Nomberg Law Live: Attorneys' Interviews, Legal Analysis and More

NOMBERG LAW LIVE: Rebekah Keat, world champion athlete, who now trains others and rescue horses.

Bernard : All right. I think we are good to go live. Good morning, how are you Bek?

Rebekah: Good. How are you?

Bernard : I’m doing great. Good morning guys, this is Bernard Nomberg with another weekly episode of Nomberg Law Live. I am so pleased to have Rebekah Keat, a world-class athlete with me today. Bek, I know you’re originally from Australia, but now you reside with Siri in Colorado, just doing some amazing things and I appreciate you giving me a little bit of your time this morning.

Rebekah: Yeah. No worries at all. We’re just talking about the weather where it’s been … it’s been snowing last week but we are thankfully no snow right now for the beautiful horses, it takes a lot of time to blanket our 15 horses. When it’s snowing, it’s cold work.

Bernard : Well, for those of you who may not know Bek. She is a world-class athlete who participated for many, many years with triathlons and Ironman competitions, actually has won multiple world titles. I know that over the years that has been your go-to what you’re known for. I hate to use the word retired as an athlete because we never want to think of ourselves as retired even from that level of competition but you do so much more. Those are the things I really want to get into. But before we get into what you’re currently doing, Bek, share with the audience a little bit about your athletic background, if you will.

Rebekah: Yes. So it was a really hard transition and my whole identity, I felt like was wrapped up in the sport of triathlon, and I started when I was 16. I played all sports and decided triathlon was my niche, and from 16 years old till 37 years old, 38 years old, I was a professional triathlete. I turned pro at 17, which was really, really young. Won my first Junior World title in my first Australian team, I 1996, and then went on to win a Duathlon World title in 1998 and then place several, several ozzie champs and quite a few iron distance wins over the years, but the transition was really hard. Everything was focused on swim, bike, run, I ate, I slept, I drank, it’s a very selfish sport but yet when you’re at that level, you kind of need to be selfish. Yeah, it was a big transition and for me to actually make that move. I remember I went to a Tony Robbins event and it was unleash the power within. I did not want to go, I was dragged there by my wife, and she said let’s go. I said oh I drink the kool-aid, I didn’t even know excuse my ignorance who Tony Robbins was, and I was in there, it was in that moment that I realized that the sport didn’t define who I was, and there was so much more to life and the fulfillment just wasn’t there anymore. So animals was my love, and I knew I needed to do something in regards to animals and be able to give back in the biggest way possible, and that’s when we started our horse rescue, and it’s absolutely more fulfilling than winning even a world championship, it honestly is.

Bernard : Well, I’m going to bet that you’re even busier now with your future endeavors than you are when you are a professional athlete.

Rebekah: That is absolutely true Bernard, it really is. I know you guys with your work, it’s the same it’s just you never stop. With triathlon, I mean we got to eat and sleep and rest and nap and recover and have baths during the day, and legs up and massages. Yeah, I don’t stop cuz every day I want to be able to make some small difference to one horse’s life if I can. So you’re right, I have an outer workout I used to work at eight hours a day, five to eight hours a day and now I have an hour and I could just squeeze it in, and I make it happen because it’s in me, it’s Who I am. But every other second has spent either training my athletes or working with the horses.

Bernard : Well, from what I know from you having listened and participated in a prior call with you, and reading so much about you, I know that right now one of your two main endeavors is the Team Sirius Triathlon Club. Talk to us a little bit about the club and what you do for it.

Rebekah: So this is a crazy one. Actually, when I finished from when I decided I was going to retire in 2016, at the end of the year, and I went to that event thought okay well what can I do, and I knew it would be involving animals but then I didn’t have the financial freedom to be able to create what we wanted with our rescue horses, and our rescue we currently have. So we needed that financial freedom and I went for my real estate course, and I did one showing, and I hated it. I was like this is just not for me, I’m not a salesperson. I mean some people just built to sell. Snow to Eskimos, it wasn’t for me and so I thought why not focus on something that I know and that I love, and that’s triathlon and just share my wealth and knowledge and be able to coach athletes, so they’re achieving their dreams. So it was a no-brainer, I absolutely love my coaching and then my fulfillment also comes from having that financial freedom from our Triathlon Club creates enough, to be able to do what we do with our nonprofit side, with our horse rescue. So it’s a kind of a fine balance but when I’m not yeah when I’m not coaching we’re with the horses, and as much as people say you know you should be a business owner or not what is it operator or owner not worker. I love doing the horse stuff, the mucking, and the picking of poop, it’s relaxing to me.

So, it’s pretty busy but I don’t really feel like there’s such a thing as work-life balance. I think it’s all in or nothing, that’s sort of how both my wife Siri and I work, and it seems to be working for us.

Bernard : Well, I know that those two not, only the Team Sirius, the triathlon club but the Believe Ranch and Rescue keep you both very, very busy. I want to focus for just a few minutes about the training that you offer to athletes, and how you’ve taken your mindset from when you were a professional athlete and now you’re transitioning that to help train other athletes.

Rebekah: Yeah, that’s a great point. I haven’t even really thought of it like that any reference to the rescue as well. I think it’s funny, I wouldn’t say it’s a winning mindset I guess if you want a cliché call it winning mindset but for me it’s just having that same drive and passion and determination and relentless attitude and never give up that I had for the sport, it went straight into my coaching and my horse rescue. For me, it was just an it’s an intrinsic thing and I think it can be trained too, I think there’s people that are very, very talented and gifted in sport or in life or in whatever they do in business and they don’t have to work as hard at things, but I still think that nothing negates hard work, and even if you are a talented. I was a talented athlete but I mean I remember telling Siri that in the first 10 years in the sport, I never had one day off. I can’t remember, I know even when I was sick which is not healthy, I train when I was sick. I think I would have had days off when I was flying to races but I couldn’t remember in the 10 years from when I was 16 to 26 having one day off. I remember Gary Veer always talks about that that people want to be overnight successes, and you need like 10 years of blood, sweat and tears and then maybe you could be a high achiever and achieve a level that that you want to, it doesn’t happen overnight and I think people come sometimes sort of forget that you know say you’re so lucky, you’re so lucky. It’s like we work, Siri and I have worked our asses off for 40 years to get to be where we are. It hasn’t happened overnight, although it may look like that. It’s been a lovely road, but with that work ethic, yeah.

Bernard : There’s so few people in life who are so-called “overnight successes” They may not have discovered who you are at the time, but you’ve been putting in the work for decades. For those of you just joining us I’m speaking with Rebekah Keat. Bek is a world-class athlete, she currently runs Team Sirius triathlon club where she trains other athletes. He and her wife Siri run Believe Ranch and Rescue, a nonprofit in Colorado, we’re going to talk all about that in just a minute. But I also want to welcome Chelsea, yours and my buddy, Mitch Jackson out in California watching us right now. Good morning, Mitch. David Hudson, good morning buddy, it’s good to see you guys. If y’all have questions or comments for back please put them in the comment section, we’ll be glad to shoot those questions over to her. But Bek I want to talk about the mindset of an athlete there are very few of those athletes that we see and hear about who not only have the physical gifts but then also have the mental stamina, the mental single mindedness. When you can combine those physical gifts with the ability to just concentrate on your sport and to shove out all of the peanut gallery, and all the noise, that’s a winning combination. From what I know of you, from ages 16 to 26, that’s what you were about, winning all those championships. But now you’re and I hate to use this term, you’re now retired from those type of competitions but you so beautifully have transitioned into training other athletes. You and Siri have your horse rescue which is doing so beautifully. I want you to talk to us just a little bit about that mindset that you have now for these two endeavors, that’s similar to what you were doing as a world-class training athlete.

Rebekah: We talked a little bit about that. Siri and I actually were interviewed about that recently about the whole mindset and where it comes from and whether it’s intrinsic or it can be trained and I think that it’s a bit of both mine’s definitely mostly intrinsic. We thought about all our friends that we know that are world champions are an extremely high level with top one-percenters in the world at whatever they do, whether it’s sport or a life or a business. All of them have been through a massive struggle, but they didn’t become the victim of that struggle, they became their own superhero. So we say they’ve been through a struggle where you wouldn’t even believe some of the stories that when we think about the things that they’ve been through, but it was the gift in that struggle that they used for themselves, they didn’t play the victim. I think even with Siri, what she went through as a child, I won’t go in to that but it was it was pretty horrific.

I thankfully had a lot of love when I was a kid but my struggle was that I was a twin, and my twin was better at everything and every day getting knocked down, knocked down by your sister. Better at school, better at sport, better … Just A champion, school captain and I just got to the point when I was I was like I’m done like I need to find me, and I did triathlon, and thankfully she wasn’t a good bike ride, it was the only thing that I was better at than her. I finally remembered beating her for the first time ever in my life from when we started sport more like six, seven years old. When I was 16 I first beat her and then she kind of quit all sports and sort of changed her trajectory and decided becoming more of an academic and I was always sport, sport, sport, but it was those struggles I think the gift in those struggles that ended up making us champions. I think about every world champ you know with athletes that I know and all of them have been through some very, very tough times. I mean Chris McCormick is a former world champion at Hawaii Ironman, I think he’s a three-time world champion. The first time he won, he’d lost his mom that week of the race and for him to go and win and his mom and him were so close, it was incredible, and I thought wow that’s amazing. I lost my dad a week before, my best ever world championship performance at the Hawaii IML World Championships, and I’ve lost dad the week before, and I used the gift I got from him that he was doing it for his mom, and in that race in that time I think that’s where I was using those strengths to really for my performance, and I think it’s definitely recognizing that struggle, and what is the gift right now even though if you don’t recognize it at the time. I think that’s really something that we recognize with a lot of the top athletes as the struggles they’ve been through and that they’ve come out on top because of that.

Bernard : Isn’t it amazing what motivation can do for a person? It just propels you whether it’s you remembering first defeating your sister at an event or whatever our life experiences are, it’s amazing what gets into the mind of an athlete. Now, let’s talk a little bit about the horse rescue that’s going so beautifully right now. Well, show us a little bit about you’re based in Colorado, but you’re not limited to Colorado I understand, but tell us about that.

Rebekah: When I retired from the sport, I wanted to be able to get back in a massive way, not just to my athletes but to animals. We saw a video online about what happens and the problem is there is really no social awareness about this, and we realized we need to be the horses voice and/or the voice for the horses. Originally, we were saving dogs, I’m trying to help dogs being safe from mutilation and kill shelters, and as much as it’s still awfully painful to see and to hear about their euthanized humanely, and we saw a video of these horses being shipped from auction to the feedlot to slaughter in Canada and Mexico, how that was shipped, how inhumane it was, how they were killed, how they would dismember when they were still alive, and how much they suffer, and I said this is what we need to do. I grew up on a farm, so I’m a farm girl at heart and had horses and not a great Rider, but I love animals than anything.

I feel like I any sort of animal cruelty, I almost could probably put myself in jail if I saw somebody abusing an animal because I just for me it just pulled so hard at my heartstrings, and I almost love animals more than humans sometimes and these horses needed a voice, and we saved our first two horses and in like within weeks of seeing I think two weeks of seeing that video on our little [INAUDIBLE 14:09] property and then we’re like the only way we can do more right now before the SAFE Act pass, which is a enacting Congress which will stop the shipment and slaughter, which hasn’t passed yet, that hasn’t passed in ten years, and we’re working together with people to do that but we’re like we just need to save as many as we can.

So we bought a property completely bit off way more than we can chew, and we’re just making ends meet. We have 30 acres and we have like 17 horses out there right now. Actually, I can show you. You can see some of these guys here, I don’t know if you can see but he’s one of them, standing right in the camera. So we have 17 right now. Some were ones we thought we’d have to use an eyes but they just they just want to live and they just know they’re being given a second chance, and I love every single one of them.

Bernard : Well, clearly from all of your social media you guys you love what you’re doing. Last, I need an updated total I want to say that there’s been at least 80 horses that have been saved in this past year or so

Rebekah: Yep, it’s 86 now. We just saved two drafts the other day from auctions, so we’re up to 86.

Bernard : Now, if people want to give and get involved with your efforts, today is giving Tuesday on the internet I see. So what are some ways that people can help with the believe ranch

Rebekah: Well, that’s amazing, thank you so much. One way today would be I’m it’s pretty actually easy to do. If you go to your Facebook and start a post, you can actually go down and choose a charity or a fundraiser section on the actual post and you scroll down, I think it’s a little read option that you tick and it says start a fundraiser there, and then you can choose Believe Ranch and Rescue as your charity. For every thousand dollars from each campaign that’s done, so I have three, going one on each of my social media. Facebook match a thousand dollars, I think we’ve actually got close to two thousand already for that which is amazing. For example a bale of hay cost ten dollars, so we spend about fifty thousand dollars a year on hay, which is crazy when I think about it. But a thousand dollars would actually fees it feed our horses for like a couple of weeks. So it’s amazing and that would be one way to do it today. On our website we have donations we have monthly sponsors, all of our horses, you can actually be their own personal sponsor I think we have about fifteen on our page there, on www.believeranchandrescue.org, but really just spreading the word, getting the awareness out there. I’d love to quickly talk about the SAFE Act, so what it is. It is a safe American food export Act it’s a way that the Humane Society and the ASPCA have come together, and they’ve created an act that they hope to pass in Congress in April, it will go to vote hopefully because it has enough co-sponsors right now for the first time ever in ten years, and it will stop the allowing of horses to be shipped to slaughter in Mexico and Canada.

Obviously, they have things in place to intercept the horses that are going to be shipped anymore. They have a lot of rescues, giving more space, they have a lot of just private owners being able to allow their horses to be there because a hundred thousand every year is shipped to slaughter. It’s more of the way they’re shipped and how any humanely they are killed in Mexico, they really don’t have any control there, they just it’s I don’t even want to go into it but it’s the way they’re killed as well. So if we pass that safe act in April and bring that social awareness to the local congressmen then I think that will really, really help, just getting you know the grassroot people to know about the horse slaughter.

Bernard : Thank you for sharing that Bek. I really appreciate you for sharing those things. For those of you just joining us, we appreciate you checking in for a few minutes. I’m talking with Rebekah Keat. Bek is a former world-class champion and Ironman in triathlon. He currently runs a Team Sirius triathlon club where she helps to Train athletes, and I want to get back to that in a minute. She and her wife, Siri have Believe Ranch and Rescue, a nonprofit that helps to rescue horses based and they’re based in Colorado. If you have questions or comments, please put them in the comment section and I’ll get them to Bek. Mitch has a great comment I want to read to you. He’s enjoying the conversation about your “overnight success” and what it really takes the hard work, the long days, etc., and how you eventually found success and used that mindset that you have and convert it over to business and into life. I don’t want to forget that before the end of the day I want to make sure we put in the comment sections the links to the different website, so people know how to get to you they’re in touch with you or to make donations. But I do want to shift back for just a second Bek, if someone wants to be trained as a world-class athlete or at least make their run at it, and I want you to talk to us just a little bit more about how they can do training through your club. How does that work?

Rebekah: Well, actually Bernard, I was gonna actually say to you I’d love to offer them a free trial. Sometimes we do that with close friends and family to see whether they like it or not, and it’s a two week free trial. They can come in, they’re a part of our Facebook live group, we do it every single Monday. Siri and I, it’s crazy because we realize we’re the only coaches in the world at our level, and we’re now the number one I hate bragging but I’m kind of proud of it cuz after a year only, a year and a half we’re the number one ranked female triathlon club in the entire world. So that’s pretty cool, and I think it yeah part of it was obviously my wife, I mean she’s a three-time world champion, and it does help. But I’m sort of the one that didn’t have any social media marketing experience and I just threw myself in and did everything I could to learn about that and that obviously helped immensely, and just being resourceful in during contra joules with friends that were they’re experts in their field, in that area really worked too. So I’d love to offer anyone that wants to join our club, I’m definitely at least at let’s say a month free trial, see if you like it, you’ll be able to have access to all of our podcasts, all of our live chats, all of Siri’s personal podcasts too, like the Tony Robbins ones. We have free online training plans in there also for a beginner level, we have offseason programs, start a season program for people just getting into it, beginner, intermediate events, and they’re actually all free as part of the club’s. So if anybody wants to try one of those, we’re happy to give you guys that and see if you like it. It’s really simple, you can just literally go to Teamsiristryclub.com and you can join there. We actually have till the end of the day funny you asked for a giving Tuesday or it’s an extension of yesterday’s was a called Monday Cyber, Cyber Monday or something. It just an extension of giving good Friday. We’re offering right now half price membership for 222 dollars for the whole year and a five hundred and twenty-five-dollar training plan, which can be beginner Olympic, Half Ironman or an Ironman plan for $99, they’re normally $525. So, that just actually goes to the end of the day as well. So if they wanted to get anything like that they can just reach out to me.

Bernard : Bek, that’s fantastic. Thank you for offering that and I hope [INAUDIBLE 21:29] what age are you targeting or ages are you targeting to be trained through the club?

Rebekah: Honestly, every single age group. That was one of the chokeholds I think that David Meerman Scott pointed out and Mitch Jackson and I were like our lightbulb would going up in his tattoo because one of the things I learned from David Meerman Scott, who’s just my hero and that’s sort of what got me to build a club, doing his marketing mastery course was who’s your buyer persona, and I said well they’re elite age groupers and pros, and he said oh there’s very few of them, and I’m like ah. Then his little wife Yukari went on the website she goes can I give you a little tip, I said yes, and she said it’s a little intimidating. I said really and I had no idea I’m like you are so right is all pros, that’s all really fast people, ripped to shreds, like if you’re just a beginner you’re gonna get on that website you go oh this is not for me and we’ve realized oh my god and there are the people that I love to coach. Like pros are so selfish not sometimes not don’t show a little gratitude these age group guys that I coach that every day became warriors, people that are alike have gone for 400 pounds, 200 pounds and five kids, worked two jobs, they are the guys that I love to help because it’s easy for me beginner is really easy because I just I know I can really help him improve really quickly. So I realized that I’ll keep persona, our key market was not your pros, it was actually your everyday week and more a beginner triathletes. That’s where we shifted the whole website in the whole marketing towards that and so that’s more kind of our market now. For me, I actually love it way more than coaching you know top eight rivers or pros so and that was something that really had to shift that I was a big sort of blind spot in our business, and it was huge.

Bernard : I bet it was. I’m going to use a term that you used earlier it sounds like what you guys are doing with your training is you’re taking average Joes and you’re helping them to find their inner superhero. You’re turning them into the athlete that they know that they could be, and that’s just so awesome, it’s such a fantastic journey I bet you take people on and I applaud both of y’all’s efforts for that. Bek, I appreciate your time today, we’re getting close to the end of the interview. I’m going to put you on the spot and I’ll let you have the closing line or two, I want you to give us some words of motivation for today. Those athletes, those want to be athletes, anybody who’s watching this, give us some motivation as we take on the rest of our day today.

Rebekah: It would have to be so we realized that our club motto, and it’s so true and it’s the culture we’ve developed in our team that it’s not about swim, bike, run, it’s about who you become. We’ve had so many incredible people that have never done anything in the sport, never swam, biked or ran, and never been an athlete, and they come here and they just transform, and it carries across to their personal life, their work life, they have a sense of achievement, and it’s a great sense of camaraderie within out within our club and it’s just an incredible culture that we have and we feel so blessed to have those people in our club. I want to ask you Bernard, when are you gonna do a triathlon, I’d love to coach you, I’d coach you for free

Bernard : I sure appreciate that offer. I did a 10k last week, and I’m still [Wow] I completed it, I didn’t finish as fast as I wanted to but I was glad that I finished.

Rebekah: That’s amazing, that’s a big achievement.

Bernard : Well, thank you. Bek, I sure appreciate your time, it’s been a real pleasure speaking with you this morning. Please continue on the awesome work that you and Siri are both doing and we’ll make sure we keep spreading out the word of the great work that you guys are doing.

Rebekah: Thank you for what you’re doing also. I always follow you guys and off what your videos on Instagram, so thank you.

Bernard : Well, thank you very much. Guys this will conclude our interview today. This was such a fun interview for me and I appreciate everybody who watches us live or watching us on replays. We come to you every Tuesday at 10 am Central on Nomberg Law Live, and we hope you guys have a great rest of your day. Take care Bek

Rebekah: Thank you, bye.