From Journalism to Trails to Tech: Wendy Bounds on Innovation and Personal Transformation

Gwendolyn (Wendy) Bounds, an accomplished journalist, author and tech executive, shares her journey from journalism at the Wall Street Journal to the fast-paced world of tech startups. The episode kicks off with a remembrance of the 1994 Photo Marketing Association convention, where Bounds and Dead Pixels Society host Gary Pageau first met and witnessed the dawn of digital photography with Apple's QuickTake camera. Bounds provides a unique perspective on Kodak's struggle to transition from film to digital during George Fisher's leadership, contrasting it with Fuji’s successful evolution into a diversified imaging giant.

The conversation takes a thoughtful turn as they unpack the lessons from the Advanced Photo System failure, a cautionary tale about innovation that didn't align with consumer needs. Bounds discusses her transition from journalism to tech, reflecting on how her book, "Little Chapel on the River," was inspired by the aftermath of 9/11 and a deep affection for a particular place.

Finally, the topic shifts to personal reinvention, where sparked by a simple dinner party conversation, Bounds embraced the challenge and pushed beyond her comfort zone to achieve global ranking. This personal transformation story illustrates the power of facing obstacles head-on, whether in sports, career, or life transitions and is highlighted in her new book, "Not Too Late."

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Transcript

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Kodak's Digital Transformation and Legacy

Erin Manning 0:12

Welcome to the Dead Pixel Society podcast , the photo imaging industry's leading news source . Here's your host , gary Pegeau . The Dead Pixel Society podcast is brought to you by Mediaclip , Advertek Printing and Independent Photo Imagers .

Gary Pageau 0:28

Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast . I'm your host , Gary Pageau , and today we're joined by Gwendolyn Bounds , who is an author , journalist, and tech executive . Hi , Wendy , how are you doing today ?

Wendy Bounds 0:40

Gary , it's been what ? 20 ? You did the math . How many years ?

Gary Pageau 0:44

Oh , almost 30 , I think 30 ? We're going to get into that , but it's so good to see you .

Gary Pageau 0:50

It's good to be here , you and I met in the early to mid 90s when you were a Wall Street Journal reporter covering Kodak and I was back in my previous life as a newsletter guy at the Photo Marketing Association and I think we met at the we were talking about this earlier the Atlanta PMA 1994 , where Apple introduced the QuickTake camera and we had a good fun few years there , kind of competing for the same stories and sharing information about digital , early digital and the advanced photo system .

Wendy Bounds 1:22

A-P-S . A-P-S Gary .

Gary Pageau 1:26

Another Photo System . Let's get people kind of framework . How did you get into the journalism business as a reporter ?

Wendy Bounds 1:40

Well , you met me right as I was cutting my teeth in journalism .

Gary Pageau 1:41

I was going to make a joke , since you dated us 30 years back that you and I were both like we were about 10 years old .

Wendy Bounds 1:47

It was my first job out of college at the Wall Street Journal . I started as an intern and then got hired in 93 . And my beat Kodak was a part of my beat because we kind of covered territories at that point in time and I was based in the Pittsburgh Bureau of the Wall Street Journal , and so upstate New York meant I covered Kodak , which by virtue of that , meant I covered the photo industry . You know you actually , I mean there have been many pivotal times in that industry since , as you have chronicled on your show and your newsletters . But boy , those three years of 93 to 96 , when I covered it , those are pretty pivotal and interesting years . But I had always been a writer . I went to journalism school and I got really lucky to land an internship at a great place right out of school and it led me to you , Gary , it led me to you .

Gary Pageau 2:37

It all comes back to me , it all comes back to you , Gary . So let's talk a little bit about those times , because that was a weird time , because film was still king but everyone knew digital was coming and it was a matter of where , when, and how . As someone who you know was new to the beat , you know you were kind of embedded in Kodak for a while because they had the new CEO at the time , George Fisher , who was , you know , kind of charged with transforming the company . What kind of briefings and prep did you get to take on that company ? Because at the time Kodak was a blue chip company . That was a big . They were a big company doing a lot of things .

Wendy Bounds 3:18

I still have ingrained in my brain , Gary , a report from an analyst . I'm blanking on his name . He was like the analyst at the time . I have the name Mike in my head , but I can't pull his last name up .

Gary Pageau 3:30

Well , there was Alex Henderson .

Wendy Bounds 3:32

Yeah , Alex , but this report I literally remember a headline Kodak stock was approaching , like , I think , $100 at that time and it was like ride the yellow train all the way to $100 .

Wendy Bounds 3:44

And it was sort of at this point where Kodak , as you said , it was like George Fisher had just taken over and everyone sort of thought that the future held only big things , as often tends to happen . But this was right at that tipping point of when they were trying to make that initial shift to digital and George Fisher had come in from Motorola where he'd been CEO . And you know , I was very lucky I didn't have a background in this but I got very lucky to be briefed by my predecessor at the Wall Street Journal . But I also got to spend a lot of time with George Fisher talking to him in the beginning and he was very different from other CEOs . He often would just say to the PR people , you can leave us be , we're going to have a conversation together for dinner and they'd be like no no , Charlie Smith having a coronary , the veins sticking out .

Gary Pageau 4:32

Charlie Smith having a coronary , the veins sticking out Exactly .

Wendy Bounds 4:35

But he , you know it was a , I just remember they had the film plants . I remember taking the tours of the big film plants and then I remember years later when they were blowing up the film plants , right , or you know , and so you know , as you know , and I'll toss the ball back to you , but George just couldn't get the company to turn that digital corner hard and fast enough . You know , it wasn't , I don't think it was his fault . I think it's a legacy company that really was just kind of called up in the cash cow of film and it's really hard to make that pivot , as you know .

Gary Pageau 5:06

Yeah , well , and that was exactly the point . I mean , like I said , Fisher was my favorite CEO . I mean I was very fortunate in the fact I got to meet most of them in that era , from Whitmore on up and again . He was the most accessible . He would go to industry events and work the room and talk to people , which was to his credit . He was a good Midwest guy kind of approach . He didn't have the snootiness of the Sloan School Kodak guys and he did have a you know a large problem on his hands because it was a chemicals company . And if you look at what Fuji transformed themselves into right , they're a chemicals company that does imaging . They kind of did it right . And Kodak , for whatever reason whether it was because they were a public company and they had to make the quarterly earnings or you know whatever direction but they had much more trouble transitioning .

Wendy Bounds 6:00

Yeah , I can see . It's interesting I think a lot of it . Now , looking back with the retrospect of that , as you said , 30 years or so , and having covered many more industries after that at the Wall Street Journal this was my first I now see the patterns that happen , the cycles of sameness that get embedded in the way executives operate and the way companies operate . It becomes so entrenched and you can't break that . It's not dissimilar to how we as just people and humans become entrenched in the same way of doing things , which is actually a theme in my latest book that you and I will talk about in a little bit . But I think that's one of the things that happened to Kodak , and one person can't do it on their own , and George Fisher was a huge change agent but it just simply wasn't enough . But he was right . He was right to push them into digital and you think what might have happened with Kodak had that pivot been able to have been made .

Gary Pageau 6:50

Yeah , yeah , I mean , people certainly aren't printing the way they were , and that was where a lot of the money was . So it's interesting to see where the money could have come from . And I always argue with people who say things like you know , kodak missed the boat . Well , you and I were both there in the early to mid 90s when Kodak was everywhere in digital . I mean , they were considered a leader . You know , they were doing online imaging before anyone else . They were doing printing for anyone else . They were doing all kinds of things .

Gary Pageau 7:17

In fact , you know they were tight with Apple at the time because of desktop publishing and so , looking back , they were a pivotal player in the technology . And then , of course , there was the Advanced Photo System , which we got to just touch on a little bit because a lot of people forget about it , but at the time that was a big story because you had the five major companies . You had the three major camera companies and Kodak and Fuji , basically operating in secret to develop a new film format . What was your perception on that in terms of ? Were you given like any kind of an indication that this was as big as it got , as it was going to be ?

Wendy Bounds 7:54

You know you're testing my brain for three decades back , but I still do remember that as being I remember it being one of the biggest stories , the announcement of that I remember . I think it began with Kodak . I think Kodak was developing something called I think it something called Project Orion or something that eventually led into this consortium . And I remember they announced it and they had a huge investment , like hundreds of millions of dollars .

Gary Pageau 8:22

Almost a billion just Kodak .

Wendy Bounds 8:24

Is that right ? Yeah , it was enormous , and I remember we all

Lessons From Kodak's APS Failure

Wendy Bounds 8:27

. It was like this moment where part of the rationale for it and , Gary , you should correct me if I'm wrong was that people loaded film incorrectly . People had trouble loading film , so this was just like a cartridge you could pop in . And so I guess the question became there just never was enough adoption , particularly in the pro market , for this thing to take off . It's a little bit like was there really that big of a problem to solve ?

Gary Pageau 8:53

Right now that we look back on it , I mean from that standpoint you're exactly right a little bit like was there really that big of a problem to solve right now that we look back on it ? I mean , from that standpoint you're exactly right . I mean , loading film for 35-millimeter using film was not a huge barrier . I think they kind of pretended it was right .

Gary Pageau 9:04

You know Kodak had a lot of agendas for APS , right . They wanted to make it a bridge to digital . People would have their film easily scanned and automated . It was also a smaller negative so they could use less materials but still charge the same amount of money . So you know , there were all kinds of agendas there which made it kind of a challenging product . And of course , you know , it hung around for a while . But really digital it never really beat 35 millimeter and it really just kind of faded away , which is kind of sad . I mean it was kind of a waste of money in my opinion in a lot of ways , but it paved the way , I think , for a lot of stuff that came later .

Wendy Bounds 9:40

Well , there's a bigger lesson and I think overall for you know businesses , you know writ large which is , if you're going to launch a new product that's solving a problem , make sure it's actually solving a problem that people think is a problem .

Gary Pageau 9:54

Right .

Gary Pageau 9:54

You know . So , if you think , about .

Wendy Bounds 9:56

I mean , one might have said with laundry detergent . How hard is it really to pour laundry detergent into your washing machine ?

Wendy Bounds 10:05

And yet pods , like laundry pods have taken off Right Because people really did . I mean have taken off right Because people really did . I mean the saving somebody that time of like a busy , harried parent who's like trying to do 18 loads of laundry . That really proved to be solving a problem , like some people . Many people hate laundry pods because kids eat them and they can be poisonous . But the adoption rate has been huge . Didn't happen with APS , it wasn't a big enough problem , and so I think that's just a very interesting business case to think about .

Gary Pageau 10:35

Oh sure , Well , and the other problem that it had was the technology it was replacing . 35 millimeter was pretty darn good and it was universal and it wasn't going to go away . I mean it's not . The problem was is they were still selling 35 millimeter format film and cameras right side by side with APS .

Wendy Bounds 10:53

It was confusing . It was really confusing for people and I think it was probably also for the retailers , trying to devote shelf space and sort of figure out what allocation of their shelf space to give to this , which one to promote . I mean , it was very it was . It was it's kind of messy , but you know what , like they tried , hindsight is high 2020 , right Arch is 30 . Arch had 30 years there you go ?

Gary Pageau 11:18

You said you left the journal around 96 . Where did you go from there ?

Wendy Bounds 11:22

I didn't leave the Journal . I stopped covering the photo industry I moved to . I actually left the Journal for 20 years oh , that's right Before I left because it was my first job out of school and I was fortunate enough to be there through a massive transformation and how I'm speaking of transformations .

Gary Pageau 11:39

Oh yeah , the media business , oh my goodness .

Wendy Bounds 11:41

Yeah , consume information . So I moved to New York in 96 and started covering a bunch of other industries and I was in . I've been in New York ever since and stayed with the Wall Street Journal through the transition to the Web , through and digital and then into video and podcasting , and it was lucky enough to have a lot of about eight years before I , a couple of years ago , left to work for a startup and I worked for a tech , as you mentioned in the intro , a technology media startup that's based in Tokyo called Smart News , which is a news aggregation app . So that's the TLDR short version the trajectory the trajectory Gary .

Gary Pageau 12:41

So while you were at the journal you actually wrote your first book and I want to just touch on that a little bit , because you're based in New York and 9-11 happens . So your first book , The Little Chapel on the River can you just touch on that , because it wasn't really a memoir first book , the Little Chapel on the River can you just touch on that , because it wasn't really a memoir , but it was kind of a story about a place in time .

Wendy Bounds 12:57

Yeah , it's both . It's a love story about a place . Really .

Journey Into Late Life Transformation

Wendy Bounds 13:02

I lived next to the World Trade Center towers as of September 11 , 2001 , and the Wall Street Journal's offices were right across the street from where I lived , 2001 . And the Wall Street Journal's offices were right across the street from where I lived and we all know what happened that day . And I was in the shower when the first plane hit the World Trade Center towers and saw and heard the other , the second one , fly over my apartment building head and we know what happened next . And I was part of throngs of people fleeing and by . I was incredibly lucky , that you know , not only did I get out of there that day and I'm here to be still talking to you but by my apartment building was shut down for six plus months .

Wendy Bounds 13:43

For because a piece of the trade center went through my apartment building and I ended up staying with some friends in a small Hudson Valley town about 50 miles north of New York City , and when I was heading back on the train to look for a new place to live , I wandered into this small Irish pub and country store that was right at the train depot on the river .

Wendy Bounds 14:05

One thing led to another Gary , and one quick beer before I got on the train became hours talking to the old proprietor and the people at the store and at the bar , and I actually moved to that town instead of going back to New York City and ended up going to spend time working at this pub and this country store and writing about the community's struggle to save this place , which was you know , it was threatened by all sorts of business forces , right that we now know threaten small businesses , and that was Little Chapel on the River , and so it was about the people who came together , the human duct tape to keep it alive and the story of my own transformation being there within its walls .

Gary Pageau 14:48

So how long did you live there ?

Wendy Bounds 14:50

Well , I'm still there , I still live in this town .

Gary Pageau 14:52

Oh , okay , there you are .

Wendy Bounds 14:55

A long time . I'm still talking to you from that town . I mean that's when I say transformation . It wasn't like you know , oh , and now it's over . My whole life changed because of that time .

Gary Pageau 15:05

You stopped for a beer and look what happened .

Wendy Bounds 15:07

Yeah , one beer turned into . You know , I'm still looking outside , you know , at the land where I had that , near where I had that beer .

Wendy Bounds 15:20

I went back to work at the journal after I wrote that book and stay in that but I that's been my home base ever since

Gary Pageau 15:24

Awesome , and so it sounds like you're going to remain there for a while .

Wendy Bounds 15:28

Yeah , I mean , I have no intentions of this is my home . It's been my home ever since . It feels like my home . I'm from North Carolina originally , but , you know , even though the pub and the country store that I wrote the book about has since closed , there are still many of the many of the things that drew me here in the beginning . It's an antidote to career that's , you know , as you know , in an industry that's a very hard charging , 24-7 type of industry . And being here sort of , and waking up and seeing foxes and , you know , wolves and bears and things like outside my window it's just grass and trees it's a kind of an antidote to the rest of it .

Gary Pageau 16:12

Which kind of brings up work-life balance . And that's where I want to talk about your latest book , because that's really where it's like oh my gosh , I've got to talk to Wendy about this book Because I think it resonates with a lot of people of a certain age where you reach a point where you're middle-aged and you're like is this all there is , or can I have more ? So what was really the impetus for your latest book , "ot Too Late ?

Wendy Bounds 17:00

I'm glad we're going to talk about this and , even though it may seem like you're taking a detour from what you usually talk about , I actually think there's a lot of tie-ins here , because you know , you and I right before you started the show we're talking about this notion of how you break the cycle of sameness , doing the same things every day , both as a human and , you know , in work , we get programmed to do and think a certain way , which that all ties back to the beginning of our conversation here . Power of pushing limits at any age actually is about my late in life journey to become a competitive athlete .

Wendy Bounds 17:38

I had been a scrawny , last picked kid for sports teams growing up , the one who sat on the bench and passed out the Gatorade in the water , and you know , we . I think , Gary , this will probably resonate with you and many of your listeners but we gravitate in life toward the things people praise us for . So people had praised me as a young , gawky kid for stringing words together . Nobody ever praised me for on the basketball court or the soccer field . So I became a journalist , and athletics and anything really physical was a side note . But through a story of something that happened that I talk about in the book , I ended up , when I was 45 years old ,

Late Life Transformation Through Obstacle Racing

Wendy Bounds 18:20

starting down this road to become a competitive obstacle course racer .

Wendy Bounds 18:25

And obstacle course racing . For people who don't know what it is , it goes under brand names like Spartan Race or Tough Mudder They've probably heard of these things . It is essentially cross-country running through very , very difficult terrain like mountains and fields and streams , combined with obstacles like scaling an eight foot wall , climbing a 17 foot rope , carrying 40 , 60 pound buckets of rocks nothing I could have ever imagined . And yet that became a very integral part of my life and that journey to transform in that way is a part of that book and it's led to a lot of subsequent changes in my life professionally , and I think that's what you're getting at with your question .

Gary Pageau 19:11

So why that some people just take up fishing or something like that , I mean ? I mean , what you just described is not what a lot of people would if they're going to take up a sport late in life . I mean , I mean , pickleball was right there , wendy , it's right there . Carrying 40 or 60 pound buckets of rocks up a mountain isn't the same thing . Was there something ? Were you a distance athlete before that , or were you more traditional sports ?

Wendy Bounds 19:39

Yeah , I wasn't an athlete at all . I mean , the most I'd ever run , Gary , was like a 5k fun run . So I mean I maybe went to the gym enough to just justify my membership , but no , it was as much like it was the equivalent of my getting on a spaceship to Mars or singing at the Grammys . And if you have ever , if you ever hear me sing , you're going to be like , oh yeah , she's never going to the Grammys .

Wendy Bounds 20:01

So , it was really not something that people who knew me would have ever said . This is who she is right . But here's the thing you know , I think a lot I've heard it said that if you can think about the things you were kind of made fun of as a kid and you get quoted it , then it can become your superpower . And I never felt strong physically . I had always been drawn to athletes and athletics because I knew they imbued a sense of confidence in people , in people .

Wendy Bounds 20:36

But the way I discovered Spartan Racing I mean , believe it or not was through a Google search after a dinner party . Where that night at the dinner party I'd heard an old man who was well into his gin ask a little girl there what do you want to be when you grow up ? And she rattled off all these amazing things like little girls will do . And I just that question Gary just stayed with me the whole night because I realized at our middle age nobody is ever going to ask you again what do you want to be ? And you've probably stopped asking yourself .

Wendy Bounds 21:04

And so that next morning I woke up and I was very unsettled still and I still have no idea why I typed this . But I typed into Google what are the hardest things you can do , and it spit back out to me what are the hardest physical things you can do . And this thing I'd never heard of Spartan Racing was one of them . And the more I read about it and the more I thought , oh , this is so far out of my league , the more intrigued I got . And that set off the journey .

Gary Pageau 21:30

And you've had some pretty substantial success at it too . How long did that take ? Well , what was kind of the time frame there ? You said you started at 45 . Yeah , it didn't happen in one year .

Wendy Bounds 21:40

Oh my gosh . No , I didn't even get to my first race until almost two years later , because life got in the way I mean . We have all these intentions and then inertia set in my mom got sick , my dog got cancer , work , I mean anything you can think of but there were enough little things along the way that got me at least just moving in that direction , and I talk about the how of that . It's , I think , applicable to anybody , whether it's obstacle course racing or fly fishing or pickleball , as you said , people who think I want to do this but I don't even know how to start . So I talk a lot about the tools and the tactics and the science behind that , and not too late , but it took me .

Wendy Bounds 22:21

I mean again , my first race was at Citi Field in 2018 . I fell 10 feet from a 17 foot rope and I collapsed in a heap and thought this is the end . I'll never do this . But I ended up finishing that one race and something like just changed in my DNA when I crossed that finish line and I wanted nothing more than to keep going . And so , flash forward to a week and a half ago . I just got back from Sparta , Greece , where I raced in a three-day world championship in Sparta , Greece , for Spartan .

Gary Pageau 22:54

Racing .

Wendy Bounds 22:55

Thanks . It was my 53rd race and I went there and it's still like when I say this sentence , it still sounds very strange to me . I went there ranked number one in my age group for the United States in Spartan Racing and I took fifth overall in the world , and so I was very . It's a long way from that dinner party and falling from a 17 foot rope , so quite a journey .

Gary Pageau 23:20

Have you thought about going back to the find that find that guy who was half into his gin and say look what you did A little girl , maybe you should thank her right .

Wendy Bounds 23:30

Little girl probably is not a little girl anymore . And the guy I mean , if he was still drinking that much , jen , he's probably not around . But yes , you know , I owe , I owe her , I owe them both . Thanks , I owe them both , thanks .

Gary Pageau 23:44

So you know it's funny . One of the reasons why I want to reconnect is because , on a personal level , I've been gotten back into trail racing . I'm not competing on a world stage , but I can certainly relate to what you're been going through right , where it's miserable a lot of times while you're doing it and then once you cross that line , you're like congratulations that you're doing trail racing , because trail racing is an inherent part of what Spartan racing is .

Wendy Bounds 24:11

I mean , we're trail racing with obstacles . And trail racing is so good for you because for so many reasons , not only are you outside and in nature , the people who do athletics that you just love every minute of it . Oh my God . So it's so painful , so much of the time . But you know , when it's done , not only during the training , it just changes , I mean chemically . It changes how you feel , changes how you move about the world . It organizes your day better . I'm far more efficient now and you're right when you're finished with a race or a run , even if you're not doing it competitively , there's a saying that you know with the finish line .

Wendy Bounds 25:01

And I always know with the finish line that the suffering was worth it .

Gary Pageau 25:05

You know it's funny . You mentioned the fall from the rope . I had a race where it was a half marathon trail run and I fell three times in the first two miles . You know tripping on a roots and stuff , and

Aging, Obstacles, and New Horizons

Gary Pageau 25:14

my only thought was so this is how today's going to go , yeah .

Wendy Bounds 25:22

And then you just keep on going . You know also tipping it like I have to be careful at this age , Like I don't .

Wendy Bounds 25:28

I mean right , like tripping on a root when you're 22 is different than tripping on a root at 52 , right , it's a whole different ball game , but you are right that . What a metaphor that is . You trip on a route . Is this how the day is going to be All right ? So this is how . This is my obstacle today , and how true , we trip on roots in business and we trip on them in our relationships . It's what you do after that , and I think that is one of the things that embracing something hard and in this case , in my case , it was a competitive sport at this age has taught me is that root- tripping phenomenon . Right , how do you ? What do you do then ? What do you do then ? And it's a , it's just . You learn a lot about yourself that way .

Gary Pageau 26:11

When I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs , which I do a lot for the podcast and in the business , you know that is one of the things I think where we can draw a parallel , in that you should always be looking for something hard to do to either advance your career or for personal development , and I do think that you kind of reach a point . You know , maybe in your mid forties where you're . You need to make a decision right Are you going to coast on in or are you going to take it to the line ?

Wendy Bounds 26:40

I think I was coasting , I mean , for a little . I mean it's not that I didn't . I had a very hard job and it was a big job when I first started this and when I was at Consumer Reports . But I think I was getting sort of set in my ways and how I thought about problems , how I approached , you know , new challenges at work . I just had patterns which we all do . We all get patterns of how we do that I think of it again is that cycle of sameness you and I were talking about earlier and you know , I think , finding a way and it's not going to be the same for everybody .

Wendy Bounds 27:13

Trail running is your thing , obstacle course racing is mine . For somebody else it could be , you know , learning to play the guitar , something where you actually have a you're not the best anymore right , something where you're not comfortable , where you're deeply uncomfortable uncomfortable , where you look foolish sometimes , where you fail , where you have a really good chance of of not getting something right . It just breaks all those patterns and it's like this whole new way of thinking in your entire world opens up . That makes you a people talk . I've heard somebody talk about the whole executive w-h-o-l-e and I I think about the whole person , and that's what this did , and I think that's what you're getting at , Gary .

Gary Pageau 27:53

Yeah , so have you read ? Well , I'm sure you have "Atomic Habits by James Clear .

Wendy Bounds 27:58

Yes .

Gary Pageau 27:59

Yeah , and a lot of that kind of folds into this . You know about breaking habits and establishing new patterns .

Wendy Bounds 28:05

Yes , and I think it's . You know I read a lot of books , as I'm sure you do and your audience does . I think what's really important is then figuring out how you actually are going to apply them to your life , because I think I went through a period where I read a lot of these books and sometimes I would underline them and I would take notes in a notebook , but it didn't have a new thing to apply . And I think having something new is very powerful when you reach middle age , because otherwise you're just kind of like thinking I'm just dialing it in and I'm getting closer to the end than the beginning , and this not having newness is really dangerous . There's just tell you this number I like a lot , which is 7.5 . And that number comes from a researcher named Becca Levy . She's at Yale and she wrote a book called Breaking the Age Code and she's found that people with positive perceptions about aging live , on average , 7.5 years longer . That's a long time , Gary , I mean .

Gary Pageau 29:02

I'll take that 7.5 . That's 10% of most people's lives .

Wendy Bounds 29:06

It's a lot right , that's a lot . Thank you for doing the math for us , because you're right . And that is , you know it's inclusive a will to live , of having pastimes that excite you . Right . Having something new to wake up and think about every day and when you go to sleep makes an enormous difference that I don't think people think enough about on their overall health journey difference that I don't think people think enough about on their overall health journey .

Wendy Bounds 29:37

So how much did your experience as a obstacle athlete , inform your decision to take the jump into going into a startup .

Wendy Bounds 29:44

A lot , I think , and again it's a little bit with retrospect Now . I've got two years to understand that and I've gone through a process of writing a book which makes you think a lot about the why of things . But you know , I don't know if I would have had if I hadn't been doing something new and bold in my personal world . I'm not sure that the notion of giving up a very safe , comfortable job at an established , older school company like Consumer Reports and moving into a tech startup where I'm one of the oldest people at the company and drinking through a fire hose learning about AI would have been like I think I would have been pretty nervous about it or I would have taken the safer route . I don't feel that way anymore , and it doesn't mean I would never go back to a place like a Consumer Reports or a Wall Street Journal , but if I did , I would have a whole new vantage point and I would approach everything I did with a different lens . So it's a great question , Gary .

Gary Pageau 30:42

Well , thank you . So what's next in your career , the running career ? So I mean , you just had the world championships and your top five finish , so that's pretty awesome . So I mean , is it just harder events ? Cause you always hear , like in the running world , people do things like they have to do ultras , they got to longer events , they got to go across the desert or something like that . Is there a ? Is there a pinnacle event you're going to be shooting for ?

Wendy Bounds 31:11

So I should probably have a specific event for you if I'm following the pattern , but I don't , and here's why I wrote an essay about this for the Wall Street Journal . The journey of mastery at this age is one you're likely to never finish . I don't have the time to become the best obstacle course racer , I don't have no natural gifts . But , boy , the experience of getting better and better and right , and occasionally becoming among some of the best at my age has been quite profound . But I I never did this , thinking I want to be the single best obstacle course racer , and when and when and when I did this ? Because something was missing . I had an itch I needed to scratch . I felt I had more left in my tank . This has done it . Like I don't wake up feeling that anymore , and so it has changed my perspective on the rest of my life , where I see the old things in a new way and I'm much more content with them . So I think I will continue to race for sure .

Wendy Bounds 32:11

My goal this year is really and I'm doing this through my Substack newsletter " not too late , and through working with Spartan is I'm trying to bring other people into movement , physical movement , people to . I'm going to go with a lot of people to do their first race , not competitively , but there's something called the open category , which is non-competitive and much looser and easier . I want to bring a lot of people to experience something like that and I will keep racing , but I'm also open to something new that might come Like . I just feel like my aperture just to throw that down Going back to photography .

Gary Pageau 32:49

Right , here we go .

Wendy Bounds 32:50

It's much wider . It is so much wider than it was eight years ago , and that's a pretty interesting feeling .

Gary Pageau 32:59

So people are interested in checking out the book . Where's the best place to buy it , and do you do the audio book yourself ?

Wendy Bounds 33:08

I 100% did the audio book myself . That was its own endurance race of four days of reading 90,000 words into a microphone and then catching every little cough or stomach gurgle and having to do it again . But yes , so you can buy the book pretty much anywhere , any retailer online . If you go to my website , which is GwendolynBounds . com , my namecom , you can find links to all the retailers , but obviously Amazon Barnes and N oble or your local you know your favorite local bookstore . Hopefully they'll have it . It's pretty easy to find and my Substack newsletter . You can subscribe to that off of my website too . And that just continues the conversation among a lot of really interesting people about the science and the tools and the tactics we all can use to embrace something new at any age , whether it's physical or otherwise , and so people who are interested in this theme can , kind of we can keep having that conversation together .

Gary Pageau 34:04

Awesome . Well , Wendy , it's been great seeing you . Thank you so much for being on the show . Best wishes on your next event and hope to see you soon .

Wendy Bounds 34:13

Gary , I'm so glad I got to say the word , the acronym APS again before I died , so thank you for that . It's great to be here . I appreciate it .

Erin Manning 34:22

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