Thomas Renner aka Rennergy

The incredible Thomas Renner joins the show to talk about his journey as a high end fitness and cycling coach to running his own successful coaching practice, his early realization about his sexuality and how that impacted his childhood and the power of community.

"I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none, and I used to wear it like a badge of dishonor."

Coaching leaders on how to come to life expressing their full identity and purpose through conscious internal transformation. "Be your own Best Friend."

http://www.rennergycoaching.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rennergycoaching/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61556771217012
https://www.instagram.com/rennergycoaching/

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Transcript

Jason Frazell: 0:11

Hey everybody, it is my absolute delight to welcome onto the podcast today, Thomas Renner. Thomas and I had never met, Well, we did through a text message, which was like a weird confluence of events about three years ago in a coaching environment we were in. And then I actually got a chance to spend Thomas in person in March of 2024. We went to a men's retreat together. And if you've been listening to the show, I've talked a little bit about my experience there with Elena Armijo and some of the other folks I've had on recently, Thomas and I shared a bunk room. We shared, we shared, shared a bunk room. We shared some emotions. We shared some good food. And I knew when I met Thomas, like this is, this is one of the people I really want to get connected with and also have you share with my audience and with our audience, what you're up to. Thomas, welcome. Good morning to you. Where are you coming into us from today?

Thomas Renner: 0:59

Good morning, Jason. It's a pleasure to be here. Pleasure to always be in your presence. So I'm coming to you from Dallas, Texas.

Jason Frazell: 1:06

So this is why I have Thomas on. He's just an immediate flatterer. It's he's so sweet. I love it. So Tom, I have

Thomas Renner: 1:11

ulterior motives at all times, Jason. Well, yeah,

Jason Frazell: 1:13

of course. Yeah, me too, me too. Yeah. We're, we're just, we're just going to improv with each other in our, in our lowest self the whole time, which is ironic because Thomas does a number of things, he just wrapped up a really significant part. Of his life. And we'll talk just a little bit about that. And what Thomas does now is he is a life and leadership coach. He went through the same coach training program that I went through. We weren't in the cohort together, but same, same company. He's also a Yogi and he is a community builder. He, one of the reasons I think Thomas, you and I immediately have, we both love people. And not everybody loves people. There are a lot of people who don't like people. I happen to be a person who really loves people. And when I met you, I'm like, I think Thomas loves people too. So you're a community builder. So before we kick off here and like, you know, get further into what you're up to now, what would you like us to know about you to kick this off?

Thomas Renner: 2:01

Oh gosh, it's always an interesting question because it makes me think of like, what's my elevator pitch to like sell myself? And that's absolutely like, not the lane that I would want to go in. Neither do I want you to do that either. Not selling myself at all. I actually just did a, a small like journal entry on like, what are three fun things that I want to share as I meet new people that was sort of describe me without describing me. My favorite place to grow up going to was SeaWorld. I used to cry at the last Shamu show every night. It was the nighttime show.

Jason Frazell: 2:35

Yep.

Thomas Renner: 2:36

I collected Beanie Babies for years. It's the worst investment I've ever made. I was gonna say, and now you're

Jason Frazell: 2:41

sitting on And now you're like, and now you're recording this from your yacht. I mean, obviously that turned out well. From

Thomas Renner: 2:47

my walk up apartment. I had over 250 of them and over the years, like we've dispersed them with family and sold some of them. And my dad has most of them now.

Jason Frazell: 2:57

Yeah.

Thomas Renner: 2:58

And. Yeah, you know, I'm reluctant to agree with you for some reason this morning about loving people, but I do love people. I love what people can do and what people can be, and I love helping them do what they want to do. Like, that's something that's important for people to know.

Jason Frazell: 3:15

Yeah. So let's, let's briefly cover off on, and you were just telling me this, what you literally just retired from yesterday. It just happens to be a coincidence. We don't, I don't, I don't know that we timed this on purpose. And then we're going to take a little bit, step back on maybe how you mentioned your childhood. So Thomas, just so everybody know, what have you been doing? What is one of the things you've been doing for the last 13 years that is no longer in your income stream?

Thomas Renner: 3:39

Yeah, to give a little like circling back. I have been told for a long time what I should do and what I would be good at and The joy in that was I was pretty darn good a lot of things Yeah, I sort of coined this this phrase for myself that it's it's very common to It's just like that I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none.

Jason Frazell: 4:07

Yeah,

Thomas Renner: 4:08

and I used to really wear it like a badge of dishonor. I was like, I feel like I'm just mediocre at a, oh, can I cuss? Sorry. Of course you can cuss. I was like mediocre at a fuck ton of things. Yeah, I'm not great at one thing and what has sort of grown from that was Like my entire career as an actor, my career is in fitness, my career as a coach, but none of them I really had chosen until now, which is being a coach. So I forget what your question was.

Jason Frazell: 4:39

Oh, just what, what's, what's the thing just share with us. Cause I mentioned it. What's the thing you literally just retired from yesterday.

Thomas Renner: 4:45

Yeah. So like all that to be said, like cycling is something that was a big part of my life in the fitness arena for a very, very long time, 13 years and counting. It feels like. And I taught my last cycling class last night. I say that I'm going into cycling retirement. You know, you never know. You can always come out of retirement and you can make new decisions. Of course. But, I really came to terms with, it was an era, it was a time in my life that I really chose into the joy that it brought, the success that it gave me. And then I realized that it wasn't bringing me joy anymore. And that people that were in my classes deserved to have someone that wanted to constantly be there. And I wanted to be there with them just doing other things. I was like, let's go have a margarita instead. I just wanted to do other things. So yeah, I, I retired from cycling last night and you know, it comes with a lot of joy, a lot of grief and a lot of, Excitement for what's next. And then what's next is kind of what I'm already doing. Just doing more of it.

Jason Frazell: 5:54

Yeah. But, what, well, what did you ride out into the sunset on? What was the song? That you wrapped up your last class with.

Thomas Renner: 6:02

Fashion of His Love by Lady Gaga.

Jason Frazell: 6:06

Nice, there it was. That was so cool. Do you even know

Thomas Renner: 6:08

that song?

Jason Frazell: 6:09

I do. Yeah, my wife is a My wife used to be a Lady Gaga fan, now she's just a straight Swiftie, but Lady Gaga was her person for a long time.

Thomas Renner: 6:16

So I actually played the first playlist I ever created 13 years ago for my last class.

Jason Frazell: 6:22

Wow! That's so cool. And so that would have been on her first album. It really was. It really was. Yeah, amazing.

Thomas Renner: 6:29

Fashion of Her is Love, I think was on the second one.

Jason Frazell: 6:32

Okay, yeah. But I'm terrible at that, so I could be wrong. And I could be wrong too. So let's talk a little bit about your background, like how you were raised, a little bit of what's led you into acting, to fitness, to yogi, and then let's talk about your journey into coaching and what you're up to now.

Thomas Renner: 6:49

Yeah, what's the one thing that you want to know about my childhood? I'm curious if there's something that's burning on your mind.

Jason Frazell: 6:54

Yeah, well if I, and I know that we've talked about, we have a mutual trust here, you had mentioned something at the retreat, and we respect the confidentiality there, and I checked with you, about something about your childhood that created a huge impact for you, and created a lot of what you had said, your identity, Especially as an, as a young adult. So I think what I'm, I think the question I just want to straight up ask is, and you had shared with, with me and with us, and I'll, I'll share it here. Cause we've, I've got your permission is you said that you knew very early on that you were gay at a, at a young age, and that's not always the experience for folks. And then you had mentioned something about how that drastically impacted a lot of how you showed up in the world for a long time. Like you said, expectations, what you should be doing, et cetera. So I'd love to hear a little bit about how that went for you.

Thomas Renner: 7:39

Yeah, I knew I was gay early on, but I didn't know how to name it. So what you might not know is I did grow up very religious. I grew up in a Methodist church with which the Methodist church has had a few shifts and changes over the years. But when I was there, they were relatively gay accepting that I knew of, but we never used the word gay, like gay was never a term that was used to identify. It was always used as a derogatory term. And even then, I didn't know what it meant. I just knew that I liked men. So cut to me you know, sitting on the living room carpet at 1am when my parents are asleep watching Showtime, but it's static and in snow screen because we didn't own the channel watching. realizing, Oh, this is me. Like this is, I like this. I like, I like men. What does that mean? So I didn't know. So fast forward, like I knew I was different. I was in the theater. Everyone kind of knew I was different. No one really talked about it in high school. I wasn't the cool kid. I was incredibly overweight. So I just found my community in theater and like in theater, it's an incredibly accepting community. So I didn't ever feel like I was ostracized and ever tried to try to be anything that I wasn't. Then I went to college and I look back on this as like slight, identity trauma, which it wasn't in the moment. But like, I look back and reflect and be like, I could have processed that differently. But I finally found out and knew that I was gay, I named it, I had an experience that was like, this is real. So I ran home to the apartment complex I was living in, I ran into a bunch of my friends that were in the apartment. And I just really ran in and said, I'm gay. And they were like, we know. And then I ran out.

Jason Frazell: 9:30

Their response was actually just, We know. That was good. That's, it was just like, We know.

Thomas Renner: 9:35

Literally, they were watching a movie, and they didn't even like, think twice. They're like, We know. And then I just walked out, and I was like, What the fuck? Like, I just had this big like, Moment. And they were like, We know. And when I say trauma, it was like, I felt like I wasn't validated even though I was validating myself and like understanding who I was

Jason Frazell: 9:54

sure

Thomas Renner: 9:55

all that to be said Kind of what boiled up for me in the retreat Which is where I think your listeners will sort of come back full circle as you've talked about it before I have really leaned into being gay as the only part of my identity Which then created Riff Riffs in like my relationship with straight men, for instance, I find, I find slash find or found slash find it hard to sometimes connect with straight men because I had sort of identified with the sexuality or the sexual part of being gay, not what does it mean to be queer? Those are two interestingly different questions for me. It's like, what does it mean to be gay? What does it mean to be queer? And how do those identities come into play? So when I went on the retreat, it was really nice. to be in community with men who identified as straight and some just some queer men as well and be intimate with them in a non sexual platonic way. I didn't know how to do that because my first instinct is always, and I learned this to even circle back to one of my longest term relationships, I learned that For some reason when I meet someone the first question I often would ask myself is do I want to sleep with them? That

Jason Frazell: 11:12

was just an

Thomas Renner: 11:14

instinctual question based on a previous relationship that I had had And so to be in a room of men that wasn't my first instinct. Don't get me wrong like I had those thoughts, but they weren't the first presenting ones. And by the end of the retreat, I had one of the leaders reflected me. It's like, you are not just a gay man. Yeah. And that sort of hit me. Because I knew that, but I wasn't acting like it.

Jason Frazell: 11:39

Tommy, you said something, first of all, thank you for sharing all that and being vulnerable about that. You said something that really struck me. We all have a version of your immediate what I call that a filter of like what I sleep with them We all have a version of that and we heard from some other folks who were there some folks Said am I safe with this person? Like it's an immediate like an Instinction thing for me. I think it's can I easily connect and have fun with this person is like the immediate filter I go to with other men, especially I think for women I probably at least in the past had similar to what came up for you You And and I, I just, that's, that really was profound and hit me on like, so my, my encouragement for the audience listening is like, what's your immediate thing that you filter for? And what you just said, Thomas is without, you know, we don't need to share exactly how old you are, but it's not like you're a 22 and you have never really learned how to do this. And finally you're starting to work on this. So I do want to ask you a question as a straight man who doesn't have the experience you have is what Should straight men who care and want to create those places that have somebody who identifies as queer feel comfortable? Like, what would you need? Or what was it that made a difference for you? And I think, and we, we heard this from a couple other folks too that were there that identified as queers. What is it that makes the difference? Because I would imagine it's really hard.

Thomas Renner: 13:07

I think it's interesting. You're going to laugh at my answer because of the antithesis of what I just shared. I think it's that they don't filter with gay men. All of them want to sleep with me. Because we're not coming on to all straight men, like we're not, like we just, that's not the case. Right. That was the case for me. Right. But I'm not the deciding factor for the queer community. Right. So I know that might sound like, wait a second, this is not making any sense. This is not connecting, but I never felt like threatened by any of the men that were there, that they would Assume that all gay men want to sleep with me because that leads sometimes, I don't have to, I won't say for all that leads to sometimes the already barrier to connection. Totally. Well, it's almost like all that we're built to do is have sex with each other or wants to do that. Then there are so many other versions of connection that we really can focus on. And that's why your filter is so great. Do I want to have fun and connect with this person? What a great connection filter.

Jason Frazell: 14:20

Sometimes, but I will say the downside for me in this Thomas is that if my intuition is wrong or I'm having a bad day or like my guard is up more for whatever reason, I'm sure I miss out on opportunities for amazing relationships with other men, but then I'm talking about other men specifically, and I might miss because for you, same thing, like, oh, like, do I want to sleep with them? Oh, I don't. So then move on, move on. And I don't know if that's how it showed up and move on. But I'm just really thinking about the reflection of for myself on how that filter is also limiting because I don't actually know. It's just an intuition or an instinctual thing, but that isn't always correct.

Thomas Renner: 14:58

Yeah, but we're also human, right? So we're going to make those, like, cognitive errors. But what I wanted to really share as the learning from the weekend in relation to this conversation is, gang and straight men aren't that different. No. I held them as wildly different. Which caused me to put up barriers to build relationships with straight men. Now there's a few different relationships in my past that have led me to feel this way. And I've, I've reflected back and I've done the work and I'm, I'm looking even still on what it is. But that's why it was so powerful for me to be like, Hey, we're not that different. Okay. How would I connect with them? Cause I don't connect on the stereotypical things often. Like I can spout out different facts around sports that make me sound really smart. But at the end of the day, I would literally rather do anything else in the world than watch a football game. I find that to be nails on a chalkboard. It is incredibly boring. That's my opinion. Doesn't mean it has to be for everybody. And again, that's also stereotypical straight, like if I was to stereotype the straight man. Totally. I don't want to go to Hooters. Those are sort of, I mean, I say this in jest, but also factual, right? Like I don't want like that there's a restaurant named Twin Peaks. I'm like, Lord have mercy. Now we have our own things like that in the gay community too. So I'm not, I'm not dogging. I'm not yucking anybody's yum here. I'm just sharing with like, I have held gay men and straight men so differently that caused me to not connect with them and what that retreat really helped me do from even looking at my careers until this point and relationships, it's allowed me to really shift and say, okay, I can have the thought of, do I want to sleep with them and do I want to have fun and connect and what's my value to them and what's their value to me? What's another question I can ask? Like there's an, and to it all, not a one question. Answers everything.

Jason Frazell: 17:02

I love it. You're talking to an improver over here. And I think you are as well an actor You've probably done some improv training. So yeah, like what's next? I as we're talking as I I just had this image of you Tom on your own And I had an image of you it on it like your own television show and literally the setup is that you get asked out On this date by your perfect guy He's like and I'm gonna take you to Hooters and we're gonna watch the football game at one o'clock It's like the worst Fucking nightmare, first date you could ever go on.

Thomas Renner: 17:32

I would literally say, no thanks.

Jason Frazell: 17:34

You're like, I don't, my filter for I wanna be with you was high, it's at zero now. It's just, you're dead to me. Like, we could be friends. Like, is this

Thomas Renner: 17:42

the price of admission to sleep with you tonight? Because then maybe. But, if this is the price of admission for like the rest of my life, we're out.

Jason Frazell: 17:52

That, I see this for you. This is good.

17:55

The Talking to Cool People podcast is brought to you by Jason Frizzell Coaching. Jason works with amazing people who are looking to find and develop their passion and purpose and create their journey to wherever it is they want to go. Check us out at jasonfrizzell. com, Facebook, or on Instagram. Jason loves hearing from anyone who thinks it would be cool to connect, to be coached, to Or to be a guest on our show, email him at podcast at Jason for sale. com or DM him on Facebook and Instagram. And now back to some more amazing conversation on talking to cool people.

Jason Frazell: 18:35

So. Now, based on everything you've shared so far, you mentioned something that I really would like to hone in on and it was career choices based on what you just said. So let's, if you don't mind sharing, like how has what you've outlined for us so far influenced us? what you've done and what you're doing now.

Thomas Renner: 18:57

Yeah. I mean, when you think about my elevator pitch, when I talk to people about coaching specifically, like I, again, had just sort of done everything that everyone told me that, Hey, you'd be really good at this. You should do it. And I did it for 32 years. I did that. And it was great. I had a wonderful life. It was successful, successful. I'm using air quotes everybody because like you are the only person that gets to define what that is. But at 32, I lost my job suddenly. The company that I'd been working for had gone under for a variety of reasons. And what were you doing? What were you

Jason Frazell: 19:30

doing at the time? What, what kind of role?

Thomas Renner: 19:32

Full time cycling instructor. I was teaching for a company. I was traveling across the U S I was hiring new instructors, scouting new instructors, training new instructors. And I was the lead instructor for our region here in Dallas. And I really loved it. Like I had, we truly built a community. I loved the people that I worked with. I love the people that were mentoring me. And so in that, Happened it was pretty traumatic. I even back looking now. I'm like that moment in time. I Didn't even fully recognize the the traumatic experience that it was

Jason Frazell: 20:07

yeah,

Thomas Renner: 20:08

but what happened was the summer before it all went down. So this is 2019. This is pre pandemic One of my writers actually gave me a book. Her name is Brooke Castillo. She's a master coach. She has a coaching school called the life coach school. She's got a podcast too. So it's run a great podcast. Yep. Yep. Yeah, I know. I know who she is. Oh, you know her.

Jason Frazell: 20:29

Yeah.

Thomas Renner: 20:29

I know. I know life. I know the life coach school. I don't know. I

Jason Frazell: 20:31

know the life coach school.

Thomas Renner: 20:35

Yeah, and the book was self coaching 101 and when I tell you Jason that I am NOT a reader I'm not a reader. Like I don't really enjoy reading that much And I read that book sitting by the pool in my speedo summer 2019 like it was my job And I'm so glad that I did because I'd already started thinking about, Hey, what's the next level of my coaching? What's the next level of my life? And then when Flywheel closed, I was like, I need to make a bigger change. So Flywheel closed, cut to me, working for Equinox at the time, and then the pandemic hits. You're like, well, WTF, like now what I really do, I had a couple of friends that had gone through the accomplishment coaching, the coaching program that I went through and they were like, you should do it. I'm just fast forwarding a lot. And June of or July of 2020 pandemic, I decided to invest in the next stage of my life. I decided it. Nobody said you should be a coach. No one said you'd be really good at this. I decided, you know what? I have been helping people for X amount of years in this way. Now I want to get paid for it in this way. It's not going to be fitness. It's not going to be on a bike. And I got to make that decision because I then knew who I was. I knew I was built to help people succeed, create their own life. I have a deep seated empathy and compassion for the human existence, for people when I'm with them. And I've been given a superpower to do that. So, why not do it?

Jason Frazell: 22:15

Amazing. When you decided So that's where I'm at today. Amazing, Thomas. So, so, what was the experience like, Were you present at the time when you chose this for yourself that you were actually getting to choose something for yourself?

Thomas Renner: 22:30

I don't know if I was fully present to it. I did realize that nobody helped me make the decision.

Jason Frazell: 22:39

Mm hmm.

Thomas Renner: 22:40

Which Which I think was the big defining factor is nobody called me and said, we want you to be a coach here. Right? No one said, what's your new career? When are you going to start being a coach? I just said to myself, I'm not an entrepreneur at my core. I'm not an entrepreneur like at all. I am the most organized, disorganized human being you will ever meet. So it really was like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to do this. And even looking back, it's been five years now, Essentially five years, four years, I suppose. Is my business where I thought it would be? No, but I'm building it on my own time on my own journey. And I'm choosing it. No one said you got to speed this up. You're going too slow. You got to do this faster. I am choosing it because of this is the lifestyle that I want. This is what's important to me. These are the kinds of experiences I want. And if I did it any differently, that wouldn't be available to me. Yeah. So I took the learning of that really powerfully and I take that into my business and my life now. It's like, okay, I ask myself questions like, okay, what am I doing this for? Who am I doing this

Jason Frazell: 23:52

for?

Thomas Renner: 23:52

Do I want to do this? And the most powerful answer that I often give myself is, I don't know. And the more that you say, I don't know to yourself, you will get an answer. Absolutely. But you'd be willing to say, I don't know. It's more comfortable for, or it was more comfortable for me, even though I didn't know to keep doing what everyone said I'd be good at.

Jason Frazell: 24:17

Sure. I mean, that makes perfect sense. Did you find, were you somebody historically who would always, people would tell you, you'd be good at things. Were you also somebody who liked to check with a lot of people on, Hey, I'm thinking about doing this. Can I get your opinion? Get your advice, a lot of external, I don't call it validation. I think there's a lot of value in trusted mentors and people around you, but, but you wanted to get a lot of feedback on whether your decision was the right decision based on other people's opinions. Absolutely. The

Thomas Renner: 24:46

only, the only other decision, which is probably why I was always shying away from it, that I was like, I'm going to make this decision and I'm not going to ask anybody, was taking out loans with Sally Mae. And look where that got me, Jason. Fucked. And so that was just a good answer to be like, Oh, I can't trust myself. Like I need, I need to ask for help and they need to tell me what I'm going to do. And now I'm like, okay. Take ownership or responsibility for it. Yeah, that was a really terrible decision. You can't go back and change it. But now I know that asking for help and asking for support is something that you choose into not as the deciding factor, but as part of it. It's part of the journey. It's part of your decision making. It's not the decision that you make.

Jason Frazell: 25:30

You said this is a great segue into a conversation I'm about to have with my friend Sheila next week on the podcast. It's like a timed guest. And she speaks and talks a lot about expectations and how there's four types of expectations. I just heard her talk about this a couple weeks ago, so I'm going to share a preview of this and offer it to you. I think this will be a good conversation starter for us. She said there's four types of expectations. There's expectations we put on ourselves. There's expectations we put on others. There's expectations others put on us. And the fourth one is, expectations we believe that are on us that nobody ever put on us. That we have somehow created. And her whole, and she's a coach, and she's an attorney and a social worker, and it's a really cool framework for looking at expectations. That's

Thomas Renner: 26:16

a dangerous combination. It is, she's, she's

Jason Frazell: 26:18

She's a, she's kind of a master of all of them too, which Pretty frightening in a good way. Yeah, she does a lot of good But the idea there is and I've heard her speak a couple weeks ago The idea is how easy it is and I'll just speak for myself to confuse where those land for me Of like, Oh, the expectation that nobody ever said that I needed to do or that I cared that I somehow thought is like, and you hear this all the time with clients, like my duty or my, the thing I need to do, or the expectation I put on myself is I need to be this far in my business in five years. Nobody told you that. And that that's just an internal thing and normalizing all of it. And her whole thing is for the, that last bucket of things, that is the expectations that nobody ever said to you that you put on yourself. You want to get rid of most of those. Because those ones weigh you down. She used a great example. It's a great analogy. It's like, Hey, when your relative comes into town, you go, Hey, can I, I'm going to come pick you up at the airport. Did they ever ask you to pick them up at the airport? Did they expect you to pick them up at the airport? Maybe you want to, and it's an offer, but how many things have you done in your life? And I know for me, where I believed it was a thing I had to do because it was an expectation of how we're raised, what we see the world telling us about how a straight man should be or a gay man should be, or just how a man should be. All these things are the ways we should be that ends up like doing a bunch of shit from my experience. It sounds like for you is that I don't want to fucking do.

Thomas Renner: 27:48

Yeah. It sounds

Jason Frazell: 27:49

like you've had a similar experience.

Thomas Renner: 27:51

There's an easy answer that's hard to do. Totally. And this is what I coach people on, is be your own best friend. So easy. No problem. When you get to know yourself, even in the uncertainty of it all, you can ask yourself those questions. Do I want to go pick them up at the airport? Yeah. And often, Jason, the answer will still be yes. Totally. It's coming from a place of, I want to do that. Not do they expect me to do it or I expect myself to do it or the world has expected me to take care of my family in such a way to go and do it when you get to know yourself and what's important to you and why it's important you get to say okay the the most important question I have found in my life is to answer what for in any situation what for yeah I'm going to dinner on Friday night what for oh I want to commune with my friends cool that's awesome amazing I'm gonna I don't know, go to bed at 9pm, what for? Because sleep is important to me, right?

Jason Frazell: 28:55

Yeah.

Thomas Renner: 28:56

But we don't often ask ourselves the questions of who are we and really identify who we want to be, who we want to continue to be, or who we want to even let go of, of who we once were. Oof. To then, even, I mean, we need to go there first, before we talk about expectations. Totally. Because how can you see the expectations if you don't know who you are? No, absolutely. And to circle back to my past, like, I didn't know who I was for 32 years because everybody told me who I was supposed to be.

Jason Frazell: 29:28

Who were you told you were supposed to be? Now I'm

Thomas Renner: 29:30

choosing into who I want to be. Yeah. Who? So, oh, it's like you're a fitness. Yeah. Who are you told you're a fat, you are an actor. You are gay. Like, I mean, I had people telling me that I was gay before I was gay. Right?

Jason Frazell: 29:42

Yeah. Yeah.

Thomas Renner: 29:44

So like everyone was telling me I was all of these things and I was like, cool. This is great. Easy. But yeah. Mm-Hmm. I didn't realize I could choose those things.

Jason Frazell: 29:56

Yeah. So you'd mentioned a few times, Oh, sorry, Thomas, go ahead.

Thomas Renner: 30:03

Yeah, that's, that's a, that's, that's go. You'd mentioned here

Jason Frazell: 30:09

your journey of self discovery. What are we going to wrap up for today? And like, what have you learned about yourself that has been, that has sparked this change in you? Like, what are the specific things? It can be elevated, spiritual, it doesn't really matter. I'm just curious, what have you learned about yourself?

Thomas Renner: 30:30

That's such a loaded question. I've never been asked in that way. So please forgive if there's like some silence in how I want to share what this is. I've learned that going slow is the key to living a fulfilled life. I've learned that you don't have to live alone. Mm. I've learned that the answer to all your problems sometimes lies in your complaints.

Jason Frazell: 30:58

Mm. Cool. Good one.

Thomas Renner: 31:00

And I've learned that when I'm my own best friend, Life isn't as hard as we make it out to be. I, I'm going to assert that those are

Jason Frazell: 31:12

some hard fought lessons.

Thomas Renner: 31:16

They're hard to learn, but they're easy to accept.

Jason Frazell: 31:19

Yeah. What I mean by that is, If we were going to talk about the way you got there, those are, those are, those are through trials and tribulations and really having to work through those things, those, those, like, it's, it's kind of like, Oh, be your best friend, easy to say, harder to do everything I heard you say, and I guess I'm just speaking from my own experience, I have a, I don't have a similar, like, similar journey in terms of where I've landed on and who I am, similar, those lessons for me were very hard fought, I actually fought it myself without knowing about it. Cause it's a lot, in some ways it's harder when you're in the process to actually, well, how much, for me, I'll share my experience, for me, it's a lot harder for me to trust my own decision making than to just ask everybody else, cause I, cause then I get to be and have to be responsible for my decisions. I suppose. Well, I asked, I asked these 20 other people who I think know more than I do. And they told me that this is the thing to do and it didn't work out for me. That's that's their fault. Not my fault. Like I get to. Easier

Thomas Renner: 32:23

to blame other people than yourself. Yeah.

Jason Frazell: 32:26

Yeah. So yeah, I get to shuck responsibility. What's the, I think I want to wrap here today. And you mentioned you are a yogi. You've done a lot of, you do a lot of like spiritual work and just very connected to all that part of you. Curious. The, being your own best friend, what kind of practices would you suggest for folks to try or something that works for you when you find yourself not in that mode? Because I'm sure you do. Yeah. Because like you said, you're human.

Thomas Renner: 32:55

There's one practice that has a lot of opportunities. And so I'm going to say one thing, but there's a lot underneath it, is journaling. There's so many ways to journal. I think that we all think we have to sit down for an hour a day and write something down. And there's so many ways that you can journal. Like, journaling doesn't exist as just a writing tool. You can go for a walk by yourself with no technology, right? You could write one sentence every morning, right? It doesn't have to be a long paragraph. There's this book called The Artist's Way, and I say it. freaking finished it because I get so stuck on what they talk about the writing pages. I'm like, I can't do this. But having some self expression tool, whether it's maybe painting or my encouragement is you don't have to do it by yourself necessarily. You can do it in a communal way with other people, but having a moment where you truly get to say, Let me just write some things down and let my thoughts run. We're so afraid of our own thoughts, Jason. We're so afraid of them. And guess what? They're just thoughts.

Jason Frazell: 33:57

They're just thoughts.

Thomas Renner: 33:59

They're just thoughts. But we're so afraid of them that we're going to discover something that we don't want to see. And I'm like, when we discover things that we don't want to see, we can then do something about them. But if we're unwilling to discover them, they're just going to continue being our operating system. One of my Sebastian Little is one of the most brilliant people that I, that I know on the planet. And he talks about like you have your own iOS system and like updating it. Like you can't update your own iOS system if you don't let some things go. Totally.

Jason Frazell: 34:29

Yeah. And that's where

Thomas Renner: 34:30

journaling is the practice because every time I, I've never left a journal entry feeling worse. I've always left feeling, Oh, or better, full of joy, compassion, not saying it's not depressing because I do write about some things and I'm like, I've been holding onto that for a while, but I've never left with like, I wish I hadn't had done that.

Jason Frazell: 34:54

Yeah. It's to me, this is like working out, taking apart, taking away the, I actually hurt myself working out, but most people, I'm sure there's times you're like, Oh, I could really do without journaling today. I'm just not feeling it. But when you're done. It's always just reminding yourself, you know, we, we would call that your survival mechanism of like avoidance or procrastination, whatever you want to call that, where your brain's like, well, we know this is going to be good for you, but it's also a little bit scarier than not doing it. So from fear, we're not going to do the thing. I think we all have our version of. Journaling. It's funny you bring up journaling. I don't journal and I know I should. And I just, so maybe I can ask you to stand for me to create a practice. I'm going to start with like a five minute journal where I transcribe or maybe use the app on my phone because I just hate writing period, which is why I'm a podcasting coach. There's an app called

Thomas Renner: 35:41

Otter. Have you heard of Otter?

Jason Frazell: 35:43

I have Otter. Yeah, I have Otter.

Thomas Renner: 35:44

Yeah. Just open it up, go for a walk, start talking. I mean, you talk a lot.

Jason Frazell: 35:48

Yeah, totally. Well, we'll we'll put it, well, thank you Thomas. We'll put your Otter affiliate link in the show notes. Let's, let's drive some additional revenue for this episode. Sponsored by Otter AI transcription service. Yeah, I have, I have Otter. Thomas, last question I have for you. I have two more questions for you. First one is how can people connect with you? And we'll put all this in the show notes as well.

Thomas Renner: 36:10

Yeah. First thing, of course, you're going to visit my website. It's the, Regie coaching. So my energy is what people are often drawn to. So my last name and my last name is Renner, so I just combine a rener energy coaching.com. Makes sense. You also find me at Regie Coaching on Instagram. And I did have a podcast as well. I've put a pause on it and we're just taking a hiatus. So if you do want to find me on Spotify or Apple Music for my podcast, it's called The Joy in Living. You can find that there. So those are the three places you can find me.

Jason Frazell: 36:40

Cool. We'll put all those in the. Show notes. Last question I have for you is if you got to have I'm just gonna 18 year old Thomas here on the podcast with us. What would

Thomas Renner: 36:51

you want him to know? Go big and go slow. Go big and go slow. Go big and go slow.

Jason Frazell: 36:59

Are you are you an impatient person by like a default setting? Are you a pretty fast mover?

Thomas Renner: 37:06

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, me too. I tend, my thoughts run faster than my mouth, which causes people to be like, wait, what did you say? Or my, I will say like one sentence and my partner's like, how the hell did you get there? Like, where, where did that come from? And I'm like, well, what you didn't hear me think were, was this, this, this, and this, and this is what actually came out of my mouth. And he's like, okay, I get that, but good God, like, let me in on some of the more stuff beforehand. It doesn't sound so random.

Jason Frazell: 37:32

Yeah, man, I'm, I'm just picturing you quick, quick mind, tons of energy. Could you design a better spin instructor? No, that's why I was so good. Right. You're like, cause you're probably, because if you enjoy it or you could probably also dig in and get the energy, even if you didn't feel it. Right. Like you can just like show up and do a thousand percent. But

Thomas Renner: 37:57

this is where my choosing comes into, I'm choosing. Into public speaking, I'm choosing into being on stages and talking and really being with people and supporting people and helping people in just a different way. I was doing it in cycling and now I'm doing it in coaching. I let go of cycling. Now I can move in and have more energy to do the bigger things. Talking in front of people, having live retreats, having live events. That gives me the same fuel in the way that I actually want to be presenting in the world.

Jason Frazell: 38:27

Yeah. And probably a little more thoughtful than you're doing a great job. You're in the leaderboard. Da da da. And like, and I love spinning spinning's great, but gives you a little chance to connect on a deeper level. Then you're doing a great job. Keep up the RP. 100%. Thomas, I'm so glad we got a chance to make this happen. So glad we got a chance to meet other than text messaging. Thank you so much for your time, for your grace, for your vulnerability today. We'll have you back on here sometime in the next year or so to see what you're up to and continue the conversation. As you can, everybody listening, you could probably tell Thomas has a tremendous amount of wisdom around the master of many things, I would say. So I'm going to give you my little, my little spin shout out. Thank you very much, my friend. So good to have you on.

Thomas Renner: 39:09

No, thank you, Jason. Thanks for all that you're doing for the world and for humanity and for who you're showing up as like meeting you in person was one of the greatest joys I could have in this year.

Jason Frazell: 39:20

Thanks, Thomas. Appreciate it.

39:21

Thanks for listening to another episode of Talking to Cool People with Jason Frizzell. If you enjoyed today's episode, please tell your friends, follow us on Instagram and Facebook, and give us a shout out, or take a moment to leave a review on iTunes. If something from today's episode piqued your interest and you'd like to connect, email us at podcast at jasonfrizzell. com. We love hearing from our listeners because you're cool people too.