Today on the podcast:
Charlie Webster is an experienced broadcaster, journalist, writer and documentary maker across both TV, Radio and Podcasts.
She’s been on the covers of “Women’s Running” and “FHM Magazine UK”, and has done 3 Ironman Triathlons and 14 Marathons including London and New York City.
Tragedy struck Charlie while doing a 3,000-mile race when she got Malaria, was put in a coma, and on life support. Doctors gave her less than 24 hours to live, which made global headlines. Doctors were baffled at her recovery and that she’s still running marathons and is not going to stop!
Professionally, she has worked globally for major TV networks and studios and had in-depth interviews with global superstars such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and David Beckham.
Charlie has recently released ‘Surviving El Chapo: The Twins Who Brought Down a Drug Lord’ working with Lionsgate and G-Unit productions. She developed the story, wrote, produced, as well as co-hosted the podcast with Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson.
She is also the host of her own podcast Died and Survived with Charlie Webster.
Episode Outline
- 08:06 What got Charlie into fitness
- 11:10 Her 3,000-mile race, malaria, and being put into a coma and on life support
- 20:40 How your childhood impacts the way you see the world as an adult
- 23:48 How to avoid comparison with others and against your past self
- 29:45 Self-esteem vs self-confidence and why you need to know the difference
- 35:26 The importance of getting support and help
- 38:30 Charlie unpacks her famous TED Talk quote on the truth about trauma
- 41:33 Control the controllables
- 48:08 Rethinking “anger”
- 56:05 The one Instagram message Charlie would want to put out to the world
Key Points
- It’s great to seek self-improvement. A lot of the time, it’s true that the desire to grow comes from some kind of pain we experienced in our youth. However, we need to take care not to let that motivation become self-destructive, where we’re always way too hard on ourselves and continuously comparing ourselves to others, or even to our past self. That doesn’t mean forcing yourself to “think positive” all the time. The key is “emotionally-healthy talk” is to look at progress as a journey of self-discovery by staying curious, open-minded, and excited.
- To rewire an overly self-critical mindset, recognize your “overarching self-talk”. Once you do that, figure out where the beliefs which fuel that self-talk came from. Again, most likely they originate from certain childhood experiences. Then, take a step back to isolate yourself from the emotions associated with those experiences, look at them from an objective viewpoint, and change your narrative by adding perspective to it. It becomes much easier to recognize the positive if you’re able to recognize the negative.
- The most important period when it comes to trauma is not when the traumatic event is unfolding, but its aftermath. We get so much care when “the thing” is happening to us but, once it’s over, the assumption is that healing happens automatically—and it never does. The aftermath, when we have to silently deal with the trauma in our everyday lives, is actually the time we need the most help and support, in addition to your personal initiative to “control the controllables” in your environment whenever you can.
Powerful Quotes by Charlie
- People running 100-mile marathons—oftentimes, the place that comes from is pain and trying to work through that pain. It’s quite healing and meditative, but you also have to be careful because it doesn’t become self-harming.
- A lot of adults have low self-esteem because they didn’t have [a safe environment] in childhood.
- The most important part of trauma is the aftermath, because that’s what we’re left with, and that’s what we need help with.
- Anger has no morals. Anger is just an emotion that we all have. Action is where the morals come from.
Guest Info
