Episode Details

Mike McCastle doesn’t talk about strength the way most people do.

His definition of strength was shaped by watching his dad live with Parkinson’s. Watching the effort, patience, and composure it took to get through everyday moments most people barely think about.

That stayed with him.

It also inspired the Twelve Labors Project, Mike’s mission to take on a series of extreme endurance and strength challenges in honor of his father’s life with Parkinson’s.

The scale of it is hard to miss. World records. Long efforts. Hard things stacked on hard things.

But Mike does not talk about those efforts like stunts. He talks about them as a way to honor what he saw his father carry for years.

Eric and Todd talk with Mike about endurance, failure, and how quickly a challenge can feel too big when your mind gets out ahead of you. They get into a failed pull-up world record attempt, what it took to come back from it, and the habit of breaking hard things down before they swallow you whole.

You do not conquer the mountain in a day.

You win the morning. You take the next step. You stay with what is in front of you.

That applies to training. It applies to Parkinson’s. It applies to any stretch where progress is uneven and your body or mind is not cooperating.

What You’ll Hear

• Why Mike built the Twelve Labors Project around his father’s experience with Parkinson’s
• What failure taught him after a pull-up record attempt fell apart
• Why “win the morning” is more useful than thinking too far ahead
• How he handles bad training days without turning them into zero days
• What he learned from watching his dad carry himself in public
• Why community matters, even for athletes who are used to doing hard things alone

Key Takeaways

➡️ You don’t conquer the mountain in a day.
Big things get handled in small pieces. The next step matters more than the full picture.

➡️ Strength shows up in the response.
Not when things are easy. When they’re slow, frustrating, or out of your control.

➡️ Resilience can be trained.
Through repetition, pressure, and learning how to stay with the moment.

➡️ Bad days still count.
Doing something is different than doing nothing.

Key Moments

00:00 — Introduction
00:30 — The Twelve Labors Project and where it came from
02:00 — Parkinson’s, fatherhood, and what kids absorb
03:00 — First labor: 50K with a weighted pack
04:30 — “Win the morning”
07:00 — Failed pull-up world record attempt
08:30 — “The brain is a liar”
10:30 — Staying in the moment under pressure
21:00 — Completing a labor after his father passed
22:00 — The bank story
24:00 — Caretaking as a teenager
26:30 — Fatherhood and example
38:00 — What to do on bad days
45:00 — Community and support
49:30 — Closing reflections

About the Guest

Mike McCastle is a U.S. Navy veteran, 7-time world record-setting endurance athlete, and founder of the Twelve Labors Project, a long-running mission built around extreme feats of strength and endurance.

He has a background in sport psychology and works as a mental strength coach, personal trainer, USA Weightlifting coach, and Rock Steady Boxing coach. His work focuses on helping people build physical capacity and mental durability under pressure.

The Twelve Labors Project was inspired in part by his father’s experience with Parkinson’s, and that connection runs through the way Mike thinks about resilience, discipline, and what strength actually looks like.

Follow / Connect

Instagram: @mikemccastle
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michael.mccastle
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemccastle

About the Hosts

Todd Vogt and Eric Von Frohlich are athletes living with Parkinson’s who share what they’re learning in real time: what helps, what doesn’t, and