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The Rich Roll Podcast

A World Champion Athlete & Oscar-Nominated Writer on Mindset, Performance & Persistence

The Rich Roll Podcast

Rich Roll

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement, Society & Culture

4.812.9K Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2023

⏱️ 144 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

With over 400 triathlons to her name, today's guest Lesley Paterson is a 3x XTERRA Triathlon World Champion and 2x World Triathlon Cross Champion. But if you asked about her greatest test of endurance, it wouldn’t be a race. It would be chasing an Oscar. For 16 years during her professional triathlon career, Lesley fought to secure and maintain the film rights to All Quiet on the Western Front out of her own pocket from race winnings. She wrote and rewrote the script, and despite the odds stacked heavily against her, never gave up on her dream of getting the movie made. After many years of starts and stops the film was finally released and took home four Oscars and seven BAFTAs—including one for best-adapted screenplay (this was Lesley’s first screenplay might I add). All of which is a testament to her patience, discipline, and hard work. Lesley’s relentless persistence is the focus of today’s conversation, along with the importance of self-belief, playing the long game, and the ‘never quit’ drive required to crush audacious goals. Delightful, engaging, and strong, I adore Lesley. There’s a lot to learn from this fiery Scottish lassie. Note: If you like this exchange, be sure to check out her book The Brave Athlete, which is packed with actionable practices to build an endurance mindset. Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Seed: seed.com/RICHROLL BetterHelp: BetterHelp.com/RICHROLL Squarespace: Squarespace.com/RICHROLL Momentous: LiveMomentous.com/richroll Indeed: Indeed.com/RICHROLL Babbel: Babbel.com/RICHROLL Plant Power Meal Planner: https://meals.richroll.com Peace + Plants, Rich

Transcript

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0:00.0

The rich role podcast.

0:13.8

The discipline that I learned from sport really helped the creativity, because if you

0:20.0

still give yourself some sense of structure, then you're working towards something.

0:24.9

And that's the same in sport.

0:26.7

If you really want to get to the top, you have to be creative how you're going to push

0:30.0

your mind and your body to truly achieve greatness.

0:33.2

It's all about mindset.

0:36.2

I once believed that you could either be an athlete or an artist, but never both.

0:41.7

And certainly you couldn't do both at the highest level, at the elite level.

0:46.8

Well here today to break this paradigm is five-time world champion professional triathlete

0:53.5

and Oscar nominated screenwriter of last year's smash hit All Quiet on the Western Front.

1:00.4

Her name is Leslie Patterson and she's got 400 triathlons to her name.

1:05.0

She's a three-time exterra triathlon world champion, a two-time world triathlon cross

1:12.0

champion.

1:13.0

But if you ask Leslie what her greatest test of endurance has been, she's not going

1:17.0

to tell you that it's some PR or some win at a race.

1:21.0

It would be chasing an Oscar because for the last 16 years during her professional triathlon

1:28.1

career, Leslie fought to secure and maintain the film rights to All Quiet based on the

1:35.4

book out of her own pocket from race winnings.

1:38.4

She wrote and rewrote the script many times over and despite the odds being stacked heavily

1:44.2

against her, just never gave up on her dream of getting this movie made.

1:50.4

After many, many years of starts and stops and high profile actors on and off the project,

...

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