The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson on his new book, 'The Running Ground'

Andrew Ross Sorkin (Anchor) 00:00.070

welcome dick thompson to the broadcast he's the CEO of the atlantic magazine is a former editor chief of wired magazine i want to talk to you about media and AI and all sorts of things but i want to talk about this book because i am not a runner i have always wanted to be a

Andrew Ross Sorkin (Anchor) 00:13.230

runner and i read your book and it's actually quite inspiring because it's not really i want to say it's not really about running

Nicholas Thompson (CEO) 00:19.630

that is correct it's

Andrew Ross Sorkin (Anchor) 00:20.750

i mean there is a running element to it but you run almost as a form of of meditation

Nicholas Thompson (CEO) 00:26.350

yeah i think that's a great way for people to get into it i don't know if you started running after reading the book but a lot of people have read the book and started running one of the things that i say is that when you go out you can use it as a way to if you go out and you

Nicholas Thompson (CEO) 00:37.950

look at your watch and you worry about your time and you worry about your weight and you put it on your headphones you're not going to get a lot from it if you go out and you just listen or you look and you think about your breathing or how you're moving through space suddenly

Nicholas Thompson (CEO) 00:47.870

it opens up your mind

Andrew Ross Sorkin (Anchor) 00:49.030

by the way we should say you're not just a runner it's not like you just casually run what what are we talking about

Nicholas Thompson (CEO) 00:54.590

here i do i mean i set the american record in the fifty K for my age group i ran a two twenty nine marathon in my forties and everyday for many years i ran for right here the conde nast building right around the corner yeah back to brooklyn eight eight miles each way to work

Becky Quick (Anchor) 01:07.070

so how many miles a week do you do you run

Nicholas Thompson (CEO) 01:09.870

sixty to seventy i don't actually run that much the nice thing about running compared to other sports is there's like a cap on it you can't actually run that much unlike cycling

Becky Quick (Anchor) 01:17.870

or swimming sixty to seventy miles a week is not a lot well but like

Nicholas Thompson (CEO) 01:21.070

it's like eight hours a week right so it's a lot but it's not

Andrew Ross Sorkin (Anchor) 01:24.870

OK can i just ask a question for those folks out there who are not runners or want to be runners who are casual runners who think oh my knees are going to hurt and my hips are going to hurt and by the way for me if i run more than like i don't think i've ever really run one

Andrew Ross Sorkin (Anchor) 01:38.310

seven or eight miles and then like for the next two or three days i'm in like pain

Nicholas Thompson (CEO) 01:42.030

OK so don't run seven or eight miles build up slowly run like three miles run like five miles then run like seven miles but the other thing to understand about pain pain and running is largely psychological like it's largely a mental emotion right so when your body hurts it's

Nicholas Thompson (CEO) 01:57.030

because you're scared right and it's your body saying oh wait i'm going to lose homeostasis oh wait something 's going wrong and it sends pain signals it's not necessarily muscular it can be right you like step on nail that's actually a physical thing but a lot of the pain when

Nicholas Thompson (CEO) 02:10.550

you run is psychological and once you understand that you have a better way

Becky Quick (Anchor) 02:14.870

of being your body thinks your body thinks it's going to lose nutrients or you're just energy

Nicholas Thompson (CEO) 02:19.950

needs right your body is there's all kinds of studies that show this but your body gets worried like i'm going too fast it's too far and that's why pain like so you run a marathon or you run a half marathon or ten K whatever it is the pain you experience will be weird or like

Nicholas Thompson (CEO) 02:33.150

starting your shoulders then you like have weird and die estrogen then your ankle will hurt and then you'll finish and none of that will hurt at all right and it's because during the race your body

Becky Quick (Anchor) 02:43.350

is like sort of confused

Nicholas Thompson (CEO) 02:45.110

and so once you know that you can then start to distinguish between the real stuff oh this is muscular fatigue oh wait no this is just my brain playing a trick

Andrew Ross Sorkin (Anchor) 02:55.110

i have a different question for you which is as a high performer and we have a lot of high performers who who watch this broadcast who run companies or CEO 's like you are and everyone who talks about balanced life balance how do you have time to do this and do it as i mean

Andrew Ross Sorkin (Anchor) 03:09.150

you're doing a lot of it there are people who go to the gym in the morning i get that hopefully they're watching us right now probably from the gym but this is a whole different level and so i'm always thinking about people who are exceptional in their job but also are

Andrew Ross Sorkin (Anchor) 03:23.590

exceptional you know in something else at the same time

Nicholas Thompson (CEO) 03:27.590

so there are a couple things one is i got very efficient at multitasking so i run to and from work right and so that's not that much longer than the subway so a lot of these seventy miles are just going across the manhattan bridge to my office secondly i've kind of structured in

Nicholas Thompson (CEO) 03:42.630

my life so it's additive like it's a mental break where i'm starting to relax and clear up from like working in the morning being with the kids working in the evening so i feel like it's additive to my job and actually if if you said tomorrow you know nick you're not going to

Nicholas Thompson (CEO) 03:57.230

run for the next month i think i would actually be worse at my job i'd have a little more your best idea