The Athletic Philosopher Podcast

Prairie on Fire 2025 marked the first time I got to meet my longest online homie Mr. Ronald Potts, and it was also his very first official race. So I needed to invite him onto the show to provide him the space needed to make sense and meaning of his race experience (he CRUSHED a brand new PR and had an amazing day!)
This is a live coaching session, the same that I go through with my athletes and 1-1 clients after we've hit the goal of a big competition. It's a great illustration of how we use philosophy and dialogue to extract the meaning of these big events before they pass into the ether of history. Too often, people who do these big races face a gigantic crash back down to reality, because the real world doesn't have time to sit around and wait for you to pick up the pieces. 
Open space to reflect, explore, interrogate, and pick out the moments that truly matter are crucial in getting the correct depth of the race experience but also in helping us extract out the truthful lessons we learned about ourselves. Then, and only then, is it possible for us to transfer those lessons into our lives outside of the arena.
Thank you Ronald for your openness in sharing your experiences and wisdom. Follow Ronald at his Substack where he writes about his journey and coaching (https://sonofencouragement.substack.com/) 
If you want to join us next year at POF '26 or begin using training to a spiritual guide to self discovery and improvement, follow me on X or Substack (@JB_Goldstein) and send me a message that you're ready to take on the next big journey. Let's win together team! 

This is deepest dive I've ever done on my own race experience after a big time competition. I've done lots of coaching reflections, but never drilled down into the specifics of my own aim, attitude, execution, and recollections of the event. 
POF '25 will go down as the race that introduced my family to my world of training, racing, coaching, and mentoring. I'm forever grateful for the opportunity to share this experience with them, and it impacted my entire approach from training, to immediate race prep, the way the race unfolded, and what meant the most to me about the entire journey. 
This is a perfect example of how training and competing with your heart will always make you a winner, even if you end up with a result that doesn't make you a 'winner' on the scoreboard. I hope to inspire you to take a leap and GO BIG in taking on a new physical challenge.
If you're inspired to take on POF '26 with us, or dive deep into my 'embodied' coaching that helps you place your values at the center of your fitness practice follow me @JB_Goldstein on X and Substack and send me a dm on either platform.

A little late but better than never, this is the podcast I recorded before heading out with the family and team to take down the Prairie on Fire Backyard Ultra. 
Rather than focus on physical training alone, I set up how a holistic approach to training kept me grounded during a crazy 6 weeks before race day and how I manage to keep on track with training all while aiming towards a deeper meaning than just the outcome of the race.
This is how I directly embody and practice the deep philosophy of sports I preach, teach, coach, and guide my athletes and clients towards. 
Races aren't about finish lines as much as they are about using the starting line to anchor personal growth, transcendence, and becoming. 
I'm grateful for the ability and opportunity to test myself like this. You should compete for reasons like this too. 

In this episode, I hand over my hosting job to the fabulous online philosopher Mahmoud Rasmi (AKA Decafquest @decafquest) to interrogate my philosophical ideas on the role and value of sport. 
It's a live exhibition into a philosophical debate but also one where I'm put on the defensive and forced to present and then defend my views, similar to how an athlete subjects themselves to the rigor and outcome of the contest.
We talk about Happy Gilmore and becoming, the ideal of virtue, what is goodness, how can experience shape perception, and many other interesting philosophical topics that has us both wanting to explore more without necessarily coming to any solid conclusions. Perfect illustration of how to properly 'do' philosophy.
If you're interested in checking out some of the coaching that I discuss in this episode, namely how to create a fitness routine based on spiritual understanding and internal knowing send an email to drjordanbgoldstein@phyaacademy.com with the subject COACH and let's connect.
Please check out Mahmoud's excellent book and philosophical opportunities in the links below:
Philosophy For Business Leaders: https://www.amazon.com/dp/8409559501?ref_=cm_sw_r_mwn_dp_3FVKS3PCE991GTJ9ABMC&starsLeft=1&skipTwisterOG=1&language=en-US
DecafQuest: https://decafquest.com/

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."
This famous quote from the Ancient Greek Philosopher Heraclitus sets the stage for a deep reflective dive into my recent experiences running trails back in Canada. I became a trail runner out of deep love of the activity and have missed the rugged forest trails since moving to the North Shore of Chicago 8 months ago.
I discuss where my love of trail running came from, how the ideas of 'change and permanence' can be understood through athletic training, and how a few recent trail runs on the old tracks help me best understand and live this ancient wisdom. 
Big takeaway for you on how playing from the heart gives us an incredible vantage point to know ourselves, discover ourselves, and improve ourselves. This is sport aimed from the spirit.  

Episode 50! Wow team, we made it.
In this episode I dive deep into the spiritual nature of athletic training by synthesizing the classical Greek ideal of 'virtue' with the ancient Hebrew ideal of 'holiness.'
I make my argument that practicing sports towards this nature can indeed make one holy and provide historical, philosophical, and theological evidence.
This ideal forms the basis of how I practice sports, to become more righteous, to gain moral courage, and to then actualize my values through creative and truthful endeavors (the training and competing)
Listen, learn, open your heart, and apply the wisdom of thousands of years becoming alive in your body, mind, and spirit. 

This is another direct response episode where I answer a question directed at me by coaching clients, teammates, or mutuals on social media. Two of my teammates mentioned how they wanted to know my process for creating and putting together a book I have planned for a 2027 release. Perfect opportunity to describe how I'm thinking about creative output and process in 2025 and how it maps up to my successful training philosophy over the past 12 years.
I discuss how fun/enjoyment and frequency are the primary motives powering what I choose to create, how I create it, and my ability to publish and share that creative output that I learned from training from the heart. 
There's so much connection between athletic training and creativity that I will return to this subject frequently, but this is a great start and gives you an inside look into how I think about creativity and the role physical training can play in helping you become a consistently excellent creator.
To get into contact with me follow me on X (@JB_Goldstein) or find me on Substack (https://jordanbgoldstein.substack.com/). Let's keep winning together Team! 

Episode 48 is another direct response to a question I got on social media, this time asking for my 'professor's' take on the difference between rituals and routines.
I love this topic as it let's me talk about the importance of intention and aim when it comes to fitness, especially making it a consistent part of your life for both physical and spiritual health. 
Take a listen and think about ways you can transform fitness from just a routine into a powerful ritual of self knowing, self discovery, and self mastery on the way towards your true potential.
Sports philosophy is really cool when we get to apply the wisdom directly into living the good life through sports and this episode gets right to the heart of the matter. 

This is the one where I go deep into the nature of sport and it's ability to define and reshape reality. 
After a good prompt from my own coach and a fellow philosopher, both of whom I'll be racing with later this summer, I needed to hit record and let my stream of consciousness flow forth freely. 
I have deep ideas on the purpose of sport and one of the 'wilder' theories I have is it as the best interface with reality and consciousness because of its simultaneous ability to generate objective and subjective truths .
In this episode I explore how intentional acts of physical courage, whether through sport or other types of exertion (or abstention), shape and reshape the nature of reality from an ontological (what is the nature of reality?) perspective. 
This goes well with episode 46 where I ended off suggesting I wanted to start sharing more of my ideas like this, perfect time to get started! 

This episode goes deep into my philosophical and historical take on the recent Scottie Scheffler press conference where he seemingly dismissed the outcomes of sport as meaningful. 
After two tribal athletes I coach pinged me for my take I knew I had to hit record and let fly. 
Perfect timing because I've been meditating on core concepts from the ancient greeks and also the importance of internal motivation reading 'The Game' by Ken Dryden. I attempt to create strong Gnterpretive threads to explain the depth of Scheffler's remarks and how they synch to the original ideal of sport as a spiritual quest to build character and gain virtue.
The ending teases a larger grand view of my overall philosophy, something I will attempt to nail down in written form sooner rather than later. 
Thanks for listening and supporting a wild dive into the ideas that lay behind the motive power of sport. 
BONUS LINKS
Scottie Scheffler Press Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVhG50KAPIE