The Energy We Carry With Us

Hey Team!

I just landed back from NYC and... voilà, we’re in September. It’s funny how time can feel like it flies by, like this summer did, while individual moments can somehow feel like they last a lifetime. For me, this summer felt very full. At times, maybe a tad exhausting, but more than anything, something I’m incredibly grateful for. I travelled a lot, we made a massive push with the OPS RUN launch, and I got to see so many friends across North America. What a gift.

Now I’m back in Tofino and focused for the next two weeks on two things: NYC Marathon training and our upcoming Runningman activation in Rome, Georgia. I’m locked in, as “they” say. And I’ve got my little sidekick Coconut with me, who always gives me a good reason to come up for air and get outside for a quick walk. Honestly, it feels like the perfect energy for the first couple weeks of September.

I’m curious... are you a “separation season” type of person who tries to get ahead through the summer? Or do you use those months to restore and rejuvenate before a busy fall?

This Week’s Shift

When I’m in New York, I often stay at the Ace Hotel in Brooklyn. It has this cool, funky energy that feels very different from your typical cookie-cutter hotel. It attracts a lot of creatives and artists, especially later in the week when live music and events take over the lobby. I love talking with strangers there, but I also love people watching. I think part of that comes from my love of design... I’m always fascinated by how differently people express themselves through style.

While I was there, I needed to get in a hard interval session for marathon training. More often than not, I actually prefer doing those workouts on a treadmill. It’s uninterrupted, controlled, and a lot easier than trying to navigate traffic lights and unfamiliar streets in a big city. So there I was in this tiny hotel gym, already packed with more than 10 people, being the loud guy hammering away on the treadmill. The belt was humming, my cadence was loud, and I was throwing sweat everywhere. It was a scene.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed two guys communicating through sign language. For whatever reason, I initially assumed only one of them was deaf or hearing impaired. I later learned they both were, and had actually been roommates at university, the world’s only university designed specifically for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Both guys were incredibly fit and clearly trained hard. They looked like they could have walked straight out of GQ or Men’s Health.

When I finished my intervals and stepped off the treadmill, one of them handed me his phone. On the screen it read: “What are you training for? The apocalypse?”

We both cracked up.

For the next 15 minutes, we passed his phone back and forth, typing to one another. He asked about my running and some of the races I’d done, so I showed him a video from my Whistler 125K because it had captions and would be easy for him to follow. I could see something soften in his eyes as he watched it. I think it moved him... but the interaction probably touched me even more.

He found me on Instagram, gave me a follow, and eventually I headed upstairs to shower. It wasn’t until afterward that I realized the person I had been talking with was Nyle, a well-known deaf actor, model and advocate who had literally been on the cover of GQ. I was a little gobsmacked, mostly because there had been absolutely nothing about the interaction that suggested anything other than two strangers connecting in a gym.

What stayed with me most, though, had nothing to do with who he was. It was thinking about how much harder something as simple as communicating with a stranger can be when most of the world doesn’t speak your language. Sign language may be completely natural to him, but the rest of us don’t necessarily know how to meet him there. That is a reality he has likely had to navigate and persevere through his entire life.

It was such a simple reminder that none of us gets to choose every card we’re dealt. We do get to choose what we do with them. Life seldom works out perfectly... but there can be something pretty beautiful about learning to embrace the perfectly imperfect.

From The Field

I flew to NYC partly to spend time with some run clubs and partly to meet up with Sara, OPS RUN’s newest team member, for a couple of days. She had already been there several days before me, running with crews all over the city. It was the perfect setup: give her full autonomy in the market, then join her for the final stretch and experience some of it together.

The consensus became obvious pretty quickly: Sara is a rockstar.

I mean that in a lot of ways, but mostly because of the energy she brings into every moment. She was waking up at 5:30 a.m. to meet clubs in Central Park and still out running with crews in the Bronx at 11:30 p.m. Five days of bouncing around New York could have easily drained anyone, yet every interaction seemed to be met with the same enthusiasm, pride and excitement.

And what became most obvious to me was what her energy did to mine.

It fueled me.

We’re all products of our environment, and a huge part of that environment is the people we choose to surround ourselves with. That includes the people we build and work alongside. Hiring decisions are big ones, especially in an early-stage company. The wrong person can cost far more than a salary. But when you join forces with someone who believes deeply in the mission and brings an optimism that shines through everything they do, the opposite can happen too: suddenly the whole thing feels lighter, faster and more possible.

Every startup needs people who bring that kind of energy. Really, we probably all do.

I’ve always loved the saying: “Practice like you’ve never won. Perform like you’ve never lost.” There’s something powerful about being surrounded by people who carry themselves that way.

Maybe that’s the reminder I’m carrying into September: pay attention to what fuels you. Sometimes it’s a stranger who shifts your perspective, and sometimes it’s someone beside you whose energy makes everything feel a little more possible. Surround yourself with more of it... and be that person for someone else too.

Catch you on the Start Line,
—Matty