A couple months back, a Stanford MBA student emailed to say he’d sat in on a presentation by Tough Mudder co-founders Will Dean and Guy Livingstone. Tough Mudder was the focus of a business school Case Study, and Will and Guy were invited to speak about the company’s (seemingly) overnight success. Unfortunately for them, several [...]
THIS IS RODRIGO I haven’t met him, but from what I hear (and see), he’s a character. He’s also a devout Christian who’s having the Easter of his life. (Note: To my friends who thought I had a good iPhone story: mine was batshit crazy decent. His is magic.) Happy Easter, Rodrigo!
Every time I’m on FB it seems like there’s a brand new ad for a (brand new) fun run that looks a lot like all the other (brand new) fun runs. With seemingly no barriers to entry in the booming mob-and-mud run industries, you don’t necessarily need a business plan these days. Hell, you don’t [...]
As my friends and family know, I’ve been working with 60 Minutes on a segment about obstacle racing. I connected with them when my Tough Mudder exposé hit newsstands and was hired as a consultant. This is obviously very exciting as I LOVE 60 MINUTES! (#understatement) There’s more to say about this, of course. But in [...]
Call me crazy, call me quixotic, but I always assumed that my investigative feature would help change the narrative about Tough Mudder. I figured that other national journalists on this beat would read my piece and perhaps reconsider writing (yet) another breathless puff piece about the company. So I was rather incensed when I read [...]
Let’s start with the obvious… I’m no Bear Grylls. I mean, he eats things that I wouldn’t touch with a stick. He and I share little more in common than two ‘L’s in our last name. BUT… as I move into middle age – with nothing but orange headbands and obstacle race medals to show [...]
I’m heading to England at the end of the month to run the Tough Guy. But more importantly, I’m going there to meet that man for the first time. What a privilege. Forget once in a generation. Mr. Mouse is a once-in-an-era kind of character… the creator/catalyst of what will soon be a half-billion dollar [...]
Earlier this month, a Houston law firm assigned my Outside feature in their workshop on Intellectual Property. Admittedly, when I was first asked to speak to the 20 or so students about Tough Mudder, I imagined it would be in person. And with that came the requisite delusions of grandeur: 1st class ticket to Texas, [...]
Last fall, I journeyed to Tahoe with hopes of writing a funny, experiential essay about doing my first Tough Mudder. After reading up on the company however, I chanced upon a riveting scandal in the comments sections of various news stories, blogs and YouTube clips. Tough Mudder was being slammed for stealing the idea from [...]
After a year of talking nonstop about this story with my close friends, family and (unimaginably patient) wife, it’s exciting to finally see others talking about it. Today, the following was featured on the homepage of The Daily Mail. Here’s a link. __ And this went live earlier on The Huffington Post. Here’s a link.