Starter Girlz Podcast

He Made a Bold Pivot at 70… Then Broke 4 World Records (with Jeff Seckendorf, Ultra-Cyclist & Coach)

• Jennifer Loehding • Season 7 • Episode 98

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What does it take to reinvent yourself at 70? In this inspiring episode of the Starter Girlz Podcast, host Jennifer Loehding sits down with Jeff Seckendorf - a man who has lived multiple lives: from working in Hollywood film, to building a scuba certification company, to coaching athletes, and now… breaking 4 ultra-cycling world records at the age of 70.

Jeff’s story isn’t just about athletic achievement - it’s about the courage to pivot, the resilience to let go of what you’ve built, and the mindset that makes growth possible at any stage of life.

What You’ll Learn:
✅ How Jeff went from Hollywood and scuba diving to cycling at a world-class level
✅ The emotional challenges of letting go of a 20-year business and starting over
✅ Why he works with the Parkinson’s community and how exercise slows progression of the disease
✅ The mindset shift of treating yourself like a professional athlete at any age
✅ The exact strategies Jeff used to break 4 world records in one day
✅ Why he believes goals should be “50% believable” — not too easy, not impossible
✅ Lessons on reinvention, resilience, and personal transformation you can apply right now

This episode is for anyone curious about personal growth, overcoming fear, starting over later in life, and discovering that it’s never too late to pivot.

💡 Why You Should Watch
If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Am I too old to start again?” - Jeff’s story proves the answer is no. His journey offers practical tools and inspiration to:

  • Redefine success at any age
  • Approach fitness, career, and life goals with a winning mindset
  • Embrace change, even when it feels uncomfortable
  • Build resilience through community, coaching, and personal growth

Connect with Jeff Seckendorf:
🌐 Website: https://jeffscoaching.com

Connect with Starter Girlz Podcast:
🌐 Website: https://startergirlz.com/

Love this episode?
Subscribe to the Starter Girlz Podcast for more empowering conversations that will help you grow in business and life. Don’t forget to rate and review—your support helps us share more stories that inspire change.

Jeff Seckendorf:

We're going to science the shit out of this. That's kind of what we did. We just scienced it to death. Okay, I love it, and you know nutrition, hydration, aerodynamics, the equipment, the clothing, the helmet, the electronic timing system everything was like perfect.

Jennifer Loehding:

Welcome to the Starter Girlz Podcast, your ultimate source of inspiration and empowerment. We're here to help women succeed in every area of their lives career, money, relationships, and health and well-being while celebrating the remarkable journeys of individuals from all walks of life who've achieved amazing things. Whether you're looking to supercharge your career, build financial independence, nurture meaningful relationships or enhance your overall well-being, the Starter Girlz Podcast is here to guide you. Join us as we explore the journeys of those who dare to dream big and achieve greatness. I'm your host, jennifer Loehding, and welcome to this episode. Welcome to another episode of the Starter Girlz Podcast. I'm your host, jennifer Loading, and wherever you are tuning in today, we are so glad to have you All right.

Jennifer Loehding:

So here we are, another episode, another awesome guest, and I think this is going to be kind of a special episode because, for my audience tuning into this, Jeff, my guest. I'm going to tell you a little bit about him in just a few minutes after I kind of set the stage. He was a previous guest on Behind the Dreamers and so I am just so excited to catch up with him today and find out what he's doing, and we're going to get him on here in just a few minutes, but let me open up with this. Sometimes life doesn't go as planned, which is often the case, right? But that's when new doors open. My guest is an adventurous soul who embraces change, explores unexpected paths and has found remarkable success along the way, and so we're going to be talking to him in just a few minutes, but before I do that, I do need to do a quick shout out to our sponsor.

Jennifer Loehding:

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Jennifer Loehding:

All right, and with that I do want to say to head on over to startergirlz. com. Why do you want to go over there? For three reasons. One. If you missed an episode, it's a great place to catch up, because many of them are still there. It's also a great place to tune in. You can sign up for our community newsletter, stay in the know and keep up with what we're doing, what we're putting out there, and never miss an episode. And then, of course, if you are a creator, aspiring entrepreneur, or maybe you are in the thick of doing your thing and you would like to know what your number one subconscious block is that may be hindering your success, well, I have an answer for you. I've created a two minute quiz that you can take over there, and it's fun and informative and it will tell you what might be holding you back right now. So head on over there to startergirlz. com and do whatever you need to do.

Jennifer Loehding:

All right, let's get our guest on the show here. So my guest today, jeff Seckendorf, has worn many hats. He's been a flight instructor, a scuba instructor, a trainer, a mentor to up-and-coming film directors. He's helped companies train their in-house educators with simple, repeatable methods that get results. He has just done a lot of things, and he also happens to be a champion cyclist, who recently pivoted from training for a national hour record to breaking multiple long distance cycling records, and so I am so excited to get him on here today. It's been a minute since we've chatted and so, jeff, welcome to the starter girls show. Excited to have you here today.

Jeff Seckendorf:

Oh my God, jennifer, I'm so happy to be back with you. Yeah, how fun.

Jennifer Loehding:

It's going to be fun, totally different show. But here's the cool thing I tell people it's like both those shows, like the old show, the Behind the Dreamers, and just for our audience.

Jennifer Loehding:

so you know Jeff's episode when he was on Behind the Dreamers. It is still out there. You can still access all of those Behind the Dreamers episodes. There's so many great ones on there. I've left them up there because I know that you know people take their time to come on here and do these fabulous episodes with us, and so they are still there. So go check his episode out and you can see what he was doing at that time and then catch this one. You'll see where he is now. And so, Jeff, this is gonna be so much fun. I'm so excited to chat with you today, so I need you to update us, Tell us what is happening now, because you have kind of pivoted, which I think this is what this whole episode is really going to be about. Is this pivot? And so maybe kind of tell us where you were when we came on the last time and then what sort of made this shift into what you're doing now?

Jeff Seckendorf:

Yeah, so I, um, for about 20 years have owned, or had owned, a scuba certification and training agency, and you know we're talking about pivots.

Jeff Seckendorf:

I guess we start with that right, because I had done 35 years in the film industry and I was always looking for a way out, always trying to find a door out of that career, because, you know, it's tough. I mean it sounds like dramatic, romantic, all that, but basically it's like my full-time job was looking for work and my part-time job was working. So this opportunity came along to open this training agency from scratch, and so we did unified team diving. It's still going on and it was a great 20 years. I look back and it's like holy crap, 20 years. That's crazy. But I exited that, I don't know, six months ago or so, and it gave me more time really to do the things that I'm focused on now, and that is, you know, I have this relationship with the Parkinson's community in San Diego. I don't have Parkinson's disease, but I know a zillion people who do. So I've been working with the Parkinson's Association here for I don't know five or six, eight years now, and so I'm finding more time to work on that.

Jennifer Loehding:

And then, of course, you know, more time to ride my bike, which is amazing, so yeah, so that's kind of where we are today, and I just got back from the track and did a cool workout, yeah we're going to talk about this cycling in a minute, but I want to back up and talk about the exit from the scuba diving thing because, yes, when we talked last time, in fact, I was going back through your website because I remember talking to you.

Jennifer Loehding:

I remember looking at all the different things. I've had a few other guests on here. We call them sort of like these renaissance people, right?

Jennifer Loehding:

They've had these neat careers Like I had a guy on here one time really neat guy, steve Gallegos. He had been an attorney, he had been I think he had been in acting, like he'd been all these different things as well, and it was like man like you just had all these like really neat careers, right. And so it made him kind of diverse in what he could do, because now he was doing this coaching space where he was actually teaching people how to be great speakers, right. But all those things he had done previously sort of kind of set the stage for what he was doing now. And so I remember, you know, talking to you and all the things you have going on. And so this exit from the scuba diving thing, like what did that? Was that like an intended thing or did you just kind of like that happened by surprise or was it just kind of a planned thing? This was the right timing and it just fell into place at that time.

Jeff Seckendorf:

Yeah, it was coming for probably five years. Okay, about eight or 10 years ago I bought the company out, so I got rid of my partner and I started running it myself with a new team and I was looking at it some way to make an exit in some form. I didn't know what that form was going to be, but then I was spending less and less time on it and that was not good for me or good for the company. So it was a decision. The exit decision took about, you know, covered about four or five years, but it took that long to really anchor a team that I knew could do it. And this is the first time I really exited any kind of company like that. Okay, and that's an interesting thing unto itself because there's a little bit of separation anxiety. I mean, the very first thing that happened was, like you know, three or four weeks later I'm looking at this thing and I'm getting pissed off at these people because they're not running it exactly like I ran it.

Jeff Seckendorf:

Right, right, of course you know that's not the point. The point is to give it fresh legs and let it go. And you know I don't have my own kids, I have grandkids and stuff like that. I'm sure it's like empty nesting, right. It's like you let them go and you just got to let them go.

Jeff Seckendorf:

So I was able to exit the scuba company, graciously in a really good relationship with the two people who took it over, and keep the fun part right, able to keep the teaching part, keep the coaching part, just get out of the daily grind and all of that.

Jeff Seckendorf:

So you know, for me psychologically it was great, it opened up, you know more hours to play and to work and I think it was good for all the clients and the instructors of Unified Team Diving to have a new team, fresh blood, you know, looking at new ways to do things, new ways to market it and, and you know, more support that that was harder for and harder for me to get to to provide really. So, yeah, I mean the positive experience on every level. I'm no longer mad at them for not running it exactly like me. I got over that pretty quickly every level. I'm no longer mad at them for not running it exactly like me. I got over that pretty quickly. But, yeah, no, it was a good experience and it was a good experience to go through that right and to see what it was like to have to let my baby go right. I mean, this was my life for two decades.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, no, there's so many great takeaways from that, Jeff, and I do want to back up on that whole emptiness thing because I'm kind of going through that right now.

Jennifer Loehding:

And yes, that's exactly what it's like. It's like, just like make good choices, please, yeah. Your mom thinks you should do. I'm like I feel like I have this conversation with my youngest like on a, on a continual basis. You know, like I'm like they're all adults. Just please make good choices, okay, good choices good choices, you know.

Jennifer Loehding:

So yes on that.

Jennifer Loehding:

But you know what I think there's so many great takeaways from what you said.

Jennifer Loehding:

It's that whole, like you know, as business owners, that's the objective right, it's like to be able to be replaced, it's to be able to put somebody in that so you can get out. But that is kind of the hard thing, right, that delegation, that letting go and like even you know, like, not even like what you're doing, but like when I left Mary Kay, like I was in a leadership role in that company, I was not in a position, like where you are, where I had to get anybody to replace what I was doing, I was just walking away. But it was kind of that same thing. Like I had built something up and I had to relinquish my like I basically was walking away and giving my clients away to somebody and I really had to like process that whole, like letting go, you know.

Jennifer Loehding:

But then in the end it ended up being a really good thing because it gave me the freedom to one heal myself, because I was going through something, you know, physically I needed to work on and heal, but also it opened up doors to other opportunities. You know it, just in that moment I just remember it being like a lot to work through, you know. So I think there's so many you know, great takeaways from that and it sounds like, you know in your case it did. It turned out to be a great thing to allow you to make room for the things you want to do.

Jeff Seckendorf:

Yeah, I think there's an ego thing in it also. Yes, In that, you know, I wasn't surprised by the fact that nobody was calling me because you know, I run the company. It was a very small operation and I knew everybody. I knew all the instructors and I would, you know, talk to them all the time, email, phone, zoom all the time talking to these instructors, and it's like okay, then on a Thursday they stopped calling. And I'm like what the hell?

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, you're like, where's the people?

Jeff Seckendorf:

I know and I assume that that's what's going to happen with your kids. Right, they're going to leave and they're going to stop calling for a while. Yes, yes.

Jeff Seckendorf:

And I had to get over that pretty quickly too, because some of these people I'd known and worked with for close to two decades. So, yeah, there was a lot of like kind of adjusting to that. But you know, once I found the benefits of the exit that way overrode all of the other stuff. And now what happens is the things that I'm doing every day, which is, you know, working with the Parkinson's community and riding my bike. I'm doing them better.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, you're showing up too. I mean, that's the thing, I think. When you're in the grind, like you mentioned, it kind of like you weren't, you were in that, in that grind every day and when you're, I think, when you're like in the thick of something and you're not feeling fulfilled, in that it just wears heavy on you and everything else it's hard to show up in the other places, right? And so sometimes that's the big thing, like you said, it's letting go of the ego and just being able to let go and giving yourself permission to move on so that you can show up in the right places effectively, right.

Jeff Seckendorf:

And you know that line about do what you love and the money will follow. It takes. It took me many, many, many decades to believe that Right and you know in in doing the scuba thing. It took a while but eventually the money followed um in doing the scuba thing.

Jeff Seckendorf:

It took a while but eventually the money followed. Yeah, I don't want to want to say I stopped loving that operation in that company, but it did kind of start to wear me out and it made the money less interesting to me, Right. Right, I knew that I could, you know, replace the money with something else, which I have done with coaching, Because now I have the bandwidth to open up my coaching of athletes and the training that I'm doing to get to be better at that, and so this allowing of space to come in was a huge, huge part of it and I'm grateful I had 20 years of it. And you know, I, I I'm grateful I had 20 years of it, I'm grateful for all the people I met and I'm grateful that I'm not sitting here. You know grinding out certification cards and fixing student issues on a website.

Jennifer Loehding:

No, I think it's great. I you know what, listen, I'm with you and I think we all have to go through that figure that out. You know, and I don't know that everybody even does that whole idea of you know figuring out what you love to do. But I love this because you know what, when you talk about this whole thing, about you know, is it worth it with the money? And I have these conversations all the time because I'm like listen if it's, you know, and maybe I just say I'm spoiled now because I can be a little bit, but I'm like that.

Jennifer Loehding:

If it's not going to bring me happiness, I'm not listen, I'm not afraid to do work.

Jennifer Loehding:

If I need to do work. I'm not afraid to get the job done or do what I need to do. But if I'm going to take something on and it's going to tax me and it's going to just stress me out and I really just don't want to do it, forget it, I don't care how much money.

Jennifer Loehding:

Forget it because I'm going to be miserable and it is just not going to be right.

Jennifer Loehding:

So I am with you on sometimes you just got to let it go, and it's great that you're getting to do that, because you're probably loving that and when we find things we enjoy doing, like I said, I just think it allows us to make room for all the other things that we want to do and makes us less miserable people too, for sure.

Jennifer Loehding:

People like being around.

Jeff Seckendorf:

There's less struggle, and struggle is no fun. I mean, you know, I ride a bike fast and I suffer when I ride a bike. I don't struggle to get on the bike.

Jennifer Loehding:

Right, right.

Jeff Seckendorf:

You know, I think there's a big difference there.

Jennifer Loehding:

So yeah, yeah. So so you're working with athletes now, which is great. And are these? Are these all kinds of athletes, or are they tending to lean into the cycling space?

Jeff Seckendorf:

Yeah, it's a really interesting. You know, I think coaches tend to find their niche, yeah, and so I have been coaching cyclists for a while Okay, mostly on the track, because that's where I meet people and what I all of a sudden found was there was a niche for me in coaching people with Parkinson's. Oh, wow, yeah, back in whenever COVID was. You know, our short-term memory has killed off a lot of that, but when COVID started and gyms closed down. And you know, in Parkinson's the only therapy that's currently known to slow the progression of the disease because it's a non-curable lifetime journey with a degenerative neurological thing is exercise.

Jeff Seckendorf:

Exercise is the only thing that slows the progression of Parkinson's. Medication mollifies the symptoms, there's the dance therapies and all that, but to slow the progression, to feel better every day, it's exercise. So people with Parkinson's they go to their doctors and their doctor says, okay, we'll give you the medication, just help you control tremor and dyskinesia and all that. But to slow it down you have to exercise.

Jeff Seckendorf:

So gyms, there's a boxing program for Parkinson's, there's all this other stuff that was going on and all of a sudden one day it was like closed and now you've got all these people sitting home who have no idea how to exercise any longer, but know they have to, and so a friend and I opened a company this was back in 2019 or 2020, whenever it started called Coach Me Strong, and Coach Me Strong was a coaching program for people with Parkinson's. So we aligned them with a coach and they got a weekly calendar of exercise and they finally got structured training without the ability or the necessity to go to a gym. So we help people train at home stationary bikes, rowers, you know, walking, whatever they could do and then, when the gyms opened up again, whatever they could do. And then, when the gyms opened up again, the clients went away. They all went back to their gyms, and so about a year or two ago, the website was still up. I never really thought of it, right? It's kind of like your other podcast right.

Jeff Seckendorf:

Yes, yes, like it's still there and every once in a while people just hit it. So about a year or two I got a email that says hey, I'm interested in Coach Me Strong, and at that point I had upgraded my cycling coaching certification to a higher level. I'd become a personal trainer, a certified nutritional coach. I've been working on me too, and so it's like well, yeah, I can take you on as one of my athletes because I'm still doing it, I'm still training cyclists. And just oddly that turned into like another and another and another and now I'm about 50-50 on clients between people with Parkinson's and cyclists and master's athletes who just want to get better.

Jeff Seckendorf:

It's a joyful community to work with athletes who just want to get better. It's a joyful community to work with. There is no more grateful community than that, because we see progress, we see benefits, we see way lower stress because they don't have to figure out their own exercise program. One of the huge benefits we saw for people coming into a structured training program with Parkinson's is now they're getting not so much enough rest and recovery but proper rest and recovery. So it's been an incredible experience to be able to take on this constituency and work with them as a coach Also, of course. So I just aged up to 70, which is cool because I'm racing at a new age but that's the age group that many of these clients are in, so I understand deeply what the requirements are to train and, more importantly, what the requirements are to rest and recover in a training program.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, that's awesome. No, and you're right, I think it's finding your, and it's so interesting that, yeah, that's kind of become your, your target. You know market I mean you obviously have got others, but that's a big part of you know your, your core client base, and so I think I think it's awesome. Yeah, and I can imagine too, because I think you know like I deal I don't deal with that, but I have a chronic condition that requires me to be extremely vigilant about my everything my eating, my exercise, everything because medicine doesn't fix mine either.

Jennifer Loehding:

I mean, yeah, I could help with symptoms, but I don't want to be taking medicine for the rest of my life for symptoms. So I'm constantly in in what I call I don't know what you'd call it like palliative care maybe, where you're like doing things to try to navigate around it, so to speak. You know, and so, and when you're dealing with stuff like that, I think anytime you have breakthroughs or you find something that's helping, that it's like huge right, it's like for that, that person, it's like a big thing. So, and they're and they're probably those kinds of people If they're like me, they're very like they're going to do it. Like they're going to do it because it's helping you know.

Jeff Seckendorf:

I've got a client, you know, getting deep in his eighties with Parkinson's and you know was was lost on structure and came in and you know he and he's amazingly compliant. But we've been doing triathlon Thursdays, which is so much fun. Right, so swim, bike run. Right so he has a small pool, so we do a 20-minute swim, a 20-minute indoor cycling ride and a 20-minute walk.

Jennifer Loehding:

That is so awesome.

Jeff Seckendorf:

Back to back and so it's. It's like three times a month we do triathlon Thursdays and the progress, the, the energy that goes into these things, it's just phenomenal.

Jennifer Loehding:

So yeah, I mean, I'm thinking this guy's almost 80 years old and there's like a big part of America that can't even do that.

Jennifer Loehding:

That's not even that age. You know what I mean and like.

Jennifer Loehding:

I like, that's what I'm telling you. These kind of people that are dealing with this kind of stuff, that are committed to being, to trying to be better, are just like this you know what I'm saying. Like and that, even like when I you know, like when I read about this in my book, when I got diagnosed with this nerve condition in 2012, it was like I was in my I think I was just about to turn 40. So I'm now 12 years into this deal, but I was I think I was right about maybe 39. So I was about to turn 40, but I was exercising.

Jeff Seckendorf:

But when I got diagnosed with this, I became a marathon runner during the time that and people ask me.

Jennifer Loehding:

They're like, how did you do that? While you were, because it was in my face, it's a it's called a suicide disease. It's a freaking painful disease. But people were like, how are you doing that? During the time that that was going on and honestly, jeff, for me there was a couple of things. One I didn't really see an option, because I was in so much freaking pain that I needed an outlet, like I needed a way to displace the pain, and that was actually, for me, a way to transfer it somewhere else, put it in my feet, my legs, whatever. But it was almost psychological too you know what I mean Like it helped me to navigate that.

Jennifer Loehding:

So that's why I'm saying, when you're, you know, when you've got people like this that are committed to really try and improve their quality of life, those people are like showing up because they want to improve their quality of life, you know. And so I'm always impressed when I hear stories like this, because it's hard and I know what it feels like to have to deal with a condition and be that way. You know, be diligent about taking care of yourself, say that you can do that and be a fighter. Maybe that's what it is being a fighter, you know. So I love it. I love what you're doing.

Jeff Seckendorf:

One of the things I do with the Parkinson's association here in San Diego is I develop educational programming and one of the courses I did last year the year before was um and a course for uh therapists, psychologists, marriage and family therapists, and social workers on the intricacies of working with people with Parkinson's. So we're training the counselors to work with this population. Okay, one of the people we interviewed for this course was a clinical psychologist up in the Bay Area who had like a 20-year practice with people with Parkinson's and one of the most interesting things that came out of the whole program he said is that once people I shouldn't say once, many people who he ran into as clients, who were diagnosed with Parkinson's, knowing that this is a lifetime journey, are now living better lives than they did before Because now they're off the couch, they're exercising and training, they're eating better, they're staying hydrated, they're paying attention to their bodies and that is absolutely connecting to their own mental health. And he said it's been a fascinating thing to watch people who, theoretically, you know you get this diagnosis and it's like, well, you know, you got two ways to go right, you can go back on the couch and watch reruns of Gilligan's Island for the rest of your life or you can take a shot at fighting it. If you take that shot, things become better.

Jeff Seckendorf:

In Coach Me Strong, we always said to people when they came in with Parkinson's it's like whatever your career was in the past is now irrelevant, because now you're a professional athlete. Yep, right, you have professionals. If it's snowing and crappy out, they still have to go train. That's right. Amateurs can sit on the couch.

Jeff Seckendorf:

So we try to take the mindset of people and say, okay, how would a professional athlete react in this scenario? And the reaction is all right, I feel like crap, I'm hungry, I'm tired, I'm cold, I'm going to go train, do it anyways. And we get that mindset going with people and it goes so far beyond the physical because it tends to inform everything in your life. Right, something is hard mentally, something in a relationship is difficult, right?

Jeff Seckendorf:

Well, I just felt like crap and I went out and I rode my bike for an hour and then I went to the gym. I didn't want to, but I did it and I feel better for it. Now I've got this thing. Whatever this thing is going on relationship or work or whatever, I'm going to fight that the same way I fought this, and so that ability to overlay what you learn in training as an athlete on top of what we know about our own life and how we function day to day, that correlation, that connection that I don't know, I don't have the exact word for it, but that overlay is phenomenal in people. It's just phenomenal.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, it becomes like your tool, like a tool, right, and that's what I talk about too. It really becomes like another. You know, like I have like these little nervous system techniques and tools, but that is like one of my tools, you know, and it's and it's funny too, because I I don't know if I told you this last time, but I have this funny like I remember walking into the gym and it might've been before COVID hit Cause, I, no lie, I've been at the same gym for I think now almost 17 years, like I am.

Jennifer Loehding:

I am officially a non-gym waster. I have been at the same gym. We moved to Dallas in 2004 and there was a Gold's Gym here that was open for about four years. So we'll do the math, because I've been here 21 years now.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, 20, because we're in 2025 now. Yeah, 21 years now. So that gym was open four years and then I moved to an LA Fitness immediately after that. I've been at that same LA Fitness ever since. But I remember I had a personal trainer come up to me one time when I was walking in the door and he was like what are your fitness goals? And I'm like I'm not training for anything right now, like I don't have any. I said do you know how you brush your teeth? You, every morning, you get up, brush your teeth. That's how I work out. I just get up. I do it every day. It's just what I do.

Jennifer Loehding:

I don't negotiate it, I don't talk about it. I just go do it, whether I want to do it or don't do it. Now I'm much more methodical about it. If I'm tired, I might modify the exercise, or maybe you know, I do something a little bit different. I don't negotiate it because I use. It became for me. I had always exercised, but it became extremely important when I was going through some of those really hard physical times when it was, you know, like hard for me to get, even get on the treadmill and walk, you know. But it became such a mental thing for me that I just now really it's just part of my, I'd say part of my DNA, because I just don't even think about it anymore.

Jeff Seckendorf:

So you know, and we all have something that we're dealing with, right, and there's almost I don't want to say there's, there's nothing, but there's almost nothing that people deal with that can't be helped in some way by physical exercise, better nutrition, better hydration, you know, and just just, even if you feel crappy, you know I mean, I have a gym in the next room, you know little tiny home gym, and you know I have no excuses, there are no excuses. You know I only have to walk 12 feet and I'm in the gym, and so, yeah, you just do it, you just step up and know that the benefits outweigh the little bit of suffering that happens in that 45 minute process.

Jennifer Loehding:

And I love that you're certified and I didn't even know that that part that you had. I am too, which is funny because I'm certified in like supplements and I'm also a certified keto coach believe it or not and a carnivore coach, so I do a lot of nutrition stuff too.

Jennifer Loehding:

I do all the meat stuff. I'm a big meat eater and don't eat a lot of processed sugar.

Jeff Seckendorf:

You're in Dallas, you know so there you go.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yes, but you know what All of that came about? Honestly, it wasn't I didn't do probably like you, I didn't do that because I was trying to necessarily help other people. The time was more about I was trying to heal my doing things for myself, help myself, and in the process of that then I realized, hey, like there are definitely like I've learned a lot of things here. This has helped me tremendously with the health conditions I'm dealing with. And so to your point, to back it up, about how when you get something, you become better.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yes, I do believe I live much healthier today than I did, probably the 12 years before I had gotten, even a year before I had gotten diagnosed with the condition.

Jennifer Loehding:

I mean, I've evolved so much in just the last 10 years having to navigate these things, so I agree with you on that Totally. I do want to talk about your cycling, because this is a big thing. You move, you switch gears Cause I know last time we were talking to you we're going for this big goal and I remember talking about this, the velodrome thing and everything, and so you kind of pivoted and went into this Tell us a little bit about where you're at with this, what's going on and I guess maybe what you're excited about with this.

Jeff Seckendorf:

Yeah, so I have been training for about five years for an hour record. So the hour is probably the hardest thing you can do in cycling right. It's not a sprint but it's not an endurance ride. It's an all out, full gas, one hour and it's kind of iconic in cycling right. It's been going on since the 1800s. There's nothing simpler Like how far can you make your bike go in an hour, and so it just. That whole thing really appealed to me. So I started training. I set an hour record at the San Diego Velodrome when I was 66, right, so about five years ago, and it held for about three years, three and a half years. Then a buddy of mine broke it and I went out to go get it back at age 69. He's 66 now. I couldn't quite get it. I missed him by I don't know five or 600 meters, but I went farther at age 69 than I did at 66.

Jennifer Loehding:

Okay, wow.

Jeff Seckendorf:

In these records, higher numbers is better right.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, obviously yes, yes.

Jeff Seckendorf:

So and then I aged up to 70. Okay, so I'm going to. There is no track record for an hour here, so I'll set one because I just will. But the hour record as it goes in and out of fashion in like these 10-year cycles, people forget about it, then they get energized again, then they forget about it, then they get energized again and right now it's in fashion. So a lot of people are attacking the hour record and a lot of really fast guys are and I say guys because it's separated out in men and women but a lot of really fast people are getting older. So former pro cyclists, former pro triathletes, very fast people who are aging up, are now seeing an opportunity to go after these national and international hour records.

Jeff Seckendorf:

So when I started this process, I think the 70 plus hour record was about 42 kilometers, which is kind of in my wheelhouse. It's now like 44. So it's been getting pushed a little bit farther away, farther away, farther away. And outside in the wind, on an outdoor velodrome, I did about 38 kilometers indoors, at elevation, different equipment. I'll do better, but I don't know if I can actually get six kilometers off my record. So I was looking for something to do that. I could, you know, give me the opportunity to put the hour record on hold for just a short while. Somebody just did set a 105 year old hour record, though, so I have that to chase, but I don't know.

Jeff Seckendorf:

A year or two ago, some guy came to the track, our track here in San Diego, our velodrome, and he set these four World Ultra Cycling Association records Fastest 100 kilometers, fastest 100 miles, fastest 200 kilometers and farthest six hours. And I was like huh, that's interesting because I've done the world's six-hour time trial championships about five times now and I have the course record there and my age group. So I just thought, well, let me have a whack at that. And so we switched gears, I started getting a team together, we started training for it, doing the testing, the scientific testing, nutritional testing, aerodynamic testing, all that and I crushed four world ultra cycling records in those four disciplines. And, yeah, it was a very exciting and powerful day for me. I beat the 100 kilometer record by 30 minutes, 38 minutes. I set a new 100 mile record, I beat the 200 kilometer record by like two hours, and I added I think 26 miles to the six hour ride.

Jeff Seckendorf:

So it was a pretty successful day and it was all about a pivot. It was like, well, you know, why not try something that is in my wheelhouse? You know, I have this go long engine, so I thought I'd give it a shot and it turned out to be so. It was a hard day, right, but there was no chance of not succeeding. We had scienced what's the line from the Martian? Right, we're going to science the shit out of this. That's kind of what we did. We just scienced it to death. Okay, I love it. Yeah, and you know, nutrition, hydration, aerodynamics, the equipment, the clothing, the helmet, the electronic timing system, everything was like perfect, and so what it's done for me is kind of re-energized me in the fact that, okay, I think goals should be 50% believable. I think if it's more than 50% believable, it's a to-do list.

Jeff Seckendorf:

Right, right and if it's less than 50% believable. It can be a pipe dream.

Jennifer Loehding:

Right, yeah, what was?

Jeff Seckendorf:

happening to me was the hour record was moving off the 50% mark. What was happening?

Jennifer Loehding:

to me was the hour record was moving off the 50% mark.

Jeff Seckendorf:

These world ultra cycling records were absolutely in the to-do list. I didn't think there was. Unless I crashed or had a mechanical, there was very little chance of me failing to accomplish this. Okay, but not unlike the hour record at the track. I now have a target for myself, okay. So my goal is go back at 75 and beat my 70-year-old hour or long distance records and just stay on this as long as I possibly can with something in my wheelhouse, and we'll still look at the hour record. We haven't given it up.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah.

Jeff Seckendorf:

But you know I don't want to spend all that time and money and energy and training knowing it's a failure and I shouldn't say failure. Knowing it's out of reach.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, no, I get what you're saying.

Jeff Seckendorf:

Coming in second on purpose doesn't do it for me.

Jennifer Loehding:

No, I think this is good. I like this 50-50 thing because I can totally get what you're saying and it's making me think, and in a totally different scenario. But it's making me think back when I started and like I've had many goals too right. But back when I started, I remember in Mary Kay, and I remember somebody you know back then, when you come in and you're trying to move up these different levels, you can see yourself in these levels.

Jennifer Loehding:

But this jump from going to here to this leadership role meant that we had to bring in like 30 team members. We had to build to 30 people in our team, which, once we got going, that didn't seem hard. But when I was at the beginning, I remember somebody asking me this question like what do you want to be? And I could not see myself in this position because I hadn't gotten the position in front of it, like I hadn't seen the one in front of it. So to me that seemed like this pipe dream, right, it just did not seem doable and I ended up. I did end up reaching that goal, but I had to get the other ones in the middle before I could see that big one coming.

Jennifer Loehding:

And so I think there's something to be said to this. But like this formula, because I've never heard anybody quite put it that way and I know personally, like you know you're thinking about, like in your strengths and your weakness and where you are because I do think there is a place where we could say, okay, this dream is attainable, and we're scared and we don't do it. But then there's also being realistic and saying that maybe this is not really a good time or I'm not really in a space where I could do well in this, like owning that right. So I think there's something to be said about that. But also the pivoting finding a place where you know you can create space to win and achieve and do, because that's good too, you know.

Jeff Seckendorf:

And so.

Jennifer Loehding:

I'm with you on that. I think you have to do that sometimes, because there's been plenty of times, you know, like I'm going, I'm seeing something and I'm like I'm just not. I'm just not seeing myself doing this right now, Like I just don't see this happening, and then I have to adjust and do something different and I'll be like I can see this. I can totally see me stretching and making this, this happen. You know, see me stretching and making this happen.

Jeff Seckendorf:

I used to be very, very process-oriented in my training. It was all about the process. The big deal was hit your training numbers.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah.

Jeff Seckendorf:

And the racing numbers became so secondary, and I think that what happens? So you look at that. You say, well, I have this thing where it doesn't matter how I finish, it doesn't matter if my goal is successful in a race, because I hit my personal best, I did the best I could, I did the process and that was the only thing that matters, and I just think that ended up being a lot of crap. I think the goal is important and I think success is important and I think you have to have a balance between process and outcome. We used to say if you do the process, the outcome will magically come. But that outcome that would magically come if you do the process is only your personal outcome. It's not necessarily a fully successful thing. So saying that the outcome doesn't matter to me it's a total cop-out on working hard enough to be successful at something. That's why we have races, yeah.

Jennifer Loehding:

I just had this conversation with somebody yesterday. This very conversation we were talking about this at the Balance. I said you don't want to not set goals. You need to set goals. Don't get so hung up that you can't pivot. My point is this Don't get so pinned down on the goal that that's the only thing, that's it. And even if you know you can't do it, but you're going to be hung up on that goal that you don't allow yourself to pivot. Right, that was what I was telling my friend, but at the same time, you got to have goals. You can't just go on the whole process. I mean, yes, we have to find wins within that too, but there has, like you said, there has to be this balance, otherwise we never make a goal. We won't ever, we'll never like achieve anything. We'll be like, okay, we're going for the process, yeah, we're gaining, right, but we still, if we want to achieve and have a race, we're gonna have to have a goal to win the race.

Jennifer Loehding:

You know otherwise.

Jeff Seckendorf:

Yes, it's, it's just us you know how was it when you went after your marathon.

Jennifer Loehding:

Oh, they were different, you know, like probably different, like now, back then I think I'm trying to remember.

Jeff Seckendorf:

Have you done more than one?

Jennifer Loehding:

Yes, I have, I have, but I haven't done any recently. I haven't. It's been a few years. I don't run near as much as I used to run Really when I was doing that.

Jennifer Loehding:

My objective in there and I'm not going to lie, because when I was competing running not so much maybe the marathon, but when I would do like half marathons or those, those, I was probably trying to compete a little bit more. I wasn't a top runner, so my competition wasn't going to be like the top of the race. It might've been deciding on how big the race was and how many were in my age group, kind of thing. That might've been what I was looking at, more so than like am I going to be a top runner? No, Now I will say I did do trail racing and there were times there weren't a lot of people in trail racing so I actually could.

Jennifer Loehding:

I did place. At least one time I think I got third place, third in the in the whole in the run, you know. So it just it depends, but I think sometimes I would go in and it was just the completion. It was just a personal. I need to complete the race and sometimes it was. I was trying to compete with whomever was showing up that day, and it was a full on race.

Jennifer Loehding:

You know what I mean. So I've done it. I've done it. It was both for me, really. I did both, you know, but I also too. I think now it's funny because I laugh now, because I'm like, if I run now, Jeff, it'd probably be like I'm just going to be excited If I get through it.

Jennifer Loehding:

That's going to be a good day, right. That for me, is going to be the good the win, because I'm going to just get through that darn thing.

Jeff Seckendorf:

So I'm just saying I agree with you totally there has to be a balance.

Jennifer Loehding:

There has to be. It definitely has to be an ebb and flow with that whole thing. But I love, I think it's great. What do you feel like? You've said so many great things. What do you feel like in all of this? I mean, I want just your whole journey. You've done so many amazing things and I think they've all sort of kind of have been, you know, woven in some way, like what do you feel like you've learned about yourself in all of this?

Jeff Seckendorf:

Oh, that's a really good question for me. So it seems like I've done a lot right, but I am 70, so I've had a lot of time to do a lot and I've really had like three or four things right. I had the film industry as my first career, I had the scuba thing, I've got this Parkinson's thing and cycling thing, so it's really and I taught flying as a hobby and so on. So I think what I look at now is the thread through all of these different careers has been education and coaching.

Jeff Seckendorf:

So in the film industry I worked for 24 years in a workshop program teaching people filmmaking, writing, curriculum for them, developing courses. And then I went on to start this little mentoring program for emerging directors. I was a cinematographer, so teaching them how to, on a one-on-one basis, how to tell a story visually, especially writers and directors. They'd come in, they'd write a script, they'd want to direct it. They'd have no idea how the camera became part of that. So the film industry for me over those 35 plus years had a big education component to it. I learned to fly. I loved flying, I competed in competition, aerobatics and stuff. I became a flight instructor because I just loved the teaching and coaching aspect of it and I coached aerobatic pilots in competition. Then I became a scuba diver and instructor and instructor trainer and I started an education company.

Jeff Seckendorf:

So I look at this all through Now I'm a fairly accomplished master's cyclist and there's an education component to that because I'm coaching, training, running camps, things like that. So you know, when I look at this I just say, well, I've been able to take this education and coaching thread as almost a primary part of how I show up in the world and the topics tend to be less important to me. It's just what I'm having fun at at the moment Right now happens to be cycling and writing education programs for the Parkinson's community. So, yeah, I think I look back and I say, well, okay, so the education and coaching thing is really the thing that has driven me, just to be able to help people while I'm having fun doing my own thing.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, I totally see that, and that's the thing. I think that when I say a lot, you know, and the only reason I say that is because, yes, you, you have, it's not like you had tons of things. I think it's just some people go their whole life and they do that one you know career thing their whole life, and that's what the and there's nothing wrong with that, because that's what they choose to do right. But then there's us who, like I, feel like I'm an educator too.

Jennifer Loehding:

I feel like everything I've done has always been you know, when I was at Mary Kay I was with that 22 years in that organization it was for me I never cared. I love the prizes, I liked the making the money, but at the core of it for me it was really like I loved training, I loved educating the people, and everything I do now, even with this podcast, all of it for me is really about educating people. It's about showing people that they can live healthy lives or they can live lives that they choose. So for me, in fact I was telling my husband the other day I was trying to write a title I had a guy come on my show I just released it this week and he was a prior financial I say expert. He did like financial planning but he moved into he's a Canadian, he moved more into and I say that because I've been laughing like the spelling of the words and stuff like that.

Jennifer Loehding:

His book is Capital Offense with a C Capital Offense.

Jennifer Loehding:

And he now has like a webpage that he does where he talks about how, like printing money, how it affects us, all of those things that are important, and so I was trying to. I was going to try to come up with a title. Oh, I was trying to come up with a title for the show and my YouTube guy kept leaning into these like fear based titles and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, that is not languaging.

Jennifer Loehding:

Jennifer speaks, I'm about empowerment, but more importantly, jeff, I'm about educating, letting people find their own truth. So what I mean by that is I just put the things out there and I want people to form their own opinions and truths. I don't want to totally sway all that myself, like I yes, I do that in these dialogues, but I wanted that to be. Let them come and listen to the episode and then draw their own conclusions from the information. Not Jennifer says this is what it is, this is the. You know what I mean, and so that's what I say. Everything I do, I feel like is all, is about just educating people and letting them take that information and do what they want with it use it or don't, but I think I look back and I say it's the same thing.

Jennifer Loehding:

It's the common thread that weaves in all the different things that I do and yours happens to be what you enjoy doing fun and mine's being like how can I make people be effective and healthy and show up in full capacity? So I appreciate what you're doing. I think it's awesome.

Jeff Seckendorf:

Yeah, it's been fun and I've learned a lot about me and I've learned a lot about others and how those two things integrate right.

Jennifer Loehding:

How.

Jeff Seckendorf:

I can work with others.

Jennifer Loehding:

You learn a lot from dealing with people, do you not?

Jeff Seckendorf:

Well, that's like one of the best memes in the world, which is, when the student learns 10 things, the teacher learns 100.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yes, yes, I told somebody this. I said all the years that I was in Mary Kay. Yes, I dealt with a lot of people, but I was sort of in an echo chamber because I was in with, I was working a lot with stay-at-home moms, because that's where I was at that time, and so it was kind of we had the same universal we're talking about diapers and bottles and kids and all that thing when I started doing podcasting. This is a true story, jeff, because I have now, like I've interviewed over 600 people between the shows. Now, in the five years I've been doing this, I have talked from people from all I feel like pretty much all walks of life, from all over. Maybe not Japan, maybe I've not talked to anybody in Japan or South, but I'm talking. I feel like I've talked to so many different people and I'm sure there are still a lot of people I need to talk to.

Jennifer Loehding:

I'm sure there are still a lot of people I need to talk to, but I feel like I've learned so much from those dialogues that I've had with those people that I feel like I don't want to say I'm a master, but I feel like I can, like I read people. I feel like I've learned a lot about reading people from those conversations.

Jennifer Loehding:

You know and so I think you just yeah, the interactions with humans is so important to our uh, to our growth yeah, and we don't want to have somebody, you know, on the other side of jennifer, says do this, so I will.

Jeff Seckendorf:

Yes, what we want is jennifer suggested this, so I'm going to go out and learn how to and research and, and, yeah, and and create my own. Um, you know, in education we call it retention. Yes, that education is a change in behavior in your students, right, without retention it's useless, right, right, and the only way to get it, to get someone to retain it, is for them to own that information. The only way to own it is to kind of rediscover, from whatever you know, the love of something, right? So you, you know somebody hears something on one of your shows and they thought, oh, that's interesting. You know a throwaway like I, just you know competition aerobatics.

Jeff Seckendorf:

So some pilot hears that it doesn't know anything about competition aerobatics, starts researching, starts figuring it out, starts learning that, oh, here's something I could do in aviation. That'd be really fun. But the process of researching, the process of learning it and digging in and finding your own ownership of something is what creates retention and education. And that's the goal that we all have with anything we're doing in terms of teaching, training, coaching, mentoring. We're trying to get people to change their behavior, but, more importantly, we're trying to get them to retain the positive change.

Jennifer Loehding:

I agree. Good stuff, jeff. Well, thank you, it's been awesome. And no, I agree with you 100% on that. It has to be their idea, right?

Jennifer Loehding:

That's why, when you're talking to somebody and they go, hey, I've got this great idea, they tell you something You're like uh, we've been talking about that for a while, but it's their idea, and when it's their idea, it's brand new.

Jennifer Loehding:

They own it. They're going to adopt it Right. And that's what we want.

Jennifer Loehding:

That's what I do every day. That's why I bring y'all.

Jennifer Loehding:

I keep saying we're always talking kind of about the same overall message, but it's all a little bit different because my thinking is that, jeff, you might say something that I've been saying, but somebody is going to hear that just a little bit differently and they're going to go oh, that's the first time I heard that and they're going to do exactly what you're talking about.

Jennifer Loehding:

They're going to go home and they're going to start maybe adopting it. Right, yeah, so it's good.

Jennifer Loehding:

Jeff, if our audience wants to get in touch with you, maybe they want to follow you on this bike journey. Learn a little bit more about you. Where do you want us to send? I know, but I want you to refresh us on this.

Jeff Seckendorf:

Yeah, the easiest thing is JeffSCoachingcom. Jeffscoachingcom. That leads to all roads.

Jennifer Loehding:

Okay, perfect, we'll make sure, Jeff. When my guy gets on there and puts all the bells and whistles on this, we'll get the website and the show notes so they know where to find you, and he usually puts something on the clip too, so those visual people like me can see it up there as well.

Jennifer Loehding:

Yeah, there you go.

Jeff Seckendorf:

And there's a ride report from these hour records. Oh good, Awesome.

Jennifer Loehding:

Well, keep doing your thing and keep us posted on what's happening, and. I'm sure you're going to do great and you're excited about it. So I think that's the most important thing is to be excited about it.

Jennifer Loehding:

Nobody wants to do anything, that's not fun, as we've said in this episode. So thank you for all the good dialogue today.

Jeff Seckendorf:

Yeah, thank you so much for having me on the show. I'm really completely grateful.

Jennifer Loehding:

Absolutely, of course, our audience. We appreciate you, love you. Thank you so much for tuning in. We hope you found this episode both inspiring and informating. And informative, I can't talk today If you did. You know what to do. Go, do all the things, hit the like, the subscribe, comment, share, so we can keep sharing all of this awesome information with you and these great episodes. And, as I always say, in order to live the extraordinary, you must start, and every start begins with a decision. You guys, take care, be safe, be kind to one another and we will see you next time.

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Jennifer Loehding

Host
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Jeff Seckendort

Guest