done a triathlon before I'd encourage you to start with something simple like a sprint distance triathlon or even if you've never done any sort of multi-sport you could do a duathlon which is a run-bike run
I did one of those this past weekend. I actually did two of those, two races in one day on the weekend. they're also really good fun there. So you run and then you cycle and then you run again. And again, whole range of distances. And I think that's one of the things that makes it sound strange, can make triathlon really accessible is that yes, you can do it for those.
Rob Dwyer (11:08.966)
Achiever. Got it.
Conor Pendergrast (11:28.098)
big huge monumental distances that will take you 14, 15, 16 hours or you can do something that will take you 45 minutes of movement.
Rob Dwyer (11:39.96)
I'm gonna tell you the closest I've gotten to an Iron Man is when I was a kid. Timex, I believe, made a watch called the Iron Man and I had one. It was like all the rage at the time. It was a digital watch and it had like all the timers on it, know, rugged. That's as close as I've gotten. So let's talk a little bit about the importance of realistic goals.
Conor Pendergrast (11:51.426)
Mm.
Conor Pendergrast (12:09.206)
Hmm, let's go back to...
Rob Dwyer (12:09.472)
And I want you to walk us through kind of when you first got it, because it was running that was. Like the first part, right?
Conor Pendergrast (12:16.866)
Running was my first start, yeah. Running was my starting point. So let's skip back 20 or so years to when Conor was in his late teens. I think I was just out of what we called, so I was living in Ireland at the time in Dublin, and I was just out of secondary school and just before I was going to university. And a friend of mine and I decided to...
Build up to a marathon with a series of races and we started with five mile race then ten mile race and then we're gonna do a half marathon and then a marathon So lovely plan great idea Well, lovely goal maybe The I think the challenge became that he my friend had a consistent training plan and also sort of stuck to that and I I really did not so I I had Let's just say like the closest I had to
to any kind of equipment. this is one of the nice things about running as well. You don't actually need that much. So my training plan was most of the days was just like, I lived on a square. And so I would run laps of the square and count the number of laps I did and look at the time when I left the house and look at the time when I got back into the house and then just like roughly work out what I did. had no obvious, there was no GPS watches. There was no smartphones. This is in the early noughties.
I didn't even have a watch that I was wearing when I was going running. That was extremely basic and all of my training was built around the very inconsistent versions, excuse me, of that. And so I got through the five mile race. That was okay. Five miles, if you're in the metric system is about eight kilometers. So that's, can kind of stumble through that. You know, do it. If you, if you have very inconsistent, terrible training, you can get through a five mile race. It will be a little bit on the slow side.
When it came to the 10 mile race, I remember moments of the 10 mile race being like, my God, don't, when is this going to end? I'm not enjoying this at all. And that was the point where I, where I dropped out of it. And I had like, so I think the thing to take away from this is I had these sort of progressive goals, right? Five mile, 10 mile, half marathon, marathon, just seems so logical. And it wasn't like do them week by week.
Rob Dwyer (14:34.776)
Makes sense.
Conor Pendergrast (14:38.432)
You know, this was over the course of a year we planned this out, but I actually, I didn't have anything to help me build towards those. didn't, I didn't actually have a plan at all for how I would change my training or build it up or drop it down or make it easier or make it, make it slower, make it faster or anything like that. And I don't think you need necessarily need a like super detailed plan. That's probably going to hinder you in a lot of ways, just.
just maybe the next two or three steps. So you know that you have these milestones that you want to achieve. Just like, what's the next step to get to the next milestone? What's the two next steps after that? And just having a little bit of a progressive plan, I think would have really helped me at that point.
Rob Dwyer (15:29.494)
Yeah, absolutely. And there's a big difference between running, say, a five mile race and running a full marathon. And it's not just about the distance, right? Tell me about how you run differently between those two types of races, because they're not run the same.
Conor Pendergrast (15:38.199)
Mm-hmm.
Conor Pendergrast (15:51.175)
No, not at all. actually did my first marathon this year. So about six months ago, for the first time, 20 years later, I did my first marathon. I have done lots of marathons in between. I got there. I have done lots of half marathons in between. it is very different. A lot of actually what you need to change is not necessarily just the running. It's the...
Rob Dwyer (16:03.913)
You got there.
Conor Pendergrast (16:17.696)
It's the fueling side of it. So I mentioned earlier, I'm always hungry. I have to have my meal times. I'm not always, always hungry, but I like to know that I'm going to have snacks and meals. Snacks, learned from my kids. Kids are, kid genius. Snacks are the best thing in the world. but it's also the recovery side of it and making sure that you're getting that rest time and getting that downtime and that you have a training for me. Now it's a training plan where you have those build weeks and then you have the recovery weeks and build weeks and recovery weeks. And you're not like,
constantly at 98%, you are having those weeks where you dip down. And I actually do think that's the same as work as well. Like you can't have every single week be these like massive build weeks where you're smashing yourself at work. You have to have your recovery weeks and it's healthy and necessary to have those recovery weeks and a responsibility to have those recovery weeks to prevent in an exercise capacity and athletic capacity to prevent injury.
and also to prevent burnout, but also just in a work capacity, just because you have to have life. Well, people ought to have lives, I will say.
Rob Dwyer (17:25.186)
Yeah, yeah. One of the things that strikes me as you're talking about this, in the, whether it's the support world or the contact center world, workforce management, some of the metrics that they hold dear are things like utilization and occupancy, which are measures of how much
productive work is being done in during paid time. Let's just call it that. And there is a real danger of pushing those numbers too high and causing really burnout for the agents that are handling that because to your point, they're not getting that time to recover. That time to recover doesn't have to be a week.
per se, can't certainly if you're running a marathon, right? That's a big deal. But when you're handling customer interactions, you're going to need some time to recover from that. And you can't be back to back to back to back all day long every single day. Otherwise, yeah, you're going to go, I give up. need to do something else. And
That certainly happens with people who are training for triathlon or just running in general or whatever sport. Like if you go too hard, too fast, you'll get frustrated and you'll just say, I'm done because it's not realistic. You don't have a good plan and you're not building up to the kind of endurance that you need to be able to do something like that.
Conor Pendergrast (19:14.068)
Exactly, Yeah, it's exactly like that. those recovery weeks gives you also that extra flexibility. when, you know, let's say there's a little bit of a week where you do want to push a little bit more, you can push a little bit more. Similarly, in a work sense, if you have a sudden product issue and you suddenly need to put more time and more energy in, you have that because you are taking regular breaks and you are scheduling in.
out of office time, all of those sort of things that help to replenish your cup a little bit more.
Rob Dwyer (19:48.182)
Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about peer support, which I think is very relevant to both of these worlds. Tell me about the difference of practicing or running, whether it's, I think, typically running and biking, but maybe swimming too, you tell me. What is the difference between doing that alone?
Conor Pendergrast (20:00.758)
Yeah
Rob Dwyer (20:17.228)
and doing that with a bunch of other people.
Conor Pendergrast (20:20.842)
Yeah, I don't think it even needs to be in person with other people, but it can be. I have experience of both, of being part of a community where you just know that other people are doing the same sort of workouts that you are doing. Being part of a community where you know people have the same values or have the same interests as you. And being part of a community where you're literally doing at the same time, you're doing the same workouts. So if we think...
So that was 20 years ago we're talking about with the very failed marathon build. 10 years ago then, my wife and I found an app called Zombies Run. I don't know if you know this one. It's basically like gamifying running. you run and you're told a story. It's a really great product. And you're told a story while you're running and you're given different scenarios. like, you also are chased by zombies occasionally. And so...
Rob Dwyer (21:16.952)
Ha ha ha ha ha
Conor Pendergrast (21:18.458)
And then of course there's a role-playing game, yeah, like a base-building element to it, so you pick up items along the way and then you can build a bigger base over time, so there's a lot of fun to it. Actually, just to go back to the zombies part, during the zombies part you have to speed up, and so I remember playing that on Halloween evening one day when I'd gone for a late run and I was like genuinely scared.
because it's dark and it's, I know in the park and there's no one around. And so that worked well. And so my wife and I were doing it. We were both sort of enjoying the story and both listening to the story. And it motivated us a little bit, but it was still not, like it was still not quite there. Cause like, I think that's the thing is like the gimmick of gamification wasn't enough of a hook for us to get us consistently doing it every time. So you did have that game and it was fun.
Rob Dwyer (22:10.476)
Mmm.
Conor Pendergrast (22:17.356)
But it was like, didn't, it wasn't enough for me. It wasn't enough to get me consistently doing it. So that was, say 10 years ago. Where community really came into it for me was around six years ago when I came to Birmingham, to Birmingham, not Birmingham. And so when we moved here, we were moving for my wife so that she could study a PhD here. So she was getting this naturally inbuilt community through.
university that she was joining, but I was moving up to city that we'd never lived in and had visited twice. And so I was suddenly like, I need to have friends. I want to have friends. by around the same time, I also was changing and becoming, I was searching for being vegetarian to vegan. And we went to this vegan fair and I saw that there was actually a vegan runners club. It's a sort of a UK club. And it's actually one of the biggest in the UK now in terms of
Parkrun, is this great weekly 5K running event. And so I joined them and suddenly I had this like this really simple group to join both from a social perspective, but also from a trainings perspective. And what we would do is we would go to Parkrun, which is as I say, free weekly timed running events every, every Saturday.
And they're all around the UK, they're all around the world now as well. Actually, there's thousands and thousands of these events. And so we have one very close to our house here, but there's also loads of them around our city. And so we would, every Saturday morning, my friends and I, we would go to a different one or we'd go to a consistent one, but I'd see them every week. And so I would show up and run with them. And then we'd do speed work sessions, which is, as the name suggests, a little bit of faster running. So we'd sometimes do those on a Thursday evening.
And so we'd go to a track or we'd just go off and meet in a park and do those. And so then as a result of that, I was like, the vegan runners, like our Birmingham vegan runners, they were, they were there for me. They were talking to me. They were engaging me a little bit more. And it was both encouragement, but also accountability that I knew that there were these other people who were also getting out and about. And sometimes, like I said, if we were doing the same sessions, sometimes we were doing different sessions, different workouts.
Rob Dwyer (24:31.137)
Hmm.
Conor Pendergrast (24:40.78)
But all the time I knew that I'd see them on Saturday and then I'd be able to talk about them. Talk about how the week had gone and brag about the workouts that I'd done and that kind of thing. And yeah, that community was really where this started to become an actual habit. Like that's the sort of, I wouldn't have called myself quite an athlete at that point, but that was like just about where I started to identify as an athlete and started doing more consistent.
Rob Dwyer (24:59.756)
Hmm
Conor Pendergrast (25:10.696)
running events through parkrun but also races on top of that so I was doing I think that was when I first I did my first 10 kilometer race maybe two of them I think and then I booked in for a half marathon as well and I did the half marathon unfortunately the half marathon they ended up closing off part of the course and shortening it because they got like spooked by a by a broken down van somewhere so they they turned it into I think it was a I think it was 11
Rob Dwyer (25:35.852)
Ha
Conor Pendergrast (25:39.906)
11 miles instead of 13 miles, which is really disappointing, but it's fine, you know? I still got through it and it was still very hard. So yeah, and all of that. But I remember on that run seeing supporters from our running club and like my friends there and they were all cheering us on and handing us little vegan sweets to keep us going. So that was fun. I also saw my very heavily pregnant wife and took her. Yeah, she was, she was really sick.
Rob Dwyer (25:47.274)
Mm-hmm.
Conor Pendergrast (26:09.186)
because this is the first pregnancy she was very sick and she'd walked all the way down to see me, which was very good of her and then walked all the way home as well via a supermarket to pick up some chocolate for us to have later in the day when I got home. yeah, that was the community aspect and it was that like just that camaraderie and having people around me was what really started. That was the beginning for me in my head of like, okay, I can do this.
frequently and I can do this consistently and and yeah why would I not it's fun I get to spend time with my friends I get to talk to them about it.
Rob Dwyer (26:45.366)
Yeah, there are so many things to unpack there. I think sometimes we forget about the value of having people around us that are going through the same challenges on a daily basis and not necessarily, they aren't necessarily gonna coach us through them, but just that togetherness of knowing we're all
facing the same challenges allows you to move forward in a way that you don't feel alone in what you're doing. And it's just easier to do all kinds of things when you don't feel alone. And there can be some motivation, I imagine, right? If someone's pace is just a little bit more than yours, maybe you pick it up a little bit and fight through that a little bit more.
Conor Pendergrast (27:34.177)
Yes.
Conor Pendergrast (27:40.46)
Yeah, absolutely, Dave.
Rob Dwyer (27:44.376)
Dave is the one Dave is the one that you had to keep pace with. You mentioned something specifically about the gamification piece that I want to come back to. First of all. It's good to know that you're prepping for the zombie apocalypse and. And that seems like a yeah, it seems like a great app for everyone to download and.
Conor Pendergrast (27:46.54)
You're watching Dave.
Conor Pendergrast (28:01.378)
Sure.
Conor Pendergrast (28:06.528)
Of course, of course, we take it very seriously in our household.
Rob Dwyer (28:14.914)
Just be ready, right? They're coming to eat our brains. But the gamification piece, when I think about how gaming has evolved.
Conor Pendergrast (28:16.576)
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Rob Dwyer (28:27.96)
Today, some of the most successful games also rely on that community aspect. It's not just the personal achievement piece that I remember growing up when I had my Nintendo and then Super Nintendo and then Nintendo 64 and on and on, right? Today, these massive online games where you come together
as a community are the games that people spend most of their time with. And so you get, yes, you get the badges or you get the items and you get the achievements that come with that, but it's the community that keeps people coming back, isn't it?
Conor Pendergrast (29:18.198)
Yes, yeah, it really is. I similarly was a gamer before MMO, before Massively Multiplayer Online. Games really took off and there were a couple that I got into, but this is like old Counter-Strike, you know, like the really old Counter-Strike. And I was definitely playing on dial-up and like...
dial up, audience member, is where your computer screamed down the phone line in order to try and be heard by a server that's thousands of miles away and it was just as slow as it sounds. But yeah, the community around video games now is just incredible. it obviously has some downsides to it and it obviously has some toxic elements to it, but I think
Rob Dwyer (29:45.08)
Mmm.
Conor Pendergrast (30:11.542)
you're going to find elements of that in lot of communities and you're going to have to handle that. It's the same in workspaces, you you're going to have that sort of toxic nature in workspaces sometimes as well and managing that conflict is a necessary part of life and as a necessary part of growth as well.
Rob Dwyer (30:17.698)
Yeah.
Rob Dwyer (30:30.296)
There was another thing that you mentioned that I want to dig into.
And that is being cheered on before you've completed the race. Can you talk about how that appreciation mid-race keeps you going?
Conor Pendergrast (30:43.598)
Yeah. Ha!
Conor Pendergrast (30:53.11)
Yeah, I think I've always been someone who was, I have always used that within races. Actually not always, maybe not. Like think it was probably around the same time that I started to realize that I could engage with all the people around me. Especially, yeah, especially if the course is set up so that you're seeing the same people over and over again.
two or three times in a race, then it really helps. But it is an interesting thing because you're right, most of the cheering during an athletic event, let's say a triathlon, a duathlon, a running race, most of that is happening before anyone has finished the race. And I'm seeing the people who are most important to me, most of the time that's like during the run and I'm nowhere near the end, you know, I still had miles to go.
I was probably only about halfway there when I saw my vegan runners friends. I was certainly still another two or three miles away when I saw my wife. but it's still, and I think this about any athletic, athletic event and anyone who's doing them. It's like getting out there and starting it is half the battle at least. Like to get yourself to the start line of any of these things is half the battle. A lot of people will not finish them.
a variety of reasons and that's fine. You've got to at least try. have yet, touch word, have yet to not finish a race but there have been times where I've felt like I probably shouldn't. Those are mostly the longer ones and yeah it's the people that cheering on that really helps me get through it. Often I can gauge how hard I'm
going and like whether I'm going at the right kind of effort depending on what what I need to do based on how I'm reacting to the photographers on the course. like a lot of the time let's say it's like a three-lap course the first time I see the photographer I'm like big smiles yeah thumbs up things are great the second time is like things are good the third time I'm like let's just get through this.
Rob Dwyer (32:52.881)
hahahaha
Rob Dwyer (33:11.032)
forcing that smile, forcing it.
Conor Pendergrast (33:12.53)
Or like I don't even see yeah, or I don't even see the photographer and you can really see the difference between those three And if I'm like still able to like really get myself excited for the photographer on the third of those three laps Then I think to myself like I'm probably not taking this I'm probably not like pushing myself too hard Not pushing myself hard enough depending on why why I'm there But but yeah, like just engaging with the crowd is really I find it really helpful
And I'll also, like if they're a little bit quiet, when you get to like, you know, let's say you're about to turn around a cone and come back to where you came from, and there's a cluster of people there, and there's no one really cheering, then I'll be like, woo, come on, everybody, come and cheer along. And I find that that really helps me keep going, even if I'm feeling terrible during a race. I feel like just talking to other people and using a little bit of humor there, where they're...
Rob Dwyer (33:53.986)
Hahaha
Conor Pendergrast (34:09.238)
Like I think it's the irony of like, the athlete who's going through this experience and who's like having a very voluntarily tough time is the one who's able to engage in it and get excited. And like, we're just sort of standing here looking dour faced. And then they're like, okay, yeah, fine. We'll clap.
Rob Dwyer (34:29.144)
honor. mean, it totally makes me want to say number one, during our workday, and it doesn't even have to be just frontline support agents. Sometimes it's okay to celebrate yourself, to brag a little bit, to get people to cheer for you if you don't have that environment already built. But I do think what you're speaking to
when we talk about work is especially for the work that can be a little bit monotonous. And if you are in customer support, whether that's phone or chat or tickets or emails or whatever, however that is, maybe you're in retail and you're behind a counter all day, all of that can be monotonous from time to time. Having an environment
culture where we celebrate and cheer on our people throughout the course of the day can go way farther than we think it can because just having someone to perk you up and make you smile and say, you're doing a good job, right? Keep going. Can make a world of difference even if we don't realize it.
Conor Pendergrast (35:53.546)
Mm-hmm. Yes, yes, I entirely agree. Like, I think it's really important to have that camaraderie and that fun at work, even when you're going through that slog and that grind. Yeah, absolutely. The other thing, I would say the other thing that can really help, you mentioned generalism at the top of the episode. I think that can really help as well.
By generalism, what I mean is you have complimentary skill sets and complimentary areas of focus. And so I've mostly been talking about like the history of running that I've had. It was after that half marathon that I was just talking about where I saw my friends. I think my right knee was pretty sore sometimes in the training leading up to that. And after that, I thought to myself, okay, I need to actually like...
do something else as well as running. And basically I looked around and I was like, wow, these triathletes are pretty fit. They're, you know, they're some good looking, excuse me, some good looking people. So I thought to myself, well, I can't really swim, but I know I can run and I can cycle. I know I can cycle. So why be mediocre at like one sport when I can be mediocre at three?
Conor Pendergrast (37:18.57)
And so then, yeah, and as a way of providing myself with a variety in terms of that training stimulus, I started doing triathlon. And unfortunately, timing of it was, well, let me just say the race that the half marathon I did was in September or October 2019. And then I booked some races for the middle of 2020. And then for some mysterious reason, they didn't happen and other things happened instead.
Rob Dwyer (37:46.028)
Mmm.
Conor Pendergrast (37:47.646)
So, but they got delayed, it's fine, got them done eventually. But yeah, it was really fun. That was actually one of the really nice things about switching to triathlon was suddenly, instead of just running, and that was the only thing that I could do. And also that was like, you do have to have a bit of recovery time between runs sometimes, especially as a newer runner.
Rob Dwyer (38:10.859)
Mm-hmm.
Conor Pendergrast (38:14.932)
I was able to do swimming, cycling and running. And so I dove into swimming, haha, and I went and got swimming lessons. Sorry. Okay, sorry.
Rob Dwyer (38:26.452)
Wah wah.
You leave the bad jokes to me, Conor. This is my show. You're supposed to let me do all the punny stuff.
Conor Pendergrast (38:38.526)
Okay, no more puns.
Rob Dwyer (38:42.562)
Okay, all the puns you want.
Conor Pendergrast (38:42.572)
So as a way of getting into swimming, I went and I signed up for some swimming lessons, which I think goes to a community aspect of it as well, where there were a couple of us in the pool and we were all like, it was segmented into the slightly better swimmers and the slightly newer swimmers. And so I managed to somehow sneak myself into the slightly better swimmers, but it was a pretty low bar for me.
I could just about, this is at the point where I could just about make it from one side of the pool to the other side of the pool of like a 25 meter pool. but yeah, thankfully got lessons, got a lot better and then just practiced and having those, again, having that sort of generalist aspects and having those complimentary skill sets. And if you're tired of one thing, well, good news tomorrow, you're to be doing something else.
And then of course you obviously have to do strength work on top of it. So really you're doing four sports. So you get to do that such variety and you can do more of it, you can do less of it. I think that has really helped and has probably been one of the things that's kept me pretty engaged in it for the last, let's say about four or five years at this point. I, yeah, I think it's really fun.
And from a work perspective as well, like that's what I always enjoyed. Thinking back to my time, actually every job that I've had at this point in the last 20, maybe let's say 19 years, 18 years, every job has been like, there's not one facet to this job. I'm not doing one thing. I'm doing a whole set of things. Some of them are totally unrelated, but most of them are pretty, pretty, have pretty big overlap. And I think it can be a really helpful way of.
learning more ironically about each individual aspect, like you learn some stuff on one through one team or through one set of tasks that you can then apply to a different one. You learn through interacting with one customer set things that you can apply to another customer set. But it also helps to stave off burnout as well because you can go to extremes, but you can...
Conor Pendergrast (41:00.65)
you can have that sort of variety of work that makes keeps things interesting and keeps things engaging.
Rob Dwyer (41:08.096)
Absolutely. know when people talk to me about or ask me what's a typical day like in my world, I'm like, hmm, we're going to have to talk about which day. And even then it can be all over the place because I have a lot of variety in my day, depending on the day. And that does keep me interested and engaged in my day. And I think back to roles that I've had.
Conor Pendergrast (41:16.598)
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Question.
Rob Dwyer (41:37.954)
that didn't have that same variety and that was fine early on, but it begins to wear when you don't have that variety. I think we, not enough organizations are intentional about creating an environment where we can have that variety, even if it's not a constant shifting.
but just every now and then let's inject something, have you do something a little bit different. First of all, that little bit different, that doing something that's uncomfortable is how we grow, right? It's how we develop new muscles, new skills, whatever the case may be. I have to imagine that today, having incorporated biking and swimming,
into your routine plus the strength training. That if you look back to when you were at your best shape when you were only running, I imagine you're in way better general shape today than you ever were when you were, you know, really running hard.
Conor Pendergrast (42:43.586)
Yeah.
Conor Pendergrast (42:53.59)
Yes, yes, without a doubt. Yeah, and I get injured less frequently as well. mean, especially since I've added the strength aspect into it and like consistently added the strength aspect into it. Because I think it can be very difficult to do that. Maybe the parallel to, I don't know what the parallel to that would be for work. Maybe that's the like, eat your greens kind of, but I don't wanna, I know I should do, but I don't wanna. Maybe that's like,
Rob Dwyer (43:17.356)
Ha ha ha ha.
Conor Pendergrast (43:23.388)
learning outside of work tracks or taking the time to improve processes or something like that. Stuff that you should do but you just... No one ever really wants to do it. But yeah, I certainly am definitely in better shape now and more resilient to the point where I can just do... I was thinking back over the... In the last two or so, maybe two and a half years, I've done quite a...
few different events. Like I've done, I made a list for myself just to see what it would be. I've done a swim race, a hundred kilometer bike race, an aqua bike, which is a swim bike race, triathlon, which was that half Ironman distance fun that almost put me off triathlons, four duathlons, four duathlons, including one where I represented New Zealand at the age group world championships in Ibiza.
which surprised me, and another one on Saturday where I came second and got my first ever podium. And I've also done a marathon and another 10 kilometer race. I know, I know. But I will reiterate, I'm a pretty mediocre athlete. I will know. You're correct there. I am.
Rob Dwyer (44:30.914)
Hold on.
Rob Dwyer (44:34.37)
Hold on, Conor. We need to back up. Conor, you are not from New Zealand. Correct me if I'm wrong. Tell me, let's talk about this. How did this happen?
Conor Pendergrast (44:46.806)
My mom, one of my moms is a New Zealand citizen and so I received New Zealand citizenship through her. One of the other things that I've done in the last couple of years is lived in New Zealand for a year and a half accidentally. And so while I was there, I took advantage of being there, did a race there and then managed to qualify to represent New Zealand at the age group world, the multi-sport age group world championships in sprint duathlon in Ibiza.
And that was about a year and a half ago. So it was in 2023 and it was amazing fun. Like again, just talk about support. You have other other team New Zealand athletes out on the course and you have them on the sidelines and everything like that. And you have a bunch of people who are very amused about why they came to Ibiza to go partying hard. And there's a bunch of people getting up at five o'clock in the morning, not going to sleep at five o'clock in the morning. What is wrong with these people? It was, yeah, that was amazing.
Rob Dwyer (45:41.336)
Honorary Kiwi, Conor Pendergrast.
Conor Pendergrast (45:44.534)
Yeah, I like to say I'm half Kiwi, half English, half Irish.
Rob Dwyer (45:49.322)
I think that's a good combo. And you're a fit kiwi, for sure.
Conor Pendergrast (45:56.126)
Mm. Yep. Yeah.
Rob Dwyer (45:58.614)
I wonder, just expanding on this diversification of things that you are doing, is it easier for you to pick up other things because you are now more of this generally athletic person as opposed to the runner Conor.
who was really good at running or mediocre as you say, but your mediocre is relative, right? It was probably pretty good. Has that prepared you or do you find it easier to do other things that require some athleticism but not the same athleticism that you're focused on?
Conor Pendergrast (46:23.97)
You
Conor Pendergrast (46:27.478)
Yup, that's so mediocre.
Conor Pendergrast (46:47.872)
I'd expect as much. think I would, I haven't really tested that much outside of like outside of swimming, biking or running or some combination of those. but like, for example, there's a, there's a race in New Zealand that involves kayaking and then cycling and then running. that, seems like a lot of fun. And I'm at the point where like, okay, well, I could probably, I could probably with a couple of months training.
the kayaking side of it. I could probably do that one. I think it would be amazing. But I'm also over the other side of the world now. I'm on the wrong side of the world for that. And just in case anyone's not familiar with the geography of where Birmingham is, we're in the West Midlands, which is in England, and we are extremely far from the sea. And even getting to like a lake that you can paddle in is, it's a 45 minute drive.
Rob Dwyer (47:20.562)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Conor Pendergrast (47:44.738)
which not a huge amount, but it is if you want to do it every single week. well not exactly. By comparison with New Zealand, I lived on an island in New Zealand. The water was usually, you could see it wherever you were.
Rob Dwyer (47:48.108)
Yeah. Yeah, understood.
Rob Dwyer (48:00.434)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, very very close. Yeah, that's a that's a long trip for a race But I hope that you have the opportunity to do it because it sounds really exciting
Conor Pendergrast (48:06.316)
Yeah.
Conor Pendergrast (48:16.812)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rob Dwyer (48:18.156)
Before we wrap up today, I understand that in addition to being a mediocre athlete in many, sports, you also have a newsletter. Tell me about that. What's going on with the newsletter?
Conor Pendergrast (48:21.41)
Mm.
Conor Pendergrast (48:33.09)
to.
Conor Pendergrast (48:36.64)
Yeah, so the newsletter, I usually try and keep it pretty brief. And it's talking maybe my thoughts on some topic in customer support, customer success, customer experience, maybe just pointing the way to interesting podcasts that are coming out, maybe just pointing the way to events that are happening. You can read more about that. You can sign up at customersuccess.cx slash newsletter. I do occasionally drop in information about my races as well.
If you're really interested in my races, sign up for the newsletter. I'm sure I'll keep you in the loop of that. Yeah, that's the main way to find me. You can find me on LinkedIn as well. There's a link to that in the show notes or up you said you'd do. I also do have, yeah, and if you would like to hear me do more parallels between triathlon and customer success or customer support or customer experience.
Rob Dwyer (49:22.584)
Absolutely.
Conor Pendergrast (49:34.184)
and that are more tailored to you and you want to hear this every week or every fortnight let's say for 60 minutes at a time you can also pay me to do that and I will be your coach because I am also a coach as I mentioned at the top of the show a coach for for customer support professionals and you can if you're thinking about growing your career I promise I will not actually talk about triathlons that much so you can
You can find out more about that at customersuccess.cx slash coaching.
Rob Dwyer (50:05.836)
I don't know how anyone could listen to that and not want to go sign up right now. So if you are ready to go sign up right now, you know where the links are for the show. Go to the links, click on it, get signed up, go connect with Conor on LinkedIn, get the newsletter. Conor, it's been so wonderful to have you on the show. I'm glad we got to talk about.
All of these different things that seem unrelated, but really are related. And I really appreciate your time sharing your experiences with us.
Conor Pendergrast (50:44.896)
You know, I appreciate getting to do close to an hour's humble bragging with you. So thanks, Rob.
Rob Dwyer (50:51.48)
Hey it was about time we set this up I don't even remember how many months ago and you were like yeah I'll get around to it there are more important things in my life what like your wife getting her PhD right so.
Conor Pendergrast (51:05.854)
Yes, and us having two children during the space of that.
Rob Dwyer (51:09.304)
Yeah, I'm okay with coming in fourth. It's fine. I am processing this, but I really do. I appreciate you extending your time to us and I can't wait to talk to you again.
Conor Pendergrast (51:29.026)
yeah, it's my pleasure. Thanks Rob.