The School of Greatness - 18 Kyle Maynard: The No Excuse Approach to Success

Episode Date: May 15, 2013

Despite being born with no arms or legs, our next guest on The School of Greatness podcast has led a life of staggering accomplishments. Kyle Maynard has lived his life without excuses, even though he has every right to make them. Not only is he a remarkable athlete who challenges himself in ways that are almost […]

This is episode number 18 with the four-foot giant, Kyle Maynard. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. What is up, greats?

Hope you're having a fantastic day today. This is going to be an amazing episode because I've got my good man and awesome friend on here, Kyle Maynard. Now, Kyle has been an inspiration of mine for the last few years since I first met him. And every time I have an excuse about anything, I think about Kyle, his story and his life. Very inspiring guy. I want to get to Kyle here in just a second, but I want to get to the quote of the day first. And this is inspired by a previous episode with Don Yeager, where he shared this quote. He says, a loss is not a failure until you make an excuse. And that's quoting Michael Jordan. And there's a lot of excuses we make every single day, whether it be

in sports or business or life or whatever it is we're trying to achieve. We've always got excuses. I've got them. You've got them. We've all had them. And they're a bunch of BS if you ask me. So we're going to talk about how to get over these excuses. And Kyle is an exceptional individual to talk about having no excuses. A guy that was born without arms and legs who has done probably more, has accomplished more things than me and a bunch of other people combined who have arms and legs. This is the guy who's climbed up Mount Kilimanjaro on his elbows, essentially. Crawled up a mountain.

Took him 12 days, I think. He's won two ESPY awards for being the most inspiring athlete in the world, basically. And he's just an amazing individual. And he's here in the studio with us today. I'm super pumped. But before I bring him in and let him share kind of some of his experiences about how to overcome these excuses and achieve some of the craziest things that you can achieve in your own life, I want to talk about quickly the fan of the week. And the fan of the week

comes from Michael Lynch. And he sent me an email just the other day saying that his brother is a Marine who's in Afghanistan. And they've been listening, him and all of his Marine buddies have been listening to the podcast. And they're big fans. So just want to say a quick shout out to those Marines out there, uh, in Northern, Northern Afghanistan, I guess he said when he emailed me. So thanks to all you guys listening. Appreciate what you guys do. And, uh, hopefully this has been some good stuff for you guys. I want to give a quick shout out to the review of the week.

And this comes from a reviewer, EXP14. And the title is drives me to be my best. He says, great podcast. I drive an hour to work every day. And this podcast inspires me and keeps me awake while on the road. I was able to listen to all the podcasts in a week and a half. Keep them coming. The guest interviews are my favorite. So I'm glad I'm able to keep people awake when they are driving to work. So if that's what this is doing for people, then at least I'm keeping you guys safe on the road. And hopefully there's some inspiration in there as well. With that, guys, this is a big week for me.

One, because it's the national championships, the USA national championships in team handball. And again, a lot of people in the US have no clue what team handball is. If you're one of the listeners from Europe, you're probably very familiar with the sport because it's a very popular sport throughout all of Europe. But for me, I've been training nonstop doing a lot of CrossFit. Big shout out to Brick CrossFit and all the coaches and athletes over there who have just been supporting me and pushing me to stay in shape every single day and train me to be a better athlete. I am pumped about this. In a couple days, I'll be flying out to Reno, Nevada for the USA National Championships, trying to bring home the gold for New York City team handball. So I'm pumped about this.

I'm prepared. I'm ready to go. And hopefully in this next episode, you'll hear some good news coming back from me. With that, guys, we're going to learn all about how to overcome your BS excuses and learn from a true champion in this world with Kyle Maynard. All right, welcome everyone. I'm here with my good friend Kyle Maynard. What's up, Kyle?

Hey, man. I'm a big fan of the show, so I'm just excited to be on here. Yeah, man. We just got done with a sweet workout at Brick CrossFit here in West Hollywood. And Kyle almost dropped a 70-pound kettlebell right on his private parts. So that was interesting. Yeah, full-blown castration. It was a given. It probably never happened at Brick CrossFit before, although it's a pretty intense gym. So maybe they would have had it.

Exactly. First time for me. Now, Kyle, for those that don't know, Kyle was born with no arms, no legs. So it's kind of weird to hear me say, but he's holding a kettlebell at 70 pounds. So it's pretty inspiring what he's able to do. And what is it actually, what's the thing called when you're born with no arms and legs? What is that called? Really, there's not really any clear explanation doctors didn't have any idea what um what caused the disorder disability to happen when i was born um it's uh kind of referred to as congenital amputation so do you have people a visual basically my arms and right where your

elbow would be for each arm they're both about know, same length and my legs in slightly above where the knee is. And I have two feet, but, um, so there's a little bit different, like, uh, I don't know.

One of them, I've got like an upside down foot. That's like my trigger foot and, uh, and halo for Xbox. But the, uh, uh,

basically just, uh, four limbs affected, which is about, I think the estimate was like one in 10 million or something like that. Yeah. Crazy. Now,

how tall are you? That's a good question. So people know I can be, I can touch like my tippy toes in the four foot part of the pool. If that, uh, the, um,

so you're like three something. I think I'm like three, eight, three, nine, three, nine. So you're like a four foot giant.

That's what I'll call you. Ah, I like four foot giant. See if that.com. see if that name is taken. Some cyber squad around there is going to go and get this. Now, Kyle, I'm going to brag for Kyle for a minute. He has done some amazing feats and accomplishments. In middle school, you played football.

Now, again, remember, imagine a four-foot giant without arms and legs. This is Kyle who we're talking to right now. He's playing football with other middle schoolers. Then in high school, he was one of the top wrestlers in high school, one of the top 15. Is that right? You want your rank like top 10?

Yeah, I ended up, I mean, the kind of the story is with that, we may go into a little bit more, but I had lost a ton. I mean, really, you know, football was actually something that came natural to me down there on all

fours. And, you know, in the very first play that I ever took, very first snap that I ever took, I didn't have a clue what I was doing, but I was playing nose guard right across from the center. And so I knew he was going to go and snap the ball between his legs. And so I figured, like, my job was to go and follow it. So as soon as he snapped the ball between his legs,

I just dove underneath his legs and smashed my element at quarterback shins. The first play got the sack. So guys kind of figured out how to go and block and stuff like that but um you know it was pretty pretty decent you know it's you know the thing or two about football it's all about getting lower than somebody and driving off the ball and nobody's getting lower than me down there in the ground so the uh with wrestling though it started off and it was you know it was really bad it's kind of easy to go and talk to people about successes with stuff but i had to fail a ton you know i lost every match for a year and a half, so 35 times in a row.

The freshman and sophomore year, right? It started in sixth grade, so in middle school, around the same time as playing football there. The thing was, having a blast playing football, and then with wrestling, I'd sit in these tournaments, and people would go and say, Kyle, do you have hands to go and grab someone, or arms long enough to get out and grab their legs or all this stuff and they'd

make a blanket statement which kind of makes sense you know logically out of context but it's you know they'd say a guy without arms and legs would never be able to win a match in wrestling and for a while i bought into that belief for a year and a half you didn't win any right any yeah i mean i'd be crying going out to every one of these tournaments and begging to quit but my parents you know they kept me going so what what was it like your first win what was that like uh do you remember it no i remember it vividly and i i uh i think i was more shocked than the guy that i beat because like i remember grabbing his arm and flipping him and landing on top of him and being like this is awesome but i have no idea what to do now i was so lost and uh so i figured i'd just go and do the same thing again.

My dad saw that I was lost and told me to let him up. So I just went in after him again, grabbed his arm, took him down, let him up. Figured this is working. I'm going to keep doing it. Took him down and let him up. So you didn't pin him, but you? Took him down 15 times. So they stopped the match and beat him by the mercy rule.

Wow. That's amazing. That's what I tell people. It really had nothing to do with the physical side of things, right? It had everything to do with the fact that for a long time, I bought into the belief of other people telling me that I'd never be able to win a match. And so I didn't. Sure.

That limiting belief that you just believed that you couldn't win because of the condition, right? Yeah. And then once you kind of, you know, we all have those moments, right, where we buy we, we buy in and we still do, you know, you and I, I mean, everybody in this planet, I don't care who we are. People are full of it. If they say that they don't allow other people to go and affect their beliefs and, you know, when you go and turn on the news and you go in a, you know, for the, for the business owners that are watching this and, you know, the belief that's affected based off of other economic projections and other things like that. Right. Right. So many things going on. don't go outside because something's happening at the

weather or whatever you know exactly just creating fear these beliefs in our minds right yeah and you know it's i think we got to go in and ask like what's what's real what's not because that first time that we go and break through with something then i mean you can't go back and and believe something at that point i could you know when you know, when people said I'd never won a match, that first one that I won, now it's like, I can't, I'd never go back. So the next year after that, in eighth grade, I was undefeated going into the state tournament. Wow. So it was, you know, it had nothing to do with the physical. It was just, you know, it was total.

It's all mental, right? And it was a big part of it. And it was a big part of it. And also, too, just kind of figuring out how to use my body and be comfortable with things and figure things out. Couldn't emulate other wrestlers to go and figure out their style. Sure, sure. Now, in high school, where did you end up? Weren't you, like, one of the top in high school, though, for your weight? Did pretty good.

So, wrestled varsity for one of the top teams in the southeast senior year of high school and uh wrestled 103 pounds which there's no way i'd be able to go and make that weight right now i had to cut cut a good bit of it to to make it high school and then uh ended up uh winning 36 varsity matches beat a couple state champions a couple state placers and got invited to nationals and placed top 12 in the nation that's placed top 12 in the nation. That's amazing. Top 12 in the nation. Wow. Interesting. And so after that, you also got into MMA and fighting, right? Because you naturally transitioned from wrestling to fighting, and you were the first guy without arms and legs to fight in a cage,

like in a sanctioned MMA fight, right? Right. You can see how stupid I am, too, for signing up for some of this stuff. I mean, there's a common thread here. I don't know. MMA was a blast, though, and I've been training for a long time. It actually taught me a lot about myself, though, because that was the first time that other people really voiced

major disapproval with what I was doing. With wrestling, people would go and say, oh, you'll never be able to win a match. They wouldn't say it directly to me necessarily, but you know, I'd hear through the grapevine with MMA. They were like afraid for your life probably. Right. They were like, we don't want you to get your face knocked out. Right. Or other people that were hoping that it happened, you know, people's true, true colors kind of come out on the internet. Right. When you can be behind an anonymous screen name, then there's no,

say whatever you want. Yeah. So you, you know, type my name into YouTube and you can see, you probably pull it up right now and go and see some of the comments that people go and say, I mean, it's crazy. People said, uh, you know, Kyle's going to be the first televised death in the sport. I have no problem kicking my effing skull in like people saying, um, he's doing this cause he's just a drama whore. Wow.

They're saying Kyle's trying to get back on Oprah and all this stuff. Wow. There was even one comment that I'll never forget. Somebody said, come take a chainsaw and cut off my arms and legs so I can be a limbless freak show like Kyle. Jeez, that's really bad. Wow. So it's, you know, but then. Now, why did you want to do a fight then?

What's the reason behind it for you? I generally, kind of one of my core beliefs is that you got to have things that you're passionate about to be able to go and really just live to your potential, right? And I've been training for this. I didn't want to be a pro fighter and I had no delusions about that. And I just wanted to experience it because 99.9% of the fans, you know, of the sport, they would never

step into the cage and that's okay. Maybe they're fans, but I didn't want to be afraid. I wanted to go in there and experience it. And, and the cool part was it took i got denied to fight in georgia which was a big setback the head commissioner was a paraplegic who was an off-duty police officer got shot in the spine and he said it's great what you're doing for people with disabilities like i'll be out there to support you and then uh three weeks later i got denied so it took two years um went across it was in that's in the state of ge of Georgia and my home state and live outside of Atlanta, went across the state line to, to do it in Alabama two years later. And I, uh, joke now that the, there's a little bit, which is true, there's a little bit less

government regulation in Alabama. And I'm pretty sure they would have let me fight like a pack of hyenas in Alabama if I wanted to. You would have bear. That's a goal of mine. Don't joke the uh um but then ended up uh it was april 5th 2009 i got to go and step into the cage and i remember hearing that pin when they went and put it in the door and locked me inside i'm thinking like whoa i'm in here now this is real yeah and if you guys go if you go search on youtube cal maynard cage fight or MMA, you'll see a video pop up.

And it's like crazy and inspiring at the same time to watch this video because you're literally just getting the shit beat out of you. From a guy with arms and legs who's like a professional fighter, right? He was like a pro, wasn't he, or what? I don't really know what his background was. He was ripped. Yeah. I didn't try to what his background was. He was ripped. Yeah. And he was like. Yeah, it was. I just, I didn't try to get caught up into him.

I actually did a ton of really cool stuff with guided imagery to go and get ready for the fight. Oh, wow. I mean, I was mentally, I felt better than I ever did, you know, physically too. You looked like, the video, you looked like you were ready to go, man. You were so in the zone. It's just, there were so many moments where you like could tell after like the first round you're getting frustrated because the guy wouldn't let you like get close to him yeah he just kept like pegging you in the face he would not let you get close to like his legs is uh the uh yeah this is a strategy to go in and

keep me sort of away my fight would be a goal goal was to go and bring it to the ground you know standing at three foot eight i'm not much of a kickboxer so it's uh right the um but yeah it was like 510 or something wasn't he or how tall is he something like that yeah like 180 510 or whatever yeah he um you know but i really i respect him for going in and taking the fight because a lot of people you know were i had several opponents that dropped out from it. Really? And people, when other people got on their case and saying, like, what are you doing and all this stuff. And so I definitely do respect them for it. Yeah. I wish it, you know, to me, I didn't care about the outcome.

I wanted to be able to go in there and have the experience. Yeah. It was, the coolest part was after the fight was over, it was just one of the most really tranquil moments that like one of those times are just like time stops for a second. Now I could just go and look around and just go and see like looking out through the cage. I mean, other people, you know, friends and family that supported me and I saw a lot of random faces. And for the first time, actually, I just felt sympathy for the people that said the things that they said because it was like you know i'm sitting here inside the cage

looking out and the vast majority of them would never have this vantage point it's true man so how many people have experienced that maybe a thousand maybe like i don't even inside a cage maybe a couple thousand people you know sports growing now i mean but. I mean, but it's, you know, it's, it's still it brings that primal feeling out of you and it's just, we all have it. Yeah. We, we, we're, we're at some point, you know, uh, in, in our, you know, in the course of human history, I mean, like that's ingrained in our DNA. So it's, yeah. So that was cool. You did that. And then after that you decided,

you know what, I haven't done enough. so I'm going to go climb a mountain. You climb Mount Kilimanjaro, which is one of the tallest mountains in the world, right? I mean, what is it? How tall is it? Kilimanjaro is the highest peak in Africa. So it's right there in the equator in East Africa and Tanzania. And it's the highest freestanding peak in the world, meaning that it's not a part of a mountain chain like the Himalayas. There are many peaks in the Himalayas that are higher,

but here it's the only thing that's in your sight. So it's a single mountain. Yeah, yeah. How tall is it? 19,340 feet. Dang, that's high. That's really big. So you decided, you know what,

I'm going to climb this thing on my elbows, basically, on my knees and crawl up the mountain. Are you the first person to crawl up a mountain? I think so. Again, coming back to the stupidity, like signing up for this stuff. The craziest part to me was though— Have people died on that mountain or no? We knew that several died on our route.

Actually, quite a few people do end up dying because many people attempted and aren't prepared and they die walking yeah crawled it was uh pretty impressive it was definitely it was it was it was indescribable there was i remember the first couple days were fun you know in the rainforest my friends having a good time and by the fourth day though my elbows and feet were swollen up so bad i was broken and you have these special shoes over here which are like uh what are they carbon fiber yeah basically it's a carbon fiber that goes around my arms and my feet and it's padded on the inside and it has um a vibram shoe sole on the outside so it's just we uh and it hooks up to a climbing harness so it goes on my arms and my feet and just bear crawl this thing's very cool i'm holding it right now and it's like

it looks like the five finger vibram sole but then it's got it's really hard casing and some foam inside it's uh it's pretty sweet little contraption right here that thing uh we got that gear january we left january 3rd for africa of 2012 2012 and got the gear finalized December 15th. So it was like celestial alignment and everything pulled together. That's crazy. Now how long was the hike? How long did it take total? 12 and a half days.

12 and a half days. How long does it take for a normal, I guess, someone walking on two feet? Generally, it takes about seven round trips, six to seven, depending. Round trip. And it took you 12 to just get up there? 12 and a half total. It was 10 up and two and a half down. Almost double the amount of time.

Right. Wow. And you had the same amount of crew as a normal pack would going up there? Or did you have extra crew? We did. Because we had a lot of camera equipment and stuff like that. We had a team of nine of us from America. Um, we had called it mission Kilimanjaro. One of our goals, my dad, my dad was army. So I've got a big passion

for working with veterans. I was born at army hospital. And so our goal was to go in, you know, just send a message to some of our troops that have literally sacrificed their limbs for our freedom to go and say, you know what, you may have had this happen to you, but you're still able to live the life that you want. You're still able to go and create the life that you want. You're not a victim. It might not be Kilimanjaro, but you've got something that you want to do. Right, right.

It's pretty inspiring. And then ESPN ended up doing a documentary about it. And if you guys go check on YouTube again and just type in ESPN Cal Manager, you'll see him climb up the mountain. It's pretty inspiring. And then you also won two ESPY awards. One was for climbing Kilimanjaro, right? Right.

And then the other one is for what? Wrestling and weightlifting. Wrestling and weightlifting. Right. Okay. What did you do in weightlifting? Actually, I competed. I started with five pounds basically and when i started lifting i could

barely i was a little uh middle school and right and um you know i always wondered like will i ever be able to go and lift more than this i'm looking at these other high school kids lifting and gradually kept working off and getting stronger i used to tie ropes around my arms and lift off my back my favorite lift was a butterfly press, modified bench press. I had ropes that I broke and ended up getting chains, broke those chains and got bigger ones and had, in 2009 right before the MMA fight, the personal

best in a bench press did 420 pounds. Wow, so you roped around your elbows, you had the chains around your elbows and then 400 how much? T tied uh so it would have been 210 to each arm with 210 pounds on each elbows so you're basically lying on your back right with your arms like jesus and then folding them bringing them together for visual for people

um with 200 something pounds on each arm that's pretty impressive basically at your elbow that you're lifting up so man is there is that a record or what is that i there was a that wasn't the record i did compete for the record in my it was modified bench press um and the arnold classic i think it was in um 2007 and um lifted uh 360 pounds at the competition there okay what's the record you know that was the that was the record that and then for whatever it was the and i got to lift at the gnc show of strength it was um in atlanta did uh 240 pounds for 23 repetitions all right oh wow 23 240 wow my best was ever was like 225 for like 15 reps that's pretty impressive yeah the goal now though is just to go and say that it's i think it's lot of us, we kind of draw a separation with things. So we think that these lessons that we go and learn are different, and they're not.

The physical lessons are very similar to the entrepreneurial lessons or just the other bigger goals that we have in life in terms of seeking our purpose. Right, right. our purpose. Right, right. So now it seems like, you know, while you've been doing all these awesome adventures for yourself, you're basically trying to say, okay, what is it that I'm not able to do and how can I do it? How can I figure out a way to do it? It sounds like it's kind of been your whole life because you were born without arms and legs. So you've had to modify and adjust and be adaptive to everything, everyday life, right? You've got your own car to drive. You got your own place. You do everything on your own. And you try to take on these challenges just like people said, like they never run a four-minute mile.

Sure. And then someone did it, and now everyone can do it now. So you're taking this approach to yourself to say, okay, can I find a cage? Can I do CrossFit? How can I do the same workouts as other people? How can I? And then if we go there, too, how can we go and help other people figure out the same workouts as other people. How can I, and then if we go there too, how can we go and help other people figure out the same thing? That's the, I think that's really the truest purpose is to go and say, it's not just about us, right? If you talk to like some of the Navy SEALs,

for instance, I've got a good couple of good friends. I just did this, uh, 12 hour, 13 hour Navy SEAL challenge was awesome and terrible at the same time. But these guys, I was talking to them, like, how do you go and get through buds's training? How do you go and get through Hell Week? And they would say, you take eyes off of yourself and you put it on your team. You put it on your swim buddy and you put it on the people around you. And that's, I think, an important lesson is that we've sometimes got to realize, like, why are we doing what we're doing? Right. And for me, I've always felt like, you know, I want to take on challenges and opportunities that inspire me personally, but also through me being inspired. Hopefully it's inspiring and helping other people, you know, take on challenges for themselves.

It's contagious. Like the people that end up around, you know, we were talking to your brother earlier today and like it's, I mean, you just in close proximity to people that are living their dreams, then it spreads. It does. It does. It's a virus. It's a good thing. Yeah. If it's all about yourself, then it's not going to help as many people, obviously. And it's not going to help you.

But when you think about like, okay, this is serving me, but also serving whoever, my community, my family, the world, then usually we're able to break even bigger limitations. That's a key, too, is you mentioned something there. It's like, it's serving me. I think that's one of the things that I've had to learn the most is last year, we, you know, this, we've talked extensively about this, but I mean, I was on the road, uh, traveling, doing the speaking thing, like over 250 days speaking, traveling. And I love what I get to do. It's my biggest passion, but that the catch is like, you got to be on the road that much. And so it's, it's tough. And a lot of times it's hard to take care of yourself when you're doing that. And the metaphor that I think about all the time is every time that they go through the in-flight briefing, when you sit down in an airplane and the oxygen

mask falls, put your own mask on first. Exactly. Don't put the kids on next to you. Don't put the person who needs help, put your own mask on first. That's everyday life, man. It should be focused on you first. It's like you have to be selfish in a sense, like to make sure you're fully taken care of yourself. All your needs are met. You're once everything, then you can help others. Absolutely. But when you put like yourself second and you're always putting others first, you can only serve so much. That's why I'm always making sure I take so much time for myself every day to eat right, to train right.

I don't sacrifice my time that I need for me. And whether that's selfish or not, it is what it is because it's the only way I'm going to be able to serve. It's putting your oxygen mask on. You're able at that point to be able to go in and help other people and without that then then you limit your ability to limit it yes you got to be selfish in some ways it's i think it's i think it's actually the you know it sounds crazy but i think that by focusing yourself it's the least it's the most selfless thing that you can do yeah because at that point i think it you you take care of that and you're able to now say,

but if you stop there, then, then maybe it is a selfish thing. But if you just focus on yourself, right. But you need to focus on your growing and learning and getting new skills so you can help more people. I always think about every single level in the world. If you look at the biggest, you the biggest universal level intergalactic systems, I mean, we've got, as stuff is moving, this Earth is spinning like 20,000 miles per hour through space, right?

And then down to the tiniest subatomic level, like the Planck scale, the 10 to the negative 26 centimeters. Like every single level in between, everything is moving. There's motion constantly. Yeah, even this table. This table is moving there's motion constantly yeah even this this table right so it's like what what direction is our life moving yeah hmm interesting what direction is your life moving put me on the spot i hope it's i i think i've had a an awakening lately that i needed to have um i sometimes have to kind of eat some of my own dog food.

When I speak, I challenge people to think about what is the one thing in your life that you can change that is keeping you from reaching your highest human potential? Right. What's the one thing keeping you from reaching your highest human potential? If you could only pick one thing in your life. What's your one thing? And it probably changes every couple of years or something.

Right now, it is like, I don't know how to go and sum this up into one word. It's being just on top of communication, correspondence, getting back to people. I'm very much a present-minded, focused person., getting back to people. Like I, I am a very much like a kind of a present minded focus person.

When I'm going to do in a speech, I'll try to be there, you know, with the group, but I, I have like, I'm, I'm sometimes I'll linger.

I'll let a thousand emails go and pile up and then I feel overwhelmed and I don't go in and handle it when I do anything. You're like, uh, paralyzed. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm not doing that anymore. So now you're on more on top of it. You're staying, but by focusing on that,

if I brought my whole, if I try to go and say, all right, I'm going to go and do 20 things at once. I'm going to go in and have more time. I'm going to go to have more time to vacation. I'm going to go and read more books. I'm going to go and have the long walks on the beach. I'm going to go and do this, do that, do that. I'm going to go and start a new business. I'm going to go in and whatever else it's like, you can't do it. I'm going to go and start a new business. I'm going to go and whatever else. It's like, you can't do it. We get burnt out. That's like New Year's resolutions, right?

You go and write down 20 things you want to change. You don't change any. Three weeks later, after New Year's resolutions, it's painful for us to look at the list of stuff we want to change. And we haven't done anything. Nothing. Maybe for a week, we did one thing and then stopped, right? right so what's your one thing what's your one thing you could change the biggest thing holding me back from achieving greatness from achieving greatness oh man i haven't thought about it but probably man learning when to say no because for when I started my business a few years ago, I was just like yes to everything because I just wanted to help everyone and be there at every event and speak everywhere.

And so now it's learning how to manage my time efficiently and effectively so that I'm not freely giving it to things that aren't going to serve me to the highest value and serve others to the highest value. So that's probably not the biggest thing, but that's the thing that popped into my head right now. That's a huge one, man. Think about what this is sometimes in the entrepreneurial world and overused example, but look at the Steve Jobs example. When he came back into Apple, they had 50 products that they're going and doing, and he said, no, we're going to stop. We're going to do five. And make them amazing. And world-changing no, we're going to stop. We're going to do five. And make them amazing. And world-changing products, right?

We can't do that when we're spread so thin. Exactly. You know, I'd pull it back and say managing energy in general. Probably just managing energy, my time efficiently throughout the day, knowing when to do things, when to get things done, and not allowing things to take too much time. So probably just managing all that. And I think, you know, as relationships coming out of your life,

personally, business-wise, family-wise, things like that, your energy changes, your time changes. So you have to be able to adapt and be flexible to that. So here's the next question with that. Like, if you could think of, and for everyone that's doing this, right? Then I think going through this process helps us think about this sometimes.

And I do it myself. Every time I talk, I get to go and think about this, which I'm fortunate to. What is about managing your energy? What's one excuse that you've made about that? So I think one of the excuses that I make about managing energy is really figuring out the time that I'm doing things and when I'm supposed to get it all done. I might build up a lot of different projects and I try to get it all done myself as opposed to, I guess, bringing on the right people who are better than me at certain things, managing tasks and projects and getting them on board. So I'd say that my excuse is either I like to do it all myself or maybe I can't find

the right people sometimes. Although a lot of times I feel like I do, but that's probably one of them. So if you could start there and change that one thing, what would you do differently? If you could start there and change that one thing, what would you do differently? If I could change one thing, I'd probably find the right people to help coach me in managing my time better, learning how to say no better, and also finding the right people to then manage that time for me. The tasks that take an extra 10, 20 minutes here and there throughout the day. Basically having a full-time assistant or project manager or something like that.

Sure. So just hypothetically, if you envision what your life, your business looks like a year from today, after changing that one thing, how different would it be? After changing it, it's easier. It's efficient. It's seamless. It's even more exciting. It's all those things combined. There you go. If you focus, the coolest part is, is I think that anyone that's listening to this

is, is able to go through this and it might be different for every one of us. I think that it is. If I speak to a room of a thousand people, it might be a thousand different things that people want to go and do and change, which makes it kind of hard to really narrow and pinpoint it down. You have to get specific and exact about it. And then I think you have to focus on one thing. Like we talked about before, the laundry list things that you want to go and do and change, you fall on your face if you try to go and change too many things at once. Right. Now, what do you think is one of the biggest things that holds people back? Is it the way they were raised with their family and the mentality of the things that were said to them? Is it their own inner voice, their own

limiting beliefs? Is it their peers saying they can't do something like how people said you would never win a match? What do you think is the biggest thing that holds people back? That's a, that's a really good question. I think it's, um, just speaking from my own experience, I think sometimes I can be my own worst enemy. I can go in and just chunk something off to make it, you know, just seem like way too huge, way too big to go and take it on. And then I don't, and I hesitate. Um, but that being said, some things like, uh, for instance, like the, um, the past, the past and the stuff that happened to us, they're good, bad, or indifferent. Doesn't matter. Cause we can't change it. When I was younger, when I was 10 years old, I used to like,

um, cry myself to sleep some nights, you know, because I would, we have just wish that I would go in and wake up and have arms and legs. And like, no matter how hard I would have focused on that forever, it never would have happened. Right. So when we go and focus on those things that we have no control over, then it brings us nothing but unhappiness. So you feel like we're our own worst enemies.

Well, but we're also to our greatest ally in terms of our capability to get past it. But I think it's, I think we are very like, we can be incredibly motivated, but I think we're very vague a lot of times and what we really truly want. I think we need to really get clear. So the more clear we are in the things we want, the easier it is to get them. Sure. How do you, you know, for, for instance, I mean,

how does someone define greatness in their own life? Well, what's your definition? I usually ask this at the end, but I'll ask it now. Well, I knew ahead of time that you're going to ask that eventually. So we had to talk about it. Um, my definition of greatness would be trying to find my own true potential in my life, whatever potential exists, and then using whatever I was given there and whatever I've worked for to be able to go and help other people do the same. That to me is whether that's helping kids that grew up with a totally different background, maybe in a poor neighborhood or something like that,

or someone who's gone through some type of injury, or even somebody who just is kind of going through living life in the status quo and being in a mediocre place, like helping them go and move to just something greater. And in the process, trying to go and do that and live it myself, because if we're not being authentic, then I mean, that kind of sucks. I've been there before, too. Who's someone who's really inspiring to you that you look up to? So here's something kind of messed up. If you'd asked me this, like six months ago, I would have probably said Lance Armstrong and Oscar Pistorius. Oh, wow. Yeah,

of course. Well, the guy, for those that don't know oscar's his name right yeah the guy who has no legs but ran the olympics for south africa who's basically a you know hero to so many people and a legend and would sell out track meets leading up to the olympics and we get paid a lot of money to to come and do that the guy who you know broke records and all sorts of things but now he's on trial i guess for murder murdering his girlfriend or his wife. So him and Lance Armstrong, who is obviously, everyone knows that story. So those are your two guys that you thought defined greatness. Yeah, and there are a handful of other speakers and other people like that, too, that I go in and really, truly admire.

I mean, from a business perspective, if I had to go and pick one person, I would say Tony Robbins. He's good. He had, uh, Tony had a, I mean, from a, just from looking at it from a business perspective alone, he had a $400 million IPO with Anthony Robbins Inc basically took his name publicly traded. I mean, there's nobody that's ever done that in the world of motivation. Um, but I think it's all about to me having like, sort of like the whole picture, the whole grand scheme, like, and not just being great in one thing, but like ecologically balanced life. Did you say that? Because Don Yeager, who was just on the previous episode, I can't remember the reference he

used, but it basically like the best football player in the world. If they don't have a great balance of life, if they're not continuing to grow in other areas of life, he's like, that is not greatness to me. No, he said this actually about Tiger Woods. He said, I said, you think Tiger Woods defines greatness. He said, he's a great golfer, but I don't use him in my definition of greatness

because of everything else in his life. Sure. And cause it's not balanced. It's not balanced. One, one, one thing. Right.

And, uh, so you have a very similar, I'll give you one person though that really like stands out to me. And this isn't somebody who's like a big, big celebrity, but he's something that's really important to me in my life. And,

a guy named Sergeant Travis Mills and I met him, Sergeant Mills, Travis. He was, uh, I call him mayor Mills. He knows everybody. And I mean, just the guy's a crack up, but I met him three weeks after he lost all four limbs. He set his book bag down on an IED and a chain of like 17 IEDs went off and lost all four limbs. And basically his initial response was like, he didn't, you know, he didn't want the medic to do anything. He just wanted to like, just go, just pass.

And then the guy's like, no, it's not that bad. It's not that bad. And he's like, dude, I got no arms and legs. Like it's pretty bad. And, uh, so then they go in and stabilize them. They get him back to, um, they get him back to Walter Reed army hospital in DC and he's laying in the hospital bed there. And I met him about three weeks after he came back. And I came in the room, and this guy's spirit was just palpable. You just touch it. I mean, it was amazing. And so we hung out.

I got to sign a book for him and just sign a DVD for him. I mean, just took a bunch of pictures together, talked for like three hours. The guy's cracking us up the whole time. And afterwards, we left and they had to go and put him back in a short-term coma to go and deal with the pain and he lost his short-term memory from this this coma that briefly they put him in and uh so he's got these pictures and books and stuff like that of meeting me and hanging out and he's like has no memory of it and so it's the first time i ever met somebody for the second time, like, you know, in a row and having no recollection of it. I wondered how that was

going to go. But so I came in and like hung out again. Awesome dude. And, um, this is a couple of weeks later after that. And, uh, so long story short, he goes and like pulls me over to the side and he's like, dude, dude, like you gotta be straight and level with me. Was I as cool as the first time we hung out? And I was like, nah like nah man you were way more drugged up last time so but that guy epitomizes us that there is that that that saying that we've probably all heard that life is not what happens to us but a reaction response to it you know it's 90 10 percent of what happens to you 90 of what you do with it how you react how you react to it your your attitude your response yeah and the deal is

is that i'm there i don't have any idea what it's like to lose i was born without my arms and legs so i have no perspective of that born and this is how it was exactly nothing new for you i mean but you know what they're even then even though we go through huge, huge losses and some people go through enormous things, that doesn't have to shape your perspective and who you are. Right. Your mindset. Right. Your attitude. Your gratitude.

All those different things. Because you can always be grateful for something. Yeah. And there is very real mental challenge and mental illness. I mean, that's undeniable. However, I would say at the same time, our perspective is always our choice. Yes. Everything that happens to us, and this is something where I've got to eat my own dog food with this a lot, right?

Because I'll go and whine and complain, like, oh, woe is me, the flight cancellation oh my day's ruined like whatever and then i'm like all right sit back and step out and like in the grand scheme of my life is this it's gonna matter yeah exactly you know it's interesting we met back at tim ferris's events a couple was it like two years ago almost now something like that a year and a half two years ago we're getting old don't don't date us yeah right i think it was like when was that like august of 2011 or something or somewhere around there anyways we met there and i remember hearing about your story then and then doing more research on you and being really inspired by it we've become friends over the last couple years hung out a bunch and you know whenever like shit would hit the fan for me over the last couple years i somehow automatically come back to thinking

about you. And I'm like, gosh, there's nothing to be ungrateful. I mean, it's not to be ungrateful for there's things that I can be unhappy about and be like, I don't like this.

So I'm going to change it or whatever. But it's like whenever something like happens that I feel is like bad or I could be depressed. I'm like, you know what? I've got my arms and legs and I was thinking about you and I'm like, geez, if Kyle can just be like doing all this cool stuff he's doing, then so can I.

And I don't have to like have a bad attitude about it. So I'm always reminded by that, and I appreciate our friendship and being able to hang out. Well, I think that's another thing, too, is that we have to be around other people that do help us out. Yeah, exactly. Jim Rohn, one of my favorite motivational leaders from a guy that I really admire, he lived, I think, a pretty – I had admire. He, he lived, I think a pretty, I didn't never met him, but he, I think he lived a pretty cool life. And he, uh, he said, um, that we were probably most impacted by the five people we spend the most time with. And I think that's true. It's true. That's true. I'm a big fan of mentors and I think mentors are the key to really getting to where you want to be faster than you can do it any other way and achieving greatness.

You can't really achieve greatness without mentors, coaches. It's funny you say that because I used to be opposed to it. Really? Yeah. You wanted to be the lone wolf? Yeah. I thought that it's like in a way that it's like… Cheating or something?

Yeah, it's like you're not being original you're not being your true self or something like that and then i met my my mentor and uh a guy that's um his name is um ron chaparro sports agent he's really helped me a tremendous amount yeah chaparro yeah really yeah he's uh he's a friend of yours with uh the agent for cal ripken yeah no way he's i know ron i've agent for Cal Ripken? Yeah. No way. I know Ron. I've interviewed him. Have you really?

Yeah. No kidding. That's hilarious. But Ron is incredibly smart. And I didn't know how much I didn't know until I spent time with him. His son is the GM of the Indians? Or what is it? His son is the GM of the Indians.

Yeah, his son-in-law, Eric Mangini, who was coach of the Jets and the Browns. That's hilarious. Yeah, so he's done some amazing stuff. And I think, but Ron too is another guy that I'd look up to and admire because the deal is with Ron is that if he had solely monetized his life, he probably could have been a billionaire.

But at the same time, he's done extraordinarily well, but he's now, he's got an amazing marriage. He's got amazing grandkids and he's got extraordinarily well, but he's, he's, he's now, he's got an amazing marriage. He's got, you know, amazing grandkids and he's got a good business where he's got, you know, a handful of really quality people that work for him and it's not overextended. And I look at that and I'm like, wow, like that's a pretty cool life. And he just got back, you know, did a cruise around the world and like spent time with his wife for like six, eight weeks. And you know, it's that, that to me is,

but it's also too, it's, it's, it's living for something bigger. It's taken that now. And he can go in not just with me, but the other people that he's helped many thousands, hundreds of thousands of people that he helps you and take these lessons that he's learned and impart them on other people. So that I sent him an email about this recently and said, like, you know, before I met you, like I hated that word mentor, which he's a big advocate of. That's funny. And it's like, but it taught me how much I didn't know. That's for sure.

It's funny. Every successful individual I talk with and meet, they always have a coach or a mentor. They either hire someone or they have someone that's, you know, mentoring them. And they talk about how important it is to have someone to be able to analyze what you're doing and just help you make the right decisions, lead you in the right way. And I'm a big believer in that. So tell me, you've been speaking all around the country and I guess all around the world as well for the last 10 years or something. And you have spoken in front of probably how many people? I don't know, a few hundred thousand people.

Yeah, I tried to do the math on that recently. I have no idea, but probably in a couple hundred thousand. A few hundred thousand people. And you've heard a lot of crazy stories. You've met a lot of inspiring people, people who've had challenges, lost limbs, got fired, bankruptcy, everything. And what is the average characteristics of like

what's the one person that you see almost all the time you go somewhere like who's like what do they do what do they think what are their doubts their fears there's got to be like an example of one person that like you hear about all the time where they're always like oh you know i'm struggling with this or i want to get a raise or i want to do this but they have some type of limitation or some type of thing they need to break through. What does that person look like to you? Well, I think it starts with, I mean, like you identified that there is that like latent dream there. That's that, that thing that like, you know,

you know that you want to do, but you haven't done, maybe it's doing Kilimanjaro and maybe it's going and just, you know, making your first thousand dollars from a speech. Maybe it's going and writing a book. Maybe it's starting a business. And then we think about it, we think about it, we think about it. And then years go by and we don't do it. We don't go and quit our jobs so that we can go and start something else. We'll go and deal with the same nine to five and the same thing.

Years. Yeah. And the deal is that time, like our time on this planet is the one resource we never get back. It's even more finite resource than any crude oil than, than, than any, I mean, any, any single thing. I mean, it's, it's exhaustible and it's, it's, it's going right now. And instead of stressing about that too, and freaking out, then just think like, what would I really want to do in my life if I couldn't fail? If I took failure out of it, I mean, you got to go through the suffering and the failure to get there. But at the same time, if we just take that out of there, like, what would you want your life to look like

if you were the architect and, and just start? I think that that's a big part of it is, is we, we wait and we hesitate and we put the stuff off. So not taking action. When we were just talking about a good friend of mine who just came in here a minute ago, who was talking about, you know, he spent four years at a job that he didn't like, that he wasn't happy at, that he wanted to go back into doing something else he did love. And now finally, after four years, he's like, okay, enough's enough. But he hesitated for so long. And I feel like a lot of people. Yeah. But you know what? He did it. And he did it. It's, it's, it's, I think that it's, it sounds crazy to say, but the, um, I, I love like, uh, looking at like the hero's journey,

right? Like seeing that, like all these journeys and all these hero tales are very similar. And, and all of us, that's one of the stages of the hero's journey is the refusal of the call. Like you hear that call to adventure, the call to something greater. And then we kind of hang up the phone. We just, we don't answer it. We'll let it ring. We're scared. We're scared.

And we'll just put it off, put it off, put it off. But it takes a lot of courage to do that. And if you look up in the dictionary, one of the accepted definitions of a hero is one who shows great courage. Wow. Yeah. So you see this a lot. I'm assuming 95% of the people you talk to, they're not taking the call. They're not actually doing what they want to do.

They're doing what they feel like they're supposed to or they need to for living or expenses for their family. The supposed to is a big one man that's uh as opposed to doing what they you know if they could failure was not an option what would they want to be doing you know 90 to 95 percent of people probably aren't doing that so what do people need to do to like get over that fear and take that leap to the call to the adventure what do they need to what what needs to happen? Mentally or physically or what? Let's go back and define it for every individual.

And I get out a piece of paper, write down what you want with your life, right? At the top, I mean, what do you want your life to go and look like, right? And then pick, pick that one. What is one thing right now that's keeping you from that, that if you just did, it would set you on that path. It might be quitting your job.

I'm not saying that. I don't know. But it might. Who knows? Who knows what it would be? It might be breaking up. Exactly. It might be moving to a new city.

It might be losing 30 pounds. It might be any of these things. Any of these things. But the key is you have to make a sacrifice, right? Yes. And people are not willing to sacrifice certain things. these things any of these things but the key is you have to make a sacrifice right yes and people are not willing to sacrifice certain things it's i think that we have to also understand that like we've got to just i mean with that sacrifice like there's got to be a commitment so i'll tell you what happened to me on kilimanjaro on the the fourth day in the mountain, I was broken.

And we had projected this was going to take 15 days to go and reach the summit. And on the fourth day, I was like, my friends were trying to introduce me to other people. They were climbers on the mountain. They'd heard our story and stuff like that. And I told them, I was like, I don't want to be around anybody. Like, just leave me alone. And I went inside my tent. And I laid there hearing them laughing and joking outside.

And I cried inside my tent and I laid there hearing them laughing and joking outside and I cried. I started crying because I realized at that moment, if I gave up, I was going to have to come home and tell a mom, not my mom, but another mom, a lady named Vicky, that I'd broken this promise that I'd made to her. And this promise was she had given me the honor of carrying her son's ashes to the top of Kilimanjaro. He'd been a Marine that had sacrificed his life to save several other Marines and had been killed in combat in May of 2011. And I laid there in that tent and I made that decision that no matter what happened to me, I refused to come home and tell her I didn't make it at the top. And the pain didn't go away.

But I can tell you that something in me changed. And Corey, Corey Johnson, he became my why, my purpose to get to the top. The ashes, right? Yeah, to get him there. Right. No matter how much pain you were feeling, that was your why. And it just, you know, and it changed. you were feeling that was your why and it just you know and it changed and if you ask whether it's a navy seal or um you know a founder of a fortune 500 company i mean or anywhere in between i mean like i think that at some moment you hit that wall where you're broken yeah and i've felt

that for sure then it's you got to know what's your why what's going to keep you going because we're all going to feel this pain that's like why am i doing this like why you have to want it so bad you have to know with so much certainty that you're going to go through this and one of the key things is is having that if you don't have the why then you're going to give up you're going to stop so it's it's important to know exactly why you're doing what you're doing and why you want to reach yeah so i tell people it's like you know and so with the other thing that they got to go and write down on the sheet of paper they've already written down the limitation the thing that they got to go and do and start now why do you want this exactly not not just because it's going to go and give you the nice

car the nice house or whatever else i'm talking like the deeper level gut feeling that's hard to even put into words exactly why exactly well with that you guys are gonna have to leave your comments on the blog of why you want what you want so badly right now so carl what are you uh what are you working on next man what do you got going on yeah i know you got documentaries you're doing all sorts of fun things. Man, I'm in vacation mode right now. No, it's going to be a fun journey. I'm thinking there's some other mountains in the future that I want to go and accomplish, but even beyond that, they're

literally and metaphorically. Right, right. Awesome. Figuratively. Figuratively, right. That's cool, man. Well, where can people connect with you and find you online? People, if you go and check out my website it's kyle-maynard.com kyle-maynard.com and uh twitter at kyle maynard and facebook just uh check out kyle maynard and uh and shoot me a message it'd be great to hear

some of the response from this i look forward to it and uh hearing what you're doing too man i i am a huge fan of this and i think that like so much of what people need, you've got to program yourself, right? Right. You've got to keep filling your head with good stuff. Because once you put down one good book, you've got to keep it going. Keep it going, man. Well, that's why I'm doing this, hopefully to inspire other people and inspire myself by hanging out with guys like you. So I appreciate you, my man.

And make sure everyone check out Kyle Maynard online. Check out his videos. It's going to inspire you. Shoot him a message on Twitter and Facebook and leave a comment on the blog, schoolofgreatness.com. Thanks, my man. Thanks, brother. Again, one of the most inspiring guys that I know, Kyle Maynard. I appreciate him for coming on, and I hope you guys enjoyed his inspiring message and stories.

And make sure to answer Kyle's question over on the blog at schoolofgreatness.com. We'd love to hear your answer to the question that he asked me and that I answered as well during this episode. And if you like this episode, feel free to share it on Twitter, on Facebook, tag a picture of where you're listening to this on Instagram with my name in there, and leave us a review over on iTunes. Let us know what you think. Let us know what we can do to make it better

and how we can serve you even more. With that, guys, hope you have a fantastic week, and make sure to do something great.