TCC Podcast #330: The New Ironman, Book Releases, and AI with Kira Hug and Rob Marsh

On the 330th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Rob and Kira sit down after two weeks of in-person retreats to share what they’re most excited about in 2023. Between new conversations around writing a book, learning new languages, competing in an Ironman, and AI and ChatGPT, you’ll want to tune into the few surprises Rob and Kira have up their sleeve. Tune into the podcast to find out: Who’s going to learn Italian – Rob or Kira? Did Rob actually bike 200 miles in one day?! Is Kira going to be the new Ironman? The tentative releases of Rob and Kira’s books. Is there a ghost in Kira’s photo? The power of in-person retreats and masterminds. Will there be a new AI workshop for copywriters? Who should worry about AI? Where will the next Think Tank retreats take place? A Copywriter Club spin-off podcast is happening… what’s it about? Find out the answers by tuning into the podcast below. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: If you'd like to be the first to know about the AI workshop + limited series all about AI and ChatGPT, then click here to add yourself to the list! The Copywriter Think Tank Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Free month of Brain.FM Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  Welcome to the Copywriter Club podcast. We don't have an intro today, but we were just talking about the fact that maybe we haven't ever even said our names on the podcast other than occasionally talking to each other. So this is the Copywriter Club podcast with Rob Marsh and Kira Hug. Kira Hug:  Right. Rob Marsh:  What else should we say about ourselves? I don't know. Kira Hug:  Well, Rob, so we're at the beginning of February. What are you really excited about right now? Personally, professionally? Rob Marsh:  Personally, a couple of things are going on. So outside of work, I am taking an Italian class with my wife and my oldest daughter, and the class actually started a couple of weeks ago. I haven't been able to take the first two classes because you and I have been traveling out of town. We had our retreat; then we had our mastermind group that met together. And so today that we're recording is my first day that I get to go to this class. So I'm hoping that after missing the first two classes, I'm not hopelessly far behind in my attempts to learn Italian. So I'm looking forward to that. Kira Hug:  You got to prove it. You have to say something. Rob Marsh:  Well, I haven't been to class yet, so I don't have anything to say, but I will eventually. I think, maybe I even said this on the podcast once. I can't remember, but Italian to me, is the most beautiful language. It's musical. When I hear people speaking Italian, it sounds like they're singing in a lot of ways. My wife lived in Italy for close to a year at one point, and so we have some friends in Italy that we've connected with over the years, once or twice, and usually, it's my wife talking to them at dinner or sitting around their homes, and I'm sitting there quietly picking out a word or two that I might understand because I took high school Spanish and there are some similarities there. And you know what? It's just time for me to pick up another language, so in addition to the very little Spanish that I can understand and joke about speaking, maybe I'll learn Italian. And so yeah, that's going on in- Kira Hug:  That's so fun. Rob Marsh: ... In my life right now.  Yeah, it's a lot easier than training for a marathon and 112 mile bike race and a two-mile swim all at the same time. Kira Hug:  I don't think it is. I am slightly jealous because I do want to learn another language desperately, but I also realize I tend to take on too much. And so I was like, don't take on any other goals for now; just focus on what's in front of you. But then I was thinking if I'm training for an Ironman, there's a lot of time I have to just listen and think, and maybe that is the best time to learn a new language, just to listen to it while you're on a long run. I don't know if you're going to do that and integrate the two together in your running and your bike riding. Rob Marsh:  That's a good idea. I hadn't. I have thought about watching movies in Italian or TV shows, having those on in the background and trying to pick out what you know. I know that that's one of the ways that you can get closer to being fluent in a language, but actually putting on Italian podcasts or that kind of thing as I'm running is actually a really good idea. So maybe I will do more of that. We'll see. But yeah, catch us up on where you are with the marathon that you've got to be running in eight months, nine months?  Not Marathon. Sorry. Triathlon. Kira Hug:  Yeah. Well, I signed up officially, so I have shared with the community that I wanted to do an Ironman, and then of course, I waited till the registration fee dramatically jumped up. And so now, I officially registered last week for the Ironman in Arizona in November. It felt like that was a perfect amount of time. I have enough time to train, but not too much time where I don't train hard enough now. And Arizona seemed like an easier course. I don't think there is an easier course for an Ironman, but I think I just don't know what I'm getting into fully. And I think that ignorance is bliss. Otherwise, you wouldn't do anything. You wouldn't have kids. You wouldn't start a business. You wouldn't run an Ironman or compete in an Iron Man. But I do talk to people occasionally, like you. You were telling me about your 200... 100-mile bike ride, right? Rob Marsh:  200, yeah. Kira Hug:  200-mile bike ride.  And you were just kind of telling me how difficult it was. And so I think when I talk to people who have done any type of long-distance event outside of a marathon because I've done a marathon, I understand how hard that is. It's just a good reminder when I feel other people's anxiety and stress over it, I pick up on that and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, what am I getting into?" So you warned me a little bit about the biking part. And so I'm waiting for my Peloton to arrive because it's hard to bike in Maine right now, but it hasn't arrived yet. So I'm ready to start training for the biking portion, which makes me a little more nervous. Rob Marsh:  That's the fun portion. Riding the bike is the fun portion. Kira Hug:  I think so. Rob Marsh:  So I told you about this race, and just for everybody who's listening, it's a race called LoTaJa. If you want to, you can look it up. And when I was a kid or a teenager, a group of guys just started riding their bikes between Logan, Utah and Jackson, Wyoming, and they would take this route that kind of went up through Idaho. And it's really pretty, the route's not quite the same as what it was back then because the small towns that it goes through can't support what this race has become. But as a teenager, I would hear about these, it was maybe 20 or 30 guys that would ride this... And it wasn't even a race at that time, but it was this ride that they would do at the end of the biking season. And we would hear about them finishing and we're like, "That'd be so cool to join that ride." And then, over time, it became a race. And now there are, I think, more than a thousand people who participate every year. And it's kind of crazy. The elevations, the elevation gains, there are three mountains that you go over the top of. And the first time that I trained with it... Or for it, I had always had this in the back of my head. I wanted to ride it. And one of the guys I was working with at the time when I was living in Idaho is the beginning of... Very end of June, beginning of July. And he said, "Hey, we've got this extra slot on our team. Somebody dropped out. Do you want to ride it with us?" And so the race was literally in eight weeks. I didn't own a road bike at the time. I had only been riding my mountain bike. And so immediately I said yes, which was crazy because again, 200 miles in a single day is not the kind of thing that you should be doing after eight weeks of practice, but- Kira Hug:  In a single day? Rob Marsh:  Yes, in a single day. So it's 200 miles in a single day. So I ordered a bike online, had it shipped to my house, and within six and a half weeks or so, I rode every day that I could to try to get my miles up. And I suffered. That first time I really suffered. It was hard. I didn't think I was going to finish. There was a woman that was riding about my same pace, and we sort of paced each other for about 150 miles, which was really helpful. I don't know who she is. I've never seen her since, but maybe she was an angel guiding my way. Kira Hug:  Maybe she listens to the podcast. Rob Marsh:  Maybe so. But I finished the first time and then I was like, "Okay, I'm going to do it right." So yeah, I've done it five times solo. I've done it another time with a team, but the other times I've trained, I've taken eight months to train and make sure that I'm riding several hundred miles a week before I get to... And it's gone much better. But yeah, that's what goes through my head when I hear you talking about training for an Ironman. I'm like, okay, not only are you doing a massive bike ride, but you're also running a full marathon and you're swimming. I don't know if it's open water or what in Arizona, but you're swimming somewhere for a couple of miles. It is an undertaking, and I'm a little bit jealous but also still happy it's not me. Kira Hug:  Where did most of the pain come from on the first bike ride where you weren't fully trained for it? What was the pain you were feeling? Rob Marsh:  I think it was just not being prepared for the actual distance. Because I hadn't been training,