Episode 20: Tuesday, July 06, 2021
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Welcome to another episode of the Unbreakable.Me podcast. I’m here today with Rebekah Keat, also known as Bek to her friends, so I’m going to call you Bek today. I have Bek here because she really epitomizes the concept of the unbreakable lifestyle. She is a world-class champion who’s received over 30 Podium Awards in triathlete and Ironman competitions. She’s set world records for the fastest Ironman time, and just a complete and utter athlete through and through. She and her wife Siri now actually run one of the number one triathlete training clubs in the world, and dedicate their contribution, their time to their charity that they created, Believe and Rescue Ranch, where they go out and save horses from slaughter, and it’s really cool because I’ve followed them since they’ve really started this, and what they do to go select horses and care for them and nurture them is really representative of the heart of both of them. So, I wanted to bring Bek on today because I know that, Bek, it’s funny about triathlete and Ironman.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
I remember when all of this got started years, decades ago. It was just this kind of intimidating thing like, who in the world would run a marathon followed by… I don’t know even the order of them, the two-and-a-half-mile swim followed by a 110-plus-mile bike ride, and I’m like, it’s just overwhelming and mind-boggling. It’s something that most people can’t relate to. I know that I can’t relate to it. I don’t have any desire. I think about it every once in a while. I thought, my gosh, how would I even set aside the time to do that? But one thing that makes you really exciting to have on today that I’m fascinated by is this idea of the mind of a champion. I think that people want to hear about that and how that relates to the rest of your life, how you’ve used it to pivot in your life, and then ultimately, I think another way of putting it is the mind of mastery and how you approach things. So, welcome to the podcast. I’m so happy to see you here.
Rebekah Keat:
Kyle I could never forget, we got to have lunch with you at our first A Date with Destiny back at, I think, the end of 2016, and you were talking about this business, and typical, we were just like, “I don’t know what he’s talking about. I don’t really understand it, but it sounds interesting,” and then look at you now. So, that’s pretty cool, and then look at our businesses now, and our charities.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah.
Rebekah Keat:
So, pretty amazing just how far we’ve come.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
It’s super fun because I actually met Bek and Siri at a Tony Robbins event, A Date with Destiny, and it’s funny because… So, people who work with Tony, are friends with Tony, or celebrities, they get the front up row of seats, and so I didn’t really know who you guys are. You didn’t know who I was. I was supposed to have a partner that was supposed to go through Date with Destiny with, because you’re supposed to go through with somebody. He was the Iceman, the MMA fighter-
Rebekah Keat:
Oh, what the heck?
Kyle Zagrodzky:
… and he was supposed to be there, and he didn’t show up. So, it was kind of funny, so I ended glomming on to you too a lot, hanging out with you, going through a lot of stuff-
Rebekah Keat:
[crosstalk 00:03:40]
Kyle Zagrodzky:
… and we had a lot of fun. So, it was a great experience, and we both… Everybody I know who goes through that event just… You can’t say enough about it. You can’t even describe it to people. It’s like, just go. It’ll be the best time and money you ever spent in your life. Would you agree?
Rebekah Keat:
Oh, I agree, and yeah, exactly. Yeah. You can’t give it enough credit. It’s really hard to explain until you actually immerse yourself in it. I just remember, basically, and it was a good thing, didn’t sleep for like four days because I was on such a high, and I was like, oh, my gosh. Then from that point, I think we’ve done like 25 events [crosstalk 00:04:16]
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah. Was that your first event?
Rebekah Keat:
It was the First Date with Destiny, Boca Raton. Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Was that your first Tony event ever?
Rebekah Keat:
Second, after… We went to UPW in San Jose, was it? I think the first one.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Okay.
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Okay, also knows as Unleash the Power Within.
Rebekah Keat:
Sorry.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
I remember the first time I went to a Tony event. I knew who Tony was, obviously. He invited me and said, “Come and check out this event,” and my mind wasn’t really in it. I was distracted. I had calls and stuff to do. I didn’t even know there was a fire walk. I didn’t know this first day of the event went past midnight, and I was just… It was by the second or third day where I was actually kind of ashamed because my… I was like, you know what? He gave me this gift. I didn’t take it seriously. I didn’t think I would grow from it, and I was just changing dramatically. I said, “I will never, ever sit through an event without being all in because there’s so much to be learned from it,” and you think you have a handle on your life. You think you know your emotions and your feelings. You think you understand people, and you just don’t know what you don’t know because it’s just so utterly transformation.
Rebekah Keat:
So, if I could tell you how my life’s transformed, I just can’t imagine my life without that first event. Now, mind you, I did get dragged to the Tony Robbins event, the first one, because Siri has followed him her entire life. He literally saved her life when she was in college at 23 years old, and my sister loved Tony, listened to his tapes, and I kind of wasn’t really into that sort of stuff. So, she kind of dragged me there, and he laughs when I tell him that story, but I’m so grateful for her doing that, really, because I was a real introvert. Sounds crazy. I was really introverted. I didn’t want to do the whole dancing, and it took a while to get into it, and then by day three I’m like, yes, like everyone.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
A lot of people like that. Most people go, and everybody’s always standoffish the first day, and complete strangers, introverts, everybody. They’re hugging and high-fiving and dancing around like crazy, and it’s because they want to. They’ve changed. There’s a true transformation, and it’s been an amazing journey for me, and I’ve grown so much from it. I can’t say enough about it. It’s truly amazing. He’s an amazing guy. In person, he’s just absolutely tremendous. Him and his wife Sage are unbelievable. So, that gets me back to you. You and I could actually talk about Tony and stuff. We’ve learned it from Tony, four hours. But I got you here. Now, I’m about to do a podcast with Tony here probably this year, and he and I will chat, and you’re on before Tony, so here you go.
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
So, one of the things… I was reading an article about you, and a lot of people don’t know… So, you have a twin sister, Simone, and she lives in Australia. You’re from Australia. You live up in Boulder, Colorado now. That’s where all the great athletes get trained because there’s no air. Right?
Rebekah Keat:
Yep.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Your sister is not an athlete, but in high school, when you guys did track and whatever, swimming and this kind of thing, she was the superior athlete, and she beat you all the time. Is that right?
Rebekah Keat:
Oh, absolutely every single time, not just once, and even to the point where we had the same bikes with the same gears, and we would ride home from school, and we would race from the hill, and even if I had a wheel in front to start, she would never let me win. So, I was so used to being beaten, and what as a kid you’d call failing, that I was just constantly being smashed by her, and same academically. She’s definitely the more academic one. She always had higher grades. She was a prefect, school captain, and now I look back and I think, thank you for that, but at the time, it was awful. It was really tough.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Now, I know there’s… In twin world, and you can confirm this or not, it’s a big deal with the older one. Right?
Rebekah Keat:
Sure.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
There is one that’s actually a little bit older, and so was she older than you, or not?
Rebekah Keat:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yep. You’re right.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Okay.
Rebekah Keat:
She was.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Oh, yeah.
Rebekah Keat:
Yep.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
So, in her mind she’s like, I have to win, and that’s a big competitive thing between twins. But the reason why I highlight that is that I think for endurance sports like Ironman, triathlete, this kind of thing, I watched some things the other day on Eco-Challenge. It was a four-day, 400-mile, crazy thing across Australia, and I thought halfway through, I’m like, man, I kind of think I want to do that. By the time I watched the whole thing, I’m like, no way. Scratch that off the bucket list. I’m not going to do it.
Rebekah Keat:
I’ll do it.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
These people could die. But we as non-endurance athletic competitors, and I speak for a lot of people, we don’t really relate to it. It’s like, I can’t go pick up a game of Ironman. Right?
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
You don’t have to be an athlete to-
Rebekah Keat:
I think anyone can do it. Honestly, I’ve had guys that have been 290 pounds and dropped 40 pounds to finish and make the cutoff after a sixth attempt, so I do think anyone can do it. It can be limited if you have serious injuries, but I really, Kyle, I’ll hold you to that. We’re going to get you in a triathlon.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Oh, my gosh. You know what? Well, I have some injuries, some sports-related injuries because I have to be a mixed martial arts fighter, and so I worry about that, and I also went and had a genetic blood test done one time, and the guy that did the test, at the analysis he says, “Your body doesn’t process inflammation. You shouldn’t do endurance training. You should do OsteoStrong, X3 Bar. The stuff you’re doing is great,” and so I’m not one of these guys that I take cold showers and cold plunges because I enjoy it. I feel like, oh, yeah, this is great.
Rebekah Keat:
Honestly, I hate them.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
You know what? The first time I did one, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I was in a Vegas hotel room at the Cosmopolitan at a Tony Robbins event, and I kept hearing about these cold plunges. I decided to do one, and the water in… It was the middle of summertime, so you think I’m in a desert, and I’m going to… How cold could the water be? It was 55-degree water coming out of that faucet. It was ridiculously cold. I got in there, and I had almost a panic attack, and I’m thinking, okay, I don’t want to be found dead, naked, in a Vegas hotel room by myself. [crosstalk 00:10:28]
Rebekah Keat:
No, that’s not a good look.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
No. I decided I didn’t want that to be my end, but I eventually stuck with it, and after about four or five days I just… I don’t have that response. I love it now, but that’s for another time.
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah, yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
So, I think the thing that transitioned you from being second fiddler to your twin sister, to becoming a world-class athlete, and when I say world-class, for somebody to get to break the world record on an Ironman competition is unbelievable. That puts you in the top .000001% of the population. It’s so infinitesimally small, and you want to get into the mind. How did you do that? How did you train? What does the commitment look like to do that? What is the mind of a champion? How did you go after that? Because like you say, and I think that a lot of people will come to the conclusion, oh, you’re a natural athlete and all this kind of stuff, and you’re just genetically superior, and blah, blah, blah, but it really comes down to your dedication. I mean, tell us a little bit about that and what a training week looked like and how you dealt with that mentally.
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah. I think, honestly, growing up and being constantly failing to beat my sister started that drive, and like the great man says, 90% of psychology… I feel like at that top level, it’s almost 100% psychology. You’re talking about the best women in the world, and I remember 2009, it was in Germany called Challenge Roth, and we had a lead car with the world record flashing in front of our face about 100 meters up road. I was riding with the four-time world champion, Chrissie Wellington, and it kept showing us, “You are two minutes in front of the world record.” If that’s not motivation, what is? I’d never seen that before, and I was like, “Shit, we’re in front of the world record,” and we came off the bike together. No, she got me off the bike by about eight or 10 minutes, and I ran a 255 marathon off the bike. So, it goes swim, bike, run, for, Kyle, the people that don’t know it.
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah. It’s 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, get off and run a marathon, and now I think, how the hell did I do that? But I ran a 255 and quite run her down. I finished about… I think it was like eight minutes behind, and we’d both broken the world record, but because she crossed and set the world record before me, it was a new world record once I’d actually crossed the line. I still broke the original world record, but I can’t really say I set it because I still got beaten on that day. To think that we broke the world record and I still got beat, but she ended being one of the best. She was the best female Ironman athlete in the world, Chrissie Wellington from the UK.
Rebekah Keat:
So, I just think, honestly, Kyle, one thing that would stand out is, honestly, just knowing that failure is a big part of it, and failing a lot, and I did… I was very fortunate. I was very talented. When you’re talking about the top 1% of high-performance sport as an elite athlete, two millimeters can make a difference. Every .1% makes a difference, and I was fully immersed for 22 years. The world record came, my biggest wins came around… I got a rookie world record in 2004 in my first Ironman, so they had a record for first-time competitors, and I didn’t even know until I crossed the line a day later that they said, “You just set new rookie world record.” I said, “What’s that?” and they said, “It’s the fastest time ever by a first-time rookie in an Ironman.”
Rebekah Keat:
Someone just beat me not that long ago. I was like, okay, and at the time it’s crazy that I didn’t really appreciate it. Looking back, I think it’s insane, what I did, but I never appreciated it at the time, but it’s just constant dedication. The first 10 years of my life in the sport of triathlon, I was so obsessed and so immersed that I honestly, unless I was… Even when I was sick I would train, which is not advised, but in the first 10 years, the only time I had a day off was if I was flying or in transition somewhere at an airport. I did not have one day off. It was a mental thing. It’s ridiculous to think that I couldn’t take a day off, and I don’t advise that either [crosstalk 00:14:31]
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Well, hang on a second because I want to talk about two things you said. One, I remember reading about Bill Gates, and it was like 12 years he didn’t take a day off. Right?
Rebekah Keat:
Right. Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
I think a lot of people end up focusing on the end product. Okay, you’re a champion. Right?
Rebekah Keat:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kyle Zagrodzky:
What they don’t see, what people don’t appreciate is the struggle at the time, all the things that you go, and the dedication to build it. We see you, the end product of developing your body and winning all these awards and all that kind of thing. What we don’t see it, okay, someone didn’t take a day off. The other thing you said I think was interesting, I think that we end up getting a big goal or a why that drives us in whatever it is we’re doing. It could be business. It could be athletics or anything like that, and that’s kind of the image you have in your mind, and I’m going to take it a little out of context here, but I like the quote, and I use it a little bit differently than how it’s intended, but my people perish, for they have no vision.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
The way that I use that is if you don’t know where you’re doing, you’re just a ship without a rudder, and I think the other thing you said, and it just reminded me of a story, so I’m glad you brought it up, is that pace car in front of you telling you right then, in the moment, why you’re doing the race. This is where you stand as it relates to the world record. What a motivator, and I think that you have your big-
Rebekah Keat:
[crosstalk 00:15:56] I tell you.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
What’s that?
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
What’d you say?
Rebekah Keat:
The Germans are just so awesome. They’re so into the sport. They were lining the street five deep, the tour, the entire race. I mean, any triathlete that hasn’t done Challenge Roth, you’ve got to do it.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah.
Rebekah Keat:
[crosstalk 00:16:14]
Kyle Zagrodzky:
I’ve really come to appreciate both the subtle and major nuances between the cultures, and Germans are an interesting people. We could talk about Germans for a long time, and they’re so meticulous.
Rebekah Keat:
I’m a quarter German, so take it easy on me. [crosstalk 00:16:29]
Kyle Zagrodzky:
No, no, no. My wife’s part German. They’re so meticulous. They’re so smart. They’re very driven people. I mean, there’s a lot of things to respect about the Germans, so I’m not going to pick on Germans.
Rebekah Keat:
Well, it’s great for them when two girls break the world record. We’re all over the fricken newspapers, so it was great for the race. Then everyone wanted to go to the race to get PRs, but not everyone gets PRs there. But yeah, it was good for everyone.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Well, I think one of the just even initial takeaways as I’m talking to you that’s been kind of important in my life too is I have my big goal, but then I have my daily goals, I have my morning goals, and sometimes I have my hourly goals, and setting really tiny bites of achievement to do throughout the day, they all feed the large vision of where I’m going. That’s kind of the thing, my big why driver. But sometimes it’s just very small, short-term things like having the pace car out in front of you, so to speak, of this is what I’m going to do, this is my morning routine, and I know it’s a victory when I’ve achieved the last of that morning routine, it’s a mindset, it’s a motion set for my day, and I would imagine… I can’t even imagine, actually. I take that back. I can’t imagine. I’ll be honest. I can’t imagine the amount of hours of dedication per day towards becoming a world-class champion like you’ve done. What did a training week look like for you when you were knee-deep in it?
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah. Well, I started at six-day, Kyle, and I honestly am dead serious, swear of my grave, that I don’t remember having one day off in the first 10 years unless it was on a flight or something, but for me, I found myself, and I found a love… I don’t think I really loved myself, and I remember ringing Siri, and she said, “You’ve got to love yourself,” and I was quite immature emotionally. I was like 30, 31, and I was like, “Love yourself? That’s cocky,” and I didn’t get what she meant, and I really didn’t have a love for myself. I was so driven by still trying to find myself, and I guess I was still coming to terms with being gay and coming out, and hadn’t really met the love of my life yet, and now I have, thank God. But I hadn’t, and I was pretty emotionally immature and unstable, and I think this sport was where I at least found myself and I had certainty, and somewhat, I guess, then a significance as well, but it’s that drive to just achieve and achieve.
Rebekah Keat:
I was so focused on achieving and being in the process and talking about the world record, it’s funny how we did that flashing, but in the race for me, I don’t know what Chrissie was thinking, but I was never thinking, “I want to break the world record. I want to break the world record. I want to break the world record.” I was like, “This is fricken awesome.” I was like, “I want to put every power into every pedal stroke, into every second of every minute of this race, as hard as I can, with as most exertion, and just see what I can do.” I really wasn’t thinking about the world record. It was great motivation. I was like, we’re going really well here, but it was in that moment… When you’re at that level, you are trying to giving everything in every single moment for eight hours and 39 fricken minutes, and that’s so mentally hard.
Rebekah Keat:
To prepare for that, I prepared myself for so many years beforehand. That was ’09, so I’d already been doing it for, 2006, 13 years, so I was pretty prepared, but you’ve got to be able to put yourself through that pain and that mental fortitude so many times in training, and overcome so many failures just to train your mindset for that, and the pain tolerance, I think a lot of it is innate. It can be trained, for sure, but Siri and I laugh about athletes because some athletes just… Her, she’s a great example. Their pain threshold just is not at that level that it should be at, and they’re age-groupers, so a lot of them do it for fun, but you can see straightaway whether this person is going to really, really achieve in the sport or if they’ve got enough talent to get there, but they’re not going to quite make it. You can see that straightaway, and it all comes down to their mental strength and how much they’re willing to suffer, really. It sounds awful, but it’s the truth.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah, it’s true. Two things I remember, my brother, I have three older brothers, and my oldest brother, he decided he wanted to run a marathon, so his wife bought him a ticket to participate in some San Francisco marathon, and it was rated a hard marathon, and he’d never ran a marathon before, but he trained for it. He followed all the protocols, was super dedicated. He went and ran it, and he says, “It was horrible.” He says, “There’s hills. It was 40, 50-mile-an-hour gusts of wind.” He says, “Just as you go over a hill, you’re going downhill, and you get smacked in the face with this gust of wind that just makes it just as hard to run downhill as it was uphill.”
Rebekah Keat:
Oh, that’s not fun. They’re hard enough. Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
So, he got to 21, 22 miles, and he said he just wanted to cry and quit. He’s like, “I was done.” Then a woman he was training, who was, I guess, hired as a coach, she had a group of women she was taking through their first or second marathon, and she was running past him, and so he just kind of leaned on her willpower, and she would make these goals. “Okay, see that rock right there? We’re going to run to that rock. Okay? We made it to the rock. Celebrate. Okay. See that tree right there? We’re going to run to that tree,” and he’s like, “If it wasn’t for…” He goes, “I thanked her profusely afterwards.”
Kyle Zagrodzky:
He’s like, “I was so done emotionally,” and as you stated, it is so mental, and I think that it’s that way kind of in everything we do, in any endeavor you’re trying to get, and we as human beings, there’s so many things we just protect ourselves from because the pain of it, whether it’s emotional, whether it’s financial, whether it’s physical, whatever the thing, you think it’s bigger than it really is. Now, I will state after hearing his story and what you go through, I’m going, okay, yes, that’s pretty big. Right?
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah. It’s pretty painful, and you ask any Ironman athlete, whether they’re a highly-trained professional or an age-grouper, finishing a marathon is such an unbelievable achievement for anyone. I don’t care whether it’s an easy course or a hard course. It’s fricken powerful. You can’t cheat your way through it, and Ironman’s the same way. If you get to that… I was always got to that 18K to go, kilometers to go, and I was like, I am so in the [inaudible 00:22:49] right now, and you’ve got to do everything to not focus on the pain. You’ve got to think about the training you’ve done, cheer other people on, and we’re actually so lucky to be out there with age-groupers.
Rebekah Keat:
This is the only sport in the world other than marathon, which is very similar, but where you can start a race with the professionals. The age-groupers are on the course with you, and tell you what, they get us through the race. They’re there. We’re suffering. I could barely even say a word when I was in pain, and then they go, “Yeah, Bek. Keep going,” and they were just getting off the bike, and they’ve got eight hours of running to do, and it’s like, that’s what got me through a lot of the time. It’s so incredible to be out there in that environment. It’s one of those sports that you just can’t replicate. It’s just amazing atmosphere.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
I think just looking forward to the meal and the chocolate I would get to eat would be motivation at that point [crosstalk 00:23:35]
Rebekah Keat:
Metabolic rate and your heart rate, my heart rate, I could hear it when I was trying to sleep. You just hear it in your head because the blood pressure’s still so high when you’re asleep, and I don’t know, something must happen with the volume, and it’s just… You can’t sleep for days because you’re also drinking Red Bull and high caffeine. I used caffeinated gels. Three days, and then you have this post-Ironman… They call it post-Ironman depression, and it is a real thing, and I know you said, “Oh, it’s mental,” but it isn’t because you have this massive high where you’re going all year for this goal, whether it’s just participating or finishing or winning, and then the next day it’s like, now what? There’s this really big post-Ironman depression that people get. So, we talk about before the finish line you’re like, “I’m never doing one of these again. It’s so painful. I’m never doing it,” and then as soon as you’re done you’re like, “When’s the next one? When’s the next one?”
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Oh, my gosh.
Rebekah Keat:
That’s how it works. It’s an addiction.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
That’s pretty awesome, actually. The thing about it is you end up experiencing something that most humans on the planet never get to experience, and I think that’s probably pretty amazing. Now, you retired how long ago, two years ago?
Rebekah Keat:
Well, no. I retired after the Tony event, 2016, end of the Tony event when I realized that triathlon wasn’t my identity, and it didn’t define me, and massive transformation and massive wake-up. I was like, I want to do something that’s much more fulfilling than just winning a race. That’s really fleeting. I want to do something where we’re saving animals, we’re leaving a legacy, and I’m going to leave this planet much better than when I was here. So, that became our goal, just to save as many animals as we can.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Your next evolution will be leaving a dynasty, so we’ll see if that happens.
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah. You never know. So, you moved out of it, and you started the-
Rebekah Keat:
Team Sirius Tri Club.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Team Sirius Tri Club. Thank you. I was trying to [inaudible 00:25:29]
Rebekah Keat:
Luckily, it’s right here. [crosstalk 00:25:31]
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Oh, there you go. All I had to do was look at your shirt. I knew that. Then the Believe and Rescue Ranch, and that was a pretty interesting pivot, for you to go to coaching, and then I see your Facebook videos, and you’re out there caring for your horses and feeding them, and I think… I don’t know if it was you and your mom one time, you were sludging through the cold mud-
Rebekah Keat:
[crosstalk 00:25:51]
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Now, it’s funny. I was not raised on a farm. We actually had property, and we had horses and cows, and I raised a pig, and I’ve raised chickens, so all that… I was just telling somebody that the other day, and they were laughing at me. I’m like, “I don’t understand why that’s funny to you. I’m from Texas. That’s just kind of… Okay.”
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah, it’s life there.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
So, I’m like, okay, they were probably raised in the city and they don’t get it. Then when I see you out there doing that, to me it’s like, oh, yeah, I’ve done that. Yeah. I get it. But yeah, I think it makes you more real, when you can go and just sludge through the mud, and you’re taking care of the horse.
Rebekah Keat:
I love it.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
But you’re always so happy when you’re doing it. I just love seeing that. Like you stated, I think it’s a big deal that you’ve realized this thing that you had passion for, you achieved a pinnacle success that you probably didn’t even think was available, and you’re like, “You know what? That’s not my identity,” and then you pivoted, and so you used that mind of a, I guess, mind of a champion. You had the ability, the mastery, and then you go to Tony, and he rewires your brain, as he does, and now, tell us what kind of success you’ve seen, because you’re doing some pretty awesome stuff. You were telling me some stuff for this call. I’m taking notes like, okay, you have some stuff to teach me here.
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah. It’s crazy. Yeah. 2016 it was, and I was like, okay, I’ve realized that this sport doesn’t define me, and I love animals. What can we do? From that event, my wife convinced us… So, we bought our Business Mastery tickets. Now, thankfully, we get to attend as friends, but we bought our tickets. I was so angry with her because I was like, “$8,000 each? Oh, my god. We can’t afford that.” We didn’t have financial freedom, and we still don’t, but we’re getting towards that, but I was so upset with Siri. She comes back with this Business Mastery hat, and, “I signed us up,” and I’m like, “Oh, my god. How can we afford this?” So, we put it on our credit cards and we went to it, and from that event… I’m sorry to keep plugging Tony, but he’s changed my life.
Rebekah Keat:
We went to that event, and we created Team Sirius Tri Club. So, we realized that in order for us to be successful in saving as many animals, and originally we thought it was going to be dogs, but… I can tell you about the horse story, but we needed financial freedom or some sort of financial freedom to increase our business, so we started Team Sirius Tri Club, and Tony actually jumped onto our first live when we launched, and we were so excited, “Tony’s on the line.” That was pretty cool. We had got about, I think, 130 members just in the first few months, and now we have over 400, and we grew it 400% in the first year. From that, within a few months from there, we started… I think it was March 17th, we started Believe Ranch & Rescue, rescuing horses from slaughter, and we were the crazy women… They talk about crazy cat women. We were the crazy horse women.
Rebekah Keat:
We weren’t really horse… I wasn’t a lot involved with horses. We had horses as kids, but I didn’t know a ton about them. I just knew I loved them, and so did Siri. We’re both huge animal lovers, and we had four horses on a two-acre property. People thought we were crazy. Convinced our neighbors to lease land, had another eight, and then the first year we saved 32 horses from slaughter, more than any other small rescue in the states. Then we realized, this is crazy. We can’t keep trying to lease land and have horses all over the place, so we then bought a property in Longmont, and now we have 25 rescues, and we’ve rescued 117 horses from slaughter in the last three years. That was honestly all started with creating our Tri Club to get that financial freedom to be out there, to really have that little bit of luxury, and we learned all the tools on what we could use to create our (c)(3), so our charity. Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
That’s super amazing. You and Siri are a conversation around my house frequently. I have three sons, and two of them… They all love animals, but two of them are animal lovers, and then my youngest one is super passionate. When he was about four years old, he was looking at me, and he was like, “So, Dad, why don’t we have horses?” and I’m like, “Well, we live in a neighborhood,” and this kind of thing, and he’s like, “You work all the time, right?” I was like, “Well, yeah. I mean, I work. That’s what I do,” and he says, “And you don’t have a ranch, and we don’t have horses,” and then he just kind of shook his head and he says, “Don’t worry, Dad. I’ll let you and Mom come move on my ranch.” So, him and my oldest son have this dream of having a ranch-
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah. Oh, I love it.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
… rescuing horses, rescuing dogs. They want to do that. That’s going to be the thing we do, and we’ll have our money thing, and I’m going, “You know what? We’re going to take a trip up to Boulder, and I’m going to bring my whole family, and we’re going to come bug you,” but-
Rebekah Keat:
That would be amazing. I love them even more now. Well, when they’re ready to start, we can have a little mini Believe Ranch & Rescue. They can [crosstalk 00:30:45]
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah.
Rebekah Keat:
Well, you know how to run a franchise, Kyle. We’ll have a Believe Ranch & Rescue franchise. There you go.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
I’ll set it up for you. We’ll make it happen. Got some exciting things going on, and I can’t talk about it now, but [crosstalk 00:31:00]
Rebekah Keat:
Okay. [crosstalk 00:31:01]
Kyle Zagrodzky:
But I’ve got some stuff. We may be able to work something out. Anyway, now, getting back into your mindset, because you were thrown a serious challenge this past… I can remember when we actually first heard. It’s been over 12 months, I guess, but your wife Siri was diagnosed with cancer, and then that, of course, shifts everything and what you do. So, I’m sitting here, and I see her, and I see she’s in remission now and getting better and stronger all the time, and my wife and I, we’ve prayed for you guys so many times. I can’t even tell you. We still do.
Rebekah Keat:
We feel it. We feel it, Kyle. I feel like the whole universe is praying for my wife. Yeah. Last year in November… I mean, my wife’s the healthiest person you’ll ever meet, and you just never expect it to happen to you. I’ve known plenty of people who have been diagnosed with cancer, but when we heard that she wasn’t even 50, and they said, “You have acute myeloid leukemia,” I actually think I was in more shock and more upset than she was. She straightaway went into, “I will survive this,” and I was like, “I’m going to lose my wife.” I was just terrified, and undoubtedly the hardest thing we’ve ever been through.
Rebekah Keat:
Thankfully, with COVID… COVID’s been a real blessing, honestly, in so many ways, not to sound [inaudible 00:32:27], but for us it actually has because the hospital allowed my wife to come home just before they stopped allowing visitors. She would’ve been in there for a bone marrow transplant on her own, and they allowed her in there. They let her out 60 days early, and she got to come home to the ranch and heal with our horses, and it was the biggest gift we could ever have had. We’re in a real bubble here, which is great because she’s immunocompromised still from her bone marrow transplant, and she went into remission. We got a bone marrow biopsy about two months ago, and they said, “You’re absolutely cancer-free.” So, my wife gets to live, so I get to live. I don’t know what I’d do without her, but undoubtedly… She used to think winning the World Championship was the hardest thing she’s done, but this doesn’t even compare.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah.
Rebekah Keat:
Being a caregiver, it’s tough on you too. I have to really learn to sort of take care of myself while I took care of her, and we had amazing support from her mom and her family. Without that, I don’t know where I would be. My mom came over to stay to help with me, and she said, “Oh, my god. You’re so thin,” and I didn’t even think I was, and she said, “You need to weigh yourself. I’ve got to fatten you up.” So, she literally came over to start feeding me, and I hadn’t realized I had lost about 10 pounds too, but I didn’t even know at the time because Siri lost about 20. It was just all that adrenaline. I was eating, but I just wasn’t taking care of myself. So, we both had to learn to receive, which is not the easiest thing for two givers, and definitely not easy for my wife, but she got to a point where she could barely get out of bed, so she had to learn to receive, and that was the biggest gift, for sure, for us. Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah. I’m sorry you guys had to go through that. I know that everybody’s going to be really curious in hearing the journey and the stuff that she did because of your relationship with Tony and so many other amazing human beings you’ve met on this journey, that you were able to implement a lot of techniques that has allowed her to recover faster, heal faster, have her immune system recover faster, and I believe we’re doing a podcast with her, and I’m going to really dig in with her on that. I mean, she-
Rebekah Keat:
She was honestly so upset that she couldn’t do OsteoStrong. I think she was actually glad that no one was allowed to do it because they had to close it for a little while here, but the first thing she says is, “Well, can we go to OsteoStrong?” I said, “We’re not going in there with people. It’s too dangerous for you.” She was so mad, and then they actually opened it up. Brian opened it up for us to come in privately and just do a one-on-one, and I’m so jealous. She’s fricken benching more than me now, Kyle, and I’ve got guns. Look at these. My wife does not have guns like this and she’s doing 80-70, and I’m doing like 80-50. So, anyone who knows OsteoStrong, she’s only 120 pounds, so I’m so jealous.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Those are really great numbers, but men are blessed with a better upper body strength, but I get to see everybody’s numbers. You’re very strong, and-
Rebekah Keat:
Thank you.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
… we’re very proud of that performance.
Rebekah Keat:
She’s still stronger than me, though. I’m not competitive at all.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Well, I know that’s not true. Siri is an interesting animal in and of herself in that she’s also a world champion triathlete trainer. When she started in triathlon training, she didn’t know how to swim. She was like, “I want to be a triathlete, and I hear there’s a swim thing. I need to learn how to do that,” and then she goes off and wins first place a couple years in a row, and she’s just amazing. Is she going to write a book or anything about her cancer journey or anything like that, of what she did and how she addressed it? Because I think that’s a topic that people really relate to.
Rebekah Keat:
She should, yeah. I told her that. She has to do the second book. She’s done one. It only gets up to the point where we met. I was actually upset because I didn’t make it until the last page, and I’m like, “Hey, you got to do a book two. You got to talk about us [inaudible 00:36:14]” I’m kidding. But she is going to do one because I just think her journey, and as hard as it was, and the crazy thing is, and she’ll talk about this, is that the doctors never said this to her, but the truth was afterwards they did, and they said, “You had less than a 10% chance.” Most people have about a 10% with the acute leukemia that she had. She actually had two genetic disorders as well, mutations, and the reason why she had to do the trial was because normal conventional way of chemotherapy and radiation would not have cured her cancer.
Rebekah Keat:
She would’ve maybe hit remission, but it probably would’ve come back, and she may not even have hit remission. So, the crazy thing is that God blessed, or the universe, or whoever you want to believe in… We were at UC Health. They had a trial that even someone her age wasn’t supposed to do. They allowed her to do it, and her insurance covered it. We saw a $1.3 million bill, and we thought that we had to pay it, and then it said paid. I was like, thank you. It’s just crazy, all the-
Kyle Zagrodzky:
I think you guys probably would’ve been able to raise the money. We would’ve stepped in to help.
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah. We actually did quite well with our GoFundMe. Actually, that paid for a lot of our outside stays at the hospital and everything, but in taking care of our horses, we had to hire a full-time ranch hand because I just couldn’t do everything. I wanted to be there with her. But yeah, she’s in remission, and so many gifts from that struggle, but I’ll let her share that with you. But she literally had less than, I would say, I think about a 5% chance, less than 10%, for sure, and she’s here, and she’s got a lot more to do in this world.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah. Oh, cancer scares the hell out of everybody because in the case of Siri and so many others, we dedicate October to breast cancer awareness month. Why? Because it is so random. It’s like getting struck by lightning, except your chances are a lot better of getting, or a lot worse, I guess, of getting cancer, and so it seems so random. We do all these things, many of us do, to lead a healthy lifestyle, and then you’re thinking, yeah, but it could still happen. Right?
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Several years ago, I started getting my blood tested every six months, and I test all my blood markers, and I-
Rebekah Keat:
Good. Yeah. [crosstalk 00:38:23] That’s how we found out. Yep.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
You have to because you just can’t see. It gives you information you otherwise would never get, and I’m actually in a 48-hour fast right now. I’m probably about 47, 44 hours into it. It’s just-
Rebekah Keat:
Aren’t you starving? You don’t get hungry, though, Kyle. So, this is the mental strength that I don’t have, and I should have it as a former elite athlete. I cannot fast. I keep saying, “I’m going to do it tomorrow,” and then I start, I get to 16 hours, and then I crack, and that’s being so honest. I can’t do it.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
So, let me give you a-
Rebekah Keat:
I can, but I haven’t been able to.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
So, I’ll give you a couple hacks that will help you fast, and I’ll tell you this first.
Rebekah Keat:
Please do. I’m going to take notes here.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So, there’s three things that will help ease your fast. One, coffee.
Rebekah Keat:
Oh, you can do coffee?
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Black coffee. Yeah. Now, if it was a religious fast, that’s a different thing, so if you’re just saying, “Okay, I’m going to really-“
Rebekah Keat:
It’s like a cleanse. It kills all your dead cells. I want to do this. It kills-
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah, yeah. You want to do a fasting. Fasting, for those of you who don’t know, sends you into autophagy after 24 hours, and then it ramps up over time, and autophagy is where your cells are just dumping toxins and cleansing themselves.
Rebekah Keat:
Cleaning, yeah. You can cure cancer from that, Kyle. I’ve been reading a lot about this. Siri thinks I’m crazy because I’m like, “Yeah. None of us are getting cancer,” and it starts cleaning… It cleanses the cancer cells out. I’ve seen women go into remission just, and I would’ve advise this, but just from diet and cleansing and being ketogenic. It cured their cancer.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yep, yep.
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
So, fasting, so coffee-
Rebekah Keat:
Okay. Coffee, right.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
… carbonated water.
Rebekah Keat:
Oh, yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
The other thing that you want to do is you want to start getting away from carbs because what ends up happening is your mitochondria, they send this signal… They love carbs. Your liver loves carbs, and if you’re not in ketosis, you get all these signals from your liver and your mitochondrial telling your brain, “I’m hungry. I’m hungry. I’m hungry,” and so it intensifies. So, if you’ve been eating any carbs, you just really want to cut carbs out before you do your first one where you just go ketogenic diet, and then you skip breakfast, and then just eat protein lunch and dinner, and this kind of thing, drink your coffee and that kind of thing, and there’s all kinds of healthy coffee stuff you could do. RPG Coffee is amazing. I think you guys might… Chris Capozzoli with RPG Coffee-
Rebekah Keat:
I don’t know him.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
I got to get you some of this. It’d be great for Siri, too.
Rebekah Keat:
Is it organic, though? Because I’m really-
Kyle Zagrodzky:
It’s organic, and it’s got acemannan in it, which is this extract from… I’m getting off base here, but it’s just extract from aloe vera, and acemannan is their weird molecule that your body is designed to receive and work with, that you’re born with, and it’s in your mother’s milk and this kind of thing, but you still have this receptor in there that only acemannan could actually lock to, and they only make this special derivative in Texas, and he puts it in his coffee, and he did that because… RPG stands for Real People Giving. They give so much to veterans and this kind of thing, and this guy, you’re going to love… I’m actually surprised you don’t know Chris Capozzoli.
Rebekah Keat:
Okay. [crosstalk 00:41:43]
Kyle Zagrodzky:
He is a super cool guy.
Rebekah Keat:
All right. Me and Sage Robbins go back with the best coffee, and she’s gone off coffee right now, and I always look for new organic and where it’s grown and how it’s grown, and I found this Lifeboost one, and it’s nonacidic, because I also have had my own GI issues and leaky gut, if you want to call it, and I found one that I like, but I’m obsessed with finding one that’s really good for you, and that sounds great. Yeah. I’d like to talk about that after this.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Totally.
Rebekah Keat:
We’re getting sidetracked here.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Once you’re in ketosis, fasting is easier because your hunger spikes don’t happen. You don’t get hangry or hungry and angry at the same time. When people experience that-
Rebekah Keat:
Oh, yeah. I get hangry.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
… it’s because your liver is not in ketosis. Your living is burning glucose, and when there’s no glucose, you get this signal like, “I’m starving. Feed me now.” I remember the very first time I did a fast, I was stressed out. I was stressed. I was just like, okay, and I was just all day long thinking I’m going to get so angry, because if I wasn’t eating I’d get angry, and I’m like, I don’t like being angry. That’s not who I am. Now 20-hour fast is no big deal. I just never eat until dinnertime, and then I just eat two steaks or whatever, and then-
Rebekah Keat:
Two steaks, no veggies, nothing?
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Sometimes my wife will make a salad or something, but sometimes I’ll just… I remember I went in and got two bone-in rib eyes. They were that big, and I remember the waiting was like, “I’ve never seen anybody…” Dr. Jacobs was with me, and we each ordered two, and we both completely devoured them, and the guy was just like-
Rebekah Keat:
Well, I don’t eat meat.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
The waiters were coming over and taking pictures because they’re like, “I’ve never seen another human being eat like this.” I just haven’t eaten in 24 hours, and I’ve been freaking out.
Rebekah Keat:
Oh, my god.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
But yeah. When you get in ketosis first and start training your body, weaning your body off cards, that’s a big deal. Coffee and carbonated water will help you mitigate your fast, but the one… A 24-hour fast to me is like nothing, or I don’t do 24. I do about 18, 20, and then I’ll feast, and then I’ll kind of nibble for a couple hours. But the 48-hour fast is harder for me, and the reason why it is, what I found is it’s very emotional for me. It’s like my happy place to sit down and have a meal with my family at night. So, when I skip that the first night, it’s just kind of… I’m like a ship without a rudder. I’m like, what am I supposed to do right now? I’m just watching people eat, and we’re preparing-
Rebekah Keat:
Right, right. Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Then when you’re preparing food for the kids, talk about hard.
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
You’re just dying.
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
But for whatever reason, when you wake up the next morning, you’re not even hungry. Your stomach has shrunk, your brain is reset, and you don’t… Right now, I don’t know, what time is it now? It’s almost 5:00 my time, I guess, and I’m just now starting to feel hungry, and so in a couple hours I’ll be eating dinner. That’ll be 48 hours. [crosstalk 00:44:46]
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah. I do intermittent, and I won’t talk about it anymore after this, but I do intermittent fasting every day, and I feel like I feel a little… I’m convinced that I have biohacked my going into ketosis. I’ll biohack my autophagy by I work out fasted, and my [inaudible 00:45:02], our nutritionist, said that is a way to hack in 24 hours. If you can work out, and it hits hard, 45 minutes, all that workout, I do that most days, and then I feel like I’m forcing that autophagy, only I reckon I can hit it by that 16 hours if I do a fasted workout without having to do the whole 24. That’s my theory, anyway.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
You get in ketosis faster when you work out, a hit workout or high-intensity workout, and it doesn’t even take that long. You have to burn the glucose that’s stored in your muscle cells, so you have to use them, otherwise you’re just on this slow burn. It could take 24 hours and all this stuff. So, I’ll just do my squats in the mornings, squats or deadlifts first thing, and I hate squats. I always hated them. I was bitching about them to my wife last night. I’m like, “I never like them,” and it’s one of my morning routine things just because I always… Tony taught me this thing, and I know you remember it, and he says, “I don’t let my mind tell me what to do,” and I love that because it’s like… I almost say that to myself probably now… I used to say it every day, and now it’s every once or twice a week because whenever my mind says, “Not today,” and I’m like, “Who do you think you’re talking to?”
Rebekah Keat:
[crosstalk 00:46:17] Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
I’m in charge of me. We’re doing squats. So, I like to do them in the morning because it just starts me out with a crazy victory for the day. It’s one of my morning things I do.
Rebekah Keat:
[crosstalk 00:46:26] I agree. I feel like you should always try and work out in the morning. I had athletes telling me the other day, I’ve been helping some girls that are just starting weight loss and fitness, and they’re telling me that they’re doing their workouts at… One said 11:00 or 12:00 at night. I’m like, “Oh, my god. What are you doing?” She said, “Well, I work until 6:00, and then…” I’m like, “No, you’re not working out at midnight. That is ridiculous.” Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Well, now today I haven’t worked out yet because I’m on a 48-hour fast, so what I’ll do is I’ll do my workout right before I eat, and I think that… It’s just a theory, and [inaudible 00:47:01] and I were talking about this once, and he says, “Think about when we were ancient beings and we had to go hunt for food. You didn’t eat until you expended physical energy.” So, his theory was if you do a physical expenditure, that your body’s probably then expected and ore probably biochemically ready to receive a meal, so I’ll go hit my workout here in about an hour and get that craziness done.
Rebekah Keat:
Yep, yep.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Those are some pretty… Then the other thing about it is they’re simple biohacks, and I think as you stated, I do them because I don’t see inside of my body all the time. I don’t want to deal with what you and Siri had to do deal with. So, I do a 48-hour fast about once every other week or two, and the rest of the time I’m just eating once a day for three hours, and it gives your body time to rest and repair, and you’re not just stressing out your system and overloading it. Man, I get sharp as a tack throughout the day. I don’t have crashes. My mind is still just as sharp as it was when I’m done with my day and I turn off the computer and all that stuff. I’m just still on, but if I eat lunch now, it’s like, I don’t want to do anything.
Rebekah Keat:
I have a mental clarity thing that I struggle with as well, a mental focus, so maybe I need to try a longer fast. I’m going to give it a crack. I made my mom and sister do it, and I told them I was going to do it, and then I never did it, and they did it, and they made it through the 24 hours. They were like, “How did you go?” I was like, “I didn’t do it.”
Kyle Zagrodzky:
It was really easy.
Rebekah Keat:
They were like, “What?”
Kyle Zagrodzky:
I didn’t do it.
Rebekah Keat:
I know. So, you’re motivating me and now. When Siri’s better, I’ve said to her, “Babe, we need to do this autophagy. You are never getting cancer again. We are doing everything. We’re doing OsteoStrong, BioCharge, PDMF, diet, organic, gluten-free, dairy-free, but you need to do a fast as well.” Right now, she’s so little and skinny, she can’t afford to do that, but we’ll be doing that.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Hey, she should be taking, by the way, just now, Fortagen. Do you take Fortagen?
Rebekah Keat:
Mm-mm (negative).
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Oh, my gosh. We’re talking about so much crazy stuff on this podcast. I hope people aren’t getting sick of it.
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah, I know. [crosstalk 00:49:09] It’s okay because then I can share it, and my athletes will love this stuff.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
No, this is stuff you want. So, if you take an amino acid supplement or whey protein, even really quality stuff, you’re only really getting 40% of it, and there was a group of doctors that went out and created a… It’s not a new amino acid. It’s still amino acids, but an absorbable amino acid. It’s 99% absorbable, and they created it for cancer patients because when cancer patient start losing muscle mass, it could be like a death knell because you’re just getting so much metabolic disfunction. Your body can’t process as much blood glucose when you’re losing muscle mass. That’s why people get type two diabetes, and you want to be able to process blood glucose, especially when you have cancer, because glucose is cancer food. Right?
Rebekah Keat:
Right, exactly.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
So, to be losing muscle mass is horrible. You do not want that. In fact, side note, societies that lived the longest, people and cultures that lived the longest throughout time had… Muscle mass and bone density were the two biggest factors towards a long life, so those are two things you want. So, what they did is they made this product, this amino acid product for cancer patients, and then they didn’t know how to market it or whatever, and they’d even give it to an endurance athlete who went and did a four-day hike through the desert, and all the athlete consumed was this amino acid. They increased their muscle mass and decreased their body fat.
Rebekah Keat:
[crosstalk 00:50:38]
Kyle Zagrodzky:
So, when I fast, I’ll do this Fortagen, and I don’t get anything for it. I’m not plugging it because I get a commission. John should buy just… He’ll just buy me my next steak dinner, probably. It’s super effective, and you get it off x3bar.com. That’s where they sell it. Anyway, back to you, though we’ve been talking a lot of crazy stuff here.
Rebekah Keat:
Can we just talk about John really quick? Because the reason why I loved Kyle was because he had massive biceps, and yeah, but I was like, they are awesome arms, and then I saw John, and I was like, OMG. Look at his arms. Anyway, had to tell you that.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
John’s a funny guy because I’ve got really great… People said I’ve got… Maybe I shouldn’t be talking about this. The way I’m built, I had a lot of definition, and I’m not as big as John. John’s probably 270 pounds now, and 7% body fat, and I’m not nearly on that level, but he looks, and he’s like, “Dude, your biceps look amazing,” and he’s like, “I wish my biceps looked like yours.” I said, “Your bicep is bigger around than my thigh.” He’s like, “I know,” but he’s like, “You’re just kind of… You could be a bodybuilder,” and I’m like, “I’m not going to be a bodybuilder. I don’t want to do that.”
Rebekah Keat:
[crosstalk 00:51:52]
Kyle Zagrodzky:
My clothes fit now.
Rebekah Keat:
Right. Really good.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
So, real quick, two things I want to end with, because this has been super fun, and part of it’s I just miss you and seeing you guys and all this.
Rebekah Keat:
[crosstalk 00:52:03]
Kyle Zagrodzky:
So sad I couldn’t see you when I was in Denver. Another time. We’ll get-
Rebekah Keat:
But I want you to bring your kids next time.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Oh, I will. I’ll definitely bring them. All right.
Rebekah Keat:
We’re starting equine therapy, as well as doing some horse union connection events as well, so we’ll have to bring you out for one of those.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Done, done. Count me in. Just say when you’re doing it, and we will make the time. I’ll pull them out of school. I don’t care. It’s just grades. So, real quick, let’s take a look five years ahead right now because you’ve got… This cancer is now behind you. You’ve got this great foundation of the growing success and the hundreds of thousands of people that you guys were able to connect through, all the marketing and media stuff that you’ve learned, and you’re on your way in a trajectory that I think people just dream about. What do the next five years look like for you and Siri.
Rebekah Keat:
Wow. Well, definitely pass the Safe Act Bill, and for those of you who don’t know, when we started Believe Ranch & Rescue, we realized we were rescuing horses from this barbaric practice of horse slaughter, and don’t Google horse slaughter because you’ll start honestly rescuing horses, and that’s why we started it.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
I do want to mention something about that, because I talk about eating steak a lot. Look, I love animals too. I get it, and the way that when… I don’t want to be gross here, but the way that cows get slaughtered, it’s not that big of an event for the cow. I mean, you’re still taking the life of an animal, and I do respect the animal, and what I eat, I don’t eat it blindly without realizing that, but with the way that a horse slaughter is, it’s very, very painful for the horse because of the way their brain sets in their skull, and it’s kind of upsetting, and horses are kind of a different sort of being. I’ve had cows and I’ve had horses, and cows are fine, but there is something different about horses, and when I talk to horse people… So, horse people know what that means, and I used to be a… I’m still a horse people.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
I don’t have horses now, but they’re kind of amazing animals, and you do develop a kindred spirit with them, and they have the ability to sense human emotion in very unusual ways. You got to spend time around a horse if you ever get a chance. Go visit their ranch or other people who do similar kind of stuff. They’re kind of cool animals. So, I appreciate… Just like dogs. I mean, Americans, and you’re an Australian, I don’t know about your Australians, but you Australians, you are cowboys too, so maybe you’re the same as we are, but Americans are animal lovers in general. We love our dogs. We love our cats. We love our horses. In general, we’re animal people. So, I appreciate it. So, you got this five-year plan. I interrupted you because you were-
Rebekah Keat:
No, that’s okay. No, animals are sentient being, and it’s crazy. I remember reading a study a couple years ago saying animals have feelings. I’m like, why are they just publishing this? Animal lovers know they have feelings. That’s a ridiculous statement to make, but they do, and horses actually… I don’t agree with slaughtering any animals, especially the factory farming. Look out because that’s our next goal, Kyle. Watch this space. But once we do… So, we created [crosstalk 00:55:12]
Kyle Zagrodzky:
What’s your next goal?
Rebekah Keat:
Stopping factory farming, any factory farming. It’s got to stop.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah. I mean, you have a happier animal if they’re living in a pasture.
Rebekah Keat:
[crosstalk 00:55:21] We drive past some of these out here in Colorado, and I can’t even look. It’s like horse slaughter just stays in your mind. But people say, “Why not chickens and hogs and all of that?” So, the reason is… Of course, we want to save every animal from inhumane, barbaric slaughter, but there’s no such thing as humane slaughter of horses. I grew up on a dairy farm. I grew up on a cattle farm, horses, sheep, cows, and the cows were slaughtered for human consumption, and not that this makes it right, but the captive bolt that they use, I don’t want to go into detail, but they stun them, and they feel nothing. Horses, they don’t stun them. This miss 75% of the time, and they’re dismembered alive half the time, and this is why it was stopped and closed in the US. We are very, very lucky that from this actual same thing, this event that we started, we realized that saving horses is incredible, but let’s see if there’s a bill we can pass to actually end horse slaughter.
Rebekah Keat:
So, last year we created our 501(c)(4), our lobbying fund called In Our Hands Action Fund, or Horses in Our Hands on social media, if anyone wants to look this up, and we realized we can get a bill passed, and this has been sitting in both committees in the Senate and in the House, and in the Senate for 20 years, and it has not been passed by any big animal groups. Everybody’s said, “You’ll never do it.” It’s called the Safe American Food Export Act, but it will ban the slaughter of horses here, because it’s not banned here. It’s just closed down. It’s being defunded because foreign-owned, and why should we pay taxpayers’ money being used for USDA inspections? That’s another rabbit hole we won’t go down because people say, “Well, it’s our taxpayers’ money.” It’s like, yeah, that’s why they shouldn’t be here, because they’re foreign-owned slaughterhouses.
Rebekah Keat:
So, they’re being closed here, but it’s not banned. We ship 60,000 horses a year to slaughter, and we created In Our Hand Action Fund to end that and to pass this bill called the Safe Act, and we have since made… We started an online campaign with some amazing celebrities. Willie Nelson, his family, they’re amazing. Melissa Etheridge, Jules Hough, Tony have all got behind this, Julianne Hough. So many amazing celebrities have gotten behind us, and we have managed to have… It’s actually up to 91,000 emails sent to legislators to tell them that… Legislators, sorry, the constituents all go onto our website, Horses in Our Hands, click ban slaughter, and it’ll literally automate it for you. We send an email on your behalf. We’ve sent 90,000 emails to legislators to tell them to cosponsor this deal and finally pass it after 20 years. This has never been done by ASPCA, Humane Society. No big groups have spent time on this. They really don’t want it passed, to be honest. If they did, they’d have it done, and we’ve raised [crosstalk 00:58:06]
Kyle Zagrodzky:
We’re supposed to live in a representative republic. Go represent the citizens. I think this is a pretty cool thing that you’re trying to get done, so kudos.
Rebekah Keat:
Yep. I know I sound really passionate about it, but it’s so important, and the bill’s sitting there. It can go to the floor for a vote. 80% of Americans want it, and that’s why we’re working right now with equine, because we are just such horse lovers, and people say, “What about other animals?” It’s like, well, let’s work on a bill that 80% of Americans want. It’s bipartisan and has enough cosponsors, yet it’s sitting in both committees for not really other than there’s never been enough public awareness about it. So, we’ve actually had 14 million people reached on social media with our campaign, and Nancy Pelosi’s heard about it, and I really do think we can pass this bill, and that will hopefully be before five years, Kyle. I can see that happening in the next 12 months, at the longest. But next five years, I think our next mission will be working with saving rescued and abused animals, expanding our farm here, our ranch here. We’re hoping to get probably nextdoor, and to get 100 acres extra, and just expanding that into a retreat center with equine therapy.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
I guarantee you at least one, if not two, of my sons are going to come be interns at your rescue ranch.
Rebekah Keat:
Perfect. We’ll take them.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
That’s it.
Rebekah Keat:
We’ll take them.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Oh, yeah. Take them and put them to work. I mean, honestly, just abuse them.
Rebekah Keat:
Yep. Yep. We would love to. They can come work with us. So, we want to have a retreat center, like a healing center, and the funny thing is part of that is, of course, having OsteoStrong, we want to have… What Siri had access to, she was so lucky when she went for the treatment because not everybody has access to that. We want it accessible to everybody, at least locally, so we’re going to have a biohacking center. It’s a terrible name, but we’re going to have a center of healing there with the horses as well, retreat center.
Rebekah Keat:
They can come and stay and really just give back to those in need, and it might be cancer patients, it might be PTSD, it might be anyone suffering from addiction, and that’s our big five-year goal, and it was kind of a 10-year goal five years ago, and we’re kind of moving toward that now, and I can just see us just touching so many more people, and just helping people heal. So, that’s our long-term goal, and Siri and I have the exact same vision. So, if we showed you a… It wasn’t really a business plan, but a vision board of what we both wanted.
Siri:
Sorry. I can’t do that.
Rebekah Keat:
That was Siri. Sorry. That was my phone. We have exactly the same vision, so it’s pretty awesome. Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
That is cool. So, before we went, and I so love it that you’re on with me today. It’s been too long, honestly, honestly, and we had to make this appointment. Then you tried to reschedule on me and all this kind of stuff.
Rebekah Keat:
Oh, my god, because we had someone adopting a horse yesterday, I think.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah. Well, I-
Rebekah Keat:
We get to see Carl for like two minutes because he’s literally on after my wife, and it’s like Siri gets off, then Carl’s like, “Hey, hey, hey,” and then, “See you,” and then Carl’s on today, so it’s like a quick transition.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
So, I think one of the great takeaways from your story is you’ve taken a very nonstandard path with your life. It’s one of the things I talk to my sons about, and they’re young. I got two teenagers and one 11-year-old, and I tell them, I said, “Look. A, I’m not your judge. I’m your God-appointed life coach, and I don’t judge you,” and I was like, “There’s no standard path now. You have more freedom to do what you want,” and I read Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss, and one of the things I thought was fascinating about the book is some people who are super famous, super wealthy now, they didn’t know what the hell they were doing until they were 40, 45 years old. Colonel Sanders who did Kentucky Fried Chicken-
Rebekah Keat:
I love that story.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
… he didn’t create that franchise until he was… I know. It’s so yummy. He didn’t create that until he was 65 years old. So, there’s not-
Rebekah Keat:
I love that story. I love that story. It’s just a good story. Tony tells it, how he got so many rejections.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah. Well, there’s nonstandard, and I think one of the things is that we cling to certainty, and we try to establish these paradigms for the way life should be, and there is no way it should be. It should be your way, and you’re going to still trip and fall down and screw up, and you’re going to make mistakes, and so what? You only get one life. Just go out there and stumble your way through it. Try to create goals. Sometimes they work out. Sometimes they don’t. The more passionate you are, the better you get, and the better they get, and the more success. You start getting traction eventually, and then the car just starts going on down the road.
Rebekah Keat:
And the universe supports you, Kyle. When you know you’re on the right path, and you know this from your business, when we decided that we were going to do something greater than ourselves, you’re healing humans, we’re healing humans through horses, the universe honestly conspires for you.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Well, I think you said it. I said it sounds almost cliché, but it’s not. When you’re serving a vision that you know is bigger than you, so OsteoStrong and what we’re doing, this isn’t Kyle Zagrodzky. I’m serving this. I’m a humble steward of the concept and what it does, and I see how it changes lives, and the stories and stuff, and it’s a get to. So, it really does become your pull energy. There’s no more push energy to get things done. It just pulls you forward.
Rebekah Keat:
Exactly.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
It’s super fun, and it’s super gratifying. You just walk around in this state of gratitude all the time. It’s fricken awesome. What is it that you would leave everybody with? I mean, you’ve led the nonstandard life, and I think that your example, as many others, but you’re unique, what would you like to tell everybody who’s watching this to leave them with, kind of what your big takeaway, or favorite quote, your story, or anything that you could say that would just make us cry, make us laugh, inspire us. It’s all on you, Bek. Just go for it.
Rebekah Keat:
I don’t really have quotes. My wife’s the queen of quotes, but I just think… It still does sound cliché, again, but if you have a deep enough love and passion for what your goal is or what you’d like to achieve, then you will not let anything get in the way, but it has to be innate. It has to be so, so deep, and you’ve got to be so connected to that mission. I never thought, how are we going to end horse slaughter? I was like, we are going to end horse slaughter, and as soon as we stated that out loud, we were like, shit, okay, let’s… Every single day, we make sure there was 100 things we’re doing that is moving towards that.
Rebekah Keat:
It doesn’t matter if it’s little or big. It’s usually pretty little, but every single day, it’s the same with training. Every day I was like, let’s get better. [inaudible 01:04:41] I can do this the best I can. I’ve got to get my compression boots on and do this and do that, but the same with what we’re doing now with saving horses. It’s like every single day just doing something towards that goal, and don’t focus on how you’re going to do it. Just do something every single day [crosstalk 01:05:00]
Kyle Zagrodzky:
I think, too, never think a goal is too big. Right?
Rebekah Keat:
Never.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
They’re always too big. Dreams are always too big.
Rebekah Keat:
They’ve got to be. They’ve got to scare the shit out of you. Excuse me.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah. If your dreams don’t scare the shit out of you, they’re too small.
Rebekah Keat:
Exactly.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
They should, and-
Rebekah Keat:
You have to state them too. I think Siri saying, “Mom, I want to be a world champion,” her mom looked at her and laughed, but you have to make that statement to the universe and to yourself, because then you’re even more driven to do it. Once we said, “We’re going to end horse slaughter,” it’s like, we’re not going back on that. I made that promise to me and to all these beautiful horses, so [crosstalk 01:05:32]
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Oh, that’s awesome. I appreciate that, and I think too that one thing that… Sometimes people don’t know what they want. Well, what if know what I want? Then that question I have back towards that is who are you, not who anybody says you are, not what grade you got in high school or college, not how you got fired or whatever from a job. Who are you? Adjectives, let’s go. Who are you? You’re a creator. You’re a mother. You’re a father. You’re an entrepreneur. You are amazing, and you have to believe that’s who you are, and when you start understanding who your essence is as a God-created being, then your passion just sort of bubbles to the surface. You’re going, “That’s who I am. That’s what I want. It’s happening. I wasn’t created for nothing. I’m going to go ahead and pull down lightning bolts and make this happen,” and that’s what you and Siri are doing, which is super cool. I love you guys so much. I’m so glad I met you at Date with Destiny that crazy week. Oh, my gosh. It’s been amazing, and seeing you guys transform-
Rebekah Keat:
I’ll never forget you saying, “I’ve got something massive,” and we were all like, “Yeah, everybody says that to us.” You were right, though.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
I was talking about my biceps. No.
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah. You were very right. But I want to thank you, Kyle, because we haven’t even gotten to talk about OsteoStrong, but I want to thank you because this is it honest truth, I actually considered going back to professional sport after that six months of OsteoStrong because I literally saw, for any athletes out there that understand this testimony, my function threshold power on the bike was higher than it was when I was… Now I’m going to give it away and everyone’s going to go, and we’re going to… They’re going to break my record again, but no. My FTP, my functional threshold of power on the bike, which is measured, and it’s something you can use a measure. That’s very specific, using the same equipment. It was higher with the same weight after six months of OsteoStrong than it was when I was fricken racing, and I was like, I’m going to make a comeback. Oh, my god.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah.
Rebekah Keat:
Now we have all the top professionals here doing it, but other gains we have seen is in Siri’s mom, 78 years old. You should see the guns on her now. They’re so lean and strong. She almost breaks our bonnet when she shuts the trunk now. I told you that story. She’s holding our little horse, our little filly who used to pull her over. I see her out there walking Angel, saying, “Come here. Come here,” because she can actually hold that string, and she a torn rotator cuff, so he’s got a lot of issues, but this has just been such a big [crosstalk 01:08:03]
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Well, I curious. I got to tell a funny story about you in a second, but you tore calf muscles. Right?
Rebekah Keat:
All the time.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
That was the injury that ended your career, right?
Rebekah Keat:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yep.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
But I’m curious how… Now, I’m assuming you’re not training like you were training in the past.
Rebekah Keat:
Not like I was, no, but probably running the same distance-wise. I have not had one calf tear. That was the other thing. I used to tweak it every three months. I had probably 20 calf strains and two or three good tears, maybe five or six every race. The last race, I limped to the finish of the marathon on a torn calf, and it’s gone. I don’t even feel a twinge. So, I actually push myself on turnovers now, even though I’m not that fit, just to see, and there’s nothing. I remember tearing it before I did Osteo at Tony Robbins events.
Rebekah Keat:
I was so dehydrated out there running, because you know how dehydrated you get, and I remember tearing it in an event before I started doing Osteo. I was like, oh, not again, and I honestly had… This is no word of a lie. I’ve had two massive disc bulges in L4 and L5 with acute sciatica my entire life, and I’ve done nothing different but OsteoStrong, and I used to be in so much pain that I would have to sit in a chair like this because it would just hurt my back. My QL, my quadratus is completely gone. It’s completely gone.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Crazy.
Rebekah Keat:
So, if you don’t do it, you’re stupid.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I remember. So, just a quick funny story, and then I’m going to end it because if anybody’s watching this-
Rebekah Keat:
Okay.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
We probably don’t have anybody watching it. They’re just going, “When are these people going to shut up?” So, I met you guys at Date with Destiny, and we were yapping along, and “What do you do? What do you do?” kind of thing, and I told you about OsteoStrong, and I’m telling you about it, and you’re like, “Okay. I’ve never heard of this before, and I train world-class athletes,” so it was kind of like whatever. It was like 12 to 18 months later you finally got to go try it. Now, there was none in Colorado at the time, so you guys actually drove down to Albuquerque, did a session, and then you called me a week later, and you said, “Kyle? What the F is going on?” You did 40% more dumbbell flies like a week later. It was-
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah. It was really a lot. I still wasn’t convinced, but I told you that, and I was like, “I don’t know,” and then when I started to see my threshold power go up on the bike, I’m like-
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah.
Rebekah Keat:
I said to Siri, “I’m not telling anyone about this. I’m coming back to the sport, and I’m going to win a world title because this stuff is…” Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
We’ll be your sponsor.
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah. I used a quote that I probably shouldn’t have quoted, but I was like, oh, my gosh.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
You do that, and OsteoStrong will pay for everybody. Yeah. That would be-
Rebekah Keat:
Well, you already have this… Okay. The guy who’s doing it here, [inaudible 01:10:42], he was second last year, and he didn’t want to tell anyone about it because it’s so incredible, him and [inaudible 01:10:47], four-time world champion, but she’s pregnant again. He’s going to come back, and he’s going to win next year. He’s going to beat [inaudible 01:10:52] the German, and I honestly will… Most of that will be because he’s honestly doing OsteoStrong, and now every pro athlete’s going to do it because TO… It’s out of the box now. TO, everyone knows.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Yeah.
Rebekah Keat:
He had the fastest bike split and [inaudible 01:11:06] last year after doing it for just under a year.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
I’ve had a lot of athletes, they get such incredible performance gains that they want to keep it a secret. It becomes their secret weapon. They don’t want… I’m like, “Well, did you tell anybody?”
Rebekah Keat:
You kind of try to, and then-
Kyle Zagrodzky:
They’re like, “No, no,” and I’m like, “Come on, man. You could help people.” He was like, “I don’t want to help my competitors. I want to destroy them. That’s why I’m an athlete.”
Rebekah Keat:
I hope doesn’t open up in Germany close to these big events because then all the Germans will get onto it, then we’ll be in trouble, but yeah. No, everyone deserves to be a part of it, and even just for me now, it’s just staying healthy, keeping my bones strong. I’ve got strong bone density anyway, but just my ligaments, my tendons, getting rid of my disc issues.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Well, it’s the injuries. That was my motivation. It was the injuries. It was my injuries, so I was just-
Rebekah Keat:
My twin sister, Kyle, for example, my twin sister’s always been a little taller than me. I’m almost an inch taller than her now.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
High five. That’s a big deal.
Rebekah Keat:
Yeah.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Whenever you can beat your siblings, that’s an important day.
Rebekah Keat:
It is.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
I don’t care as much now at 51 years old because I’m the youngest, and now my oldest brother, he’s almost 60, and I’m like, okay, this isn’t fun anymore. I don’t like seeing my brothers get old. Yeah. Anyway, all right. Well, I love you.
Rebekah Keat:
Me too.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
Please tell Siri I said hi. I miss you guys so much. So, we’ll see you soon, and thank you so much for being on today. You guys mean so much to me.
Rebekah Keat:
Thank you for having me. Thank you, Kyle.
Kyle Zagrodzky:
All right. Take care Bek.
Rebekah Keat
Veteran Pro Triathlete and Co-Founder of Believe Ranch & Rescue
Rebekah Keat is a former pro triathlete who still holds one of the fastest female times in history with 8 hours 39 minutes over the Iron Distance. Over her 22 year career, she has had over 30 podiums including 2X Junior World Champion, 6X Iron Distance Champion, and 3X National Champion. Rebekah is co founder with her wife Siri of Team Sirius Tri Club and Sirius Squad, dedicated to helping athletes and everyday people achieve their health and fitness goals!
Additionally, Rebekah is the co-founder of Believe Ranch & Rescue, saving horses from slaughter and Horses In Our Hands a lobbying and education organisation dedicated to ending horse slaughter!
Rebekah is a proud Ambassador of OsteoStrong. A member of the program herself, she has personally experienced the benefits OS while training. Try OsteoStrong for free or by a discounted membership with Rebekah’s link here.