The School of Greatness - 775 Become Superhuman with Your Potential with Colin O'Brady

Episode Date: March 25, 2019

THOSE WHO SAY THEY CAN AND THOSE WHO SAY THE CAN'T ARE USUALLY BOTH RIGHT. Any time you try to do something great, there are going to be critics. That’s impossible. That’s crazy. You’ll never be able to do that. But the biggest doubter is often yourself. How can we master our minds and quiet our fears when we are striving for greatness? It’s about pushing past our limits and tapping into a flow state. We are full of limitless potential. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I talk with a man conquered his own doubts to break records that many said were impossible: Colin O’Brady. Colin O'Brady is a professional endurance athlete, motivational speaker, and adventurer. On Dec. 26, 2018, Colin became the first person in history to cross Antarctica solo, unsupported and unaided. It was a 932-mile expedition completed in 54 days. At the end of his expedition across Antarctica, Colin tapped into a flow state that allowed him to finish without stopping. He used mantras and visualization to push past his limits. He now wants to share those tools with you. So get ready to learn how to do the impossible on Episode 775. Some Questions I Ask: Why do you want to do these challenges in the first place? (17:00) How do people push through physical and mental barriers? (20:30) What were you saying to yourself the final 12 hours of your journey? (36:00) How important is the support of your wife, Jenna? (49:00) What’s your mission moving forward? (52:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: How Colin broke The Explorer’s Grand Slam world record (8:00) How Colin used the “Forrest Gump Effect” (15:30) The mantra that helped Colin get through his toughest journey (27:00) How swimming and meditation can help you get into the “flow state” (29:00) The story of Colin’s burn accident in Thailand (40:00)

This is episode number 775 with world record holder Colin O'Brady. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, 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. Success is not measured by what you can accomplish,

but by the opposition you have encountered, the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds. Orison Madden. And Walter Big Hot said, the greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. Welcome to this interview. We've got world record holder Colin O'Brady,

who's a professional endurance athlete, motivational speaker, and adventurer. He's a three-time world record holder. And in 2016, he set the Explorers Grand Slam and Seven Summits speed records. He's the type of a guy who comes up with this extreme adventure and thinks about how can I create results with something that no one's ever physically done? How can I overcome the most challenging odds the physical body can actually endure and then set a record? He just finished doing a solo expedition across Antarctica unguided with zero help. He carried a sled across for almost 60 days by himself. The guy is a true leader in learning how to push the mind and the

body beyond its limits. And in this interview, we talk about how Colin and his wife came up with the idea to break a world record, the power of being able to adapt to all challenges, physical and mental, how he overcame major injuries early on in his life. He endured an extreme fire where almost all of his body was burned, and he said he would never walk again. And now he's doing this, which is crazy. And the power of flow state and what it can do for you on a daily basis. At the end of this journey in Antarctica, he essentially went for almost a day straight to finish out and push through

what normally would take three days. And he talks about tapping into this flow state of mind. Even when you have no energy, even when your body is weak, when your mind is broken, how do you tap into that? And I'm super excited about this. Make sure to share with your friends. Also, you can see the full journey of Colin's recent adventure. Every day he posted a photo in Antarctica, which is crazy to see how he progressed day by day. So you can follow him on Instagram, Colin O'Brady over there as well. And this episode is lewishouse.com slash 775. So make sure to tag me over on Instagram, post it on social media, text this

link to a friend of yours, because I know it will inspire them to push a little further in their life. Big thank you again to our sponsors. And without further ado, let's dive into this one with the one, the only, Colin O'Grady. Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got the legend in the house. Good to see you, man.

How are you doing? Great to see you. How are you doing, man? Doing good? I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Good, man. Now, for those that don't know about you, you just finished an incredible journey in

Antarctica, crossing 55 days, right? Yeah, 54 days. 54 days in an unaided journey, dragging a 300-pound sled or something crazy like this, where no one was able to touch you or support you in the process of crossing this part of Antarctica. Yeah. And it was 54 days. You had like a 60-day plan, but you sprinted the last like two days or something. Indeed, indeed, yeah.

And it was incredible to watch this journey. You've been all over the news lately. And you were kind of racing against another guy who was doing the same thing. And what an incredible journey, man. Congrats on completing it. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, it was a wild ride, to say the least. You know, I had a few other world records to my name previous to that in the mountains.

But this was a world first. You know, this was something that no one in history had ever accomplished. And going back 100 years, people have tried. You know, Ernest Shackleton 100 years ago was kind of one of my heroes, one of the early pioneering explorers that said like, man should cross the continent of Antarctica.

And it's been done now in teams of people as well as, you know, using wind aid, kites, dogs, but it has never still been done in its most pure form, which is solo, completely alone, unsupported, so no resupplies of food or few drop-offs, and unaided, meaning no kites, no dogs, no vehicles. This is like a man versus nature, mono-y mono out there. And so it was a beautiful challenge to take on as I'm really just fascinated as myself as just tapping into the potential that I think we all have inside of us and unlocking that. So this curiosity inside

me as an athlete led me to want to go after this. And I didn't know if it was possible. I literally named my project as I set off the impossible first. Amazing. Yeah. Amazing, man. Now, Antarctica is huge, right? Yeah. It's pretty big. How big is it so people know? Gosh, I think I'm going to, I think I should know the answer to this question. It's big. Yeah, it's massive. The traverse that I was making, so it was basically from one side of the ocean via the South Pole to the other side, was just under 1,000 miles.

1,000 miles, pulling a sled in the snow. What was the temperature most of the time? So the average temperature in Antarctica is about minus 25, minus 30, and that's with no wind. Antarctica is the windiest and coldest continent in the world, and so often days it would be 50, 60 mile per hour wind gusts and you'd literally have, gosh, I don't know, minus 80 degrees wind chill. The easiest way for me to describe it, I know you're from Ohio, so I know you know a little bit about cold weather and whatnot, but what I will say is this.

I couldn't experience that cold until I realized I took a cup of boiling water from my tent and I would throw it in the air and it would immediately turn into ice. Like that's how cold that is. So then for me, that's like, sometimes it's hard to put in perspective where it's like, yeah, it was cold. Wow. That's real cold. No, like it's so cold that boiling water can turn into ice in a second. Now, how do you make sure you keep your temperature, I guess, regulated? Because I sweat when I'm moving, even in the snow. Yeah. Can you sweat in temperatures like that? No, no.

So there's sort of an adage in the world of polar exploration, which is, if you sweat, you die. Wow. And it's potentially a little hyperbolic, but to be honest, it's pretty true in that if you're pulling a 375-pound sled, it's amazing. You can stay pretty warm while you're moving. But you stop for 5 seconds, 10 seconds to get a swig of water to pretty warm while you're moving, but you stop for five seconds, 10 seconds to get a swig of water to eat a little bit of food, and you can immediately go hypothermic. And so it's a matter of what I say is staying comfortably cool. So it's moving at a pace that keeps you warm enough, but also being aware enough of your body temperature that you're not

sweating. But when I would stop, I would eat food every, you know, kind of a steady flow of food in these column bars that were self-created for this project. I would, you know, eat food every, you know, kind of a steady flow of food in these column bars that were self-created for this project. I would, you know, eat very frequently, but even in those little like 30-second breaks, I'd put on a huge puffy jacket. Really? Like immediately. It's not like you don't stand around in the cold at all. I mean, it's that cold.

You know, hypothermic frostbite could set in. I got a little bit of frostbite on my cheeks and nose from these windstorms. The conditions are real out there, no doubt. Wow, and how many world records do you have for this first? So, um. You've done Everest, you've done all these different mountains. Yeah, so I set the world record for something called the Explorers Grand Slam in 2016.

And so that was one of my bigger, first big world record projects. And the goal there was to be the fastest person to complete the Explorers Grand Slam, which is climbing the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents of course Everest Denali Kilimanjaro etc as well as complete expeditions both the North Pole and the South Pole and these polar journeys were just across the last degree of latitude so that was only 69 miles to reach each of the poles across the last degree of latitude which seemed un-a Seemed hard at the time,

but now when I've done a 1,000-mile journey in Africa, that project was 139 days consecutive. So all nine of those expeditions, Everest, Denali, et cetera, back to back to back to back without any rest, 139 days. So you broke the world record for the fastest. Cumulative time of that. Fewer than 50 people had ever completed the Grand Slam.

Most of those people have done so in five years or ten years, trained for an expedition, rested between, planned the next one. And I built it to do it all consecutively throughout. Crazy, man. Yeah. Yeah. How long does it take to get to the top of Everest? So generally, Everest expedition will last about two months. In my case, I was coming straight off the North Pole. So what's crazy is the North Pole is at sea level. It's literally ice floating around in the middle of the ocean. And I had to go straight from there to Everest. And because I was at sea level, I was not acclimatized at all. So flying to Everest, but I was late and delayed

because the sea ice was cracking in the North Pole. Literally you can fall through the cracks into the frozen ocean. It's a crazy place. There's polar bear. I mean, it's one of the wildest landscapes ever in the middle of the floating ocean. You're at the North Pole and the ice is floating around you.

You're actually moving away from the pole and you're having to walk back because it's just a GPS point in the middle of the ocean basically. But to fly from there all the way to Everest, I only had three weeks rather than two months to climb it. And that in itself was just an epic battle. And this came because of the weather windows on that project towards the end of my project. So Everest was the eighth of the last nine expeditions. But what happened up there is I made it into the death zone,

which is above 26,000 feet. It's known because the human body, even with supplemental oxygen, can't survive for long. Oh my gosh. How many feet is that up? That's at 26,000 feet where the death zone starts, but Everest is 29,000 feet. Oh my gosh.

And so I pushed for the summit. My very first push, no, I didn't have any guides with me, just one Sherpa who was climbing with a guy by the name of Pissang Bodhi, incredible Nepalese Sherpa, and we got caught in a massive storm. I mean, the weather came in, winds blowing, you know, 50, 60 mile per hour winds, and we quickly know we got to abandon our summit attempt. It took, we were lucky to even get our tent up, took two or three hours, had to descend off the mountain, thought my entire project, you know, had disappeared, but we kind of

found the strength and courage to go back up in another massive challenging storm, but made it to the summit three days later. But you'll love this. So I come back down, I get back into camp four, into the death zone, I've summited Everest. It's a beautiful moment for me, and I'm one mountain away from setting the world record, and I'm about two months ahead of schedule.

So I'm like, if I get to Nali, I could probably do this. It's coming into reality. And my wife, Jenna, who is not just a supportive partner, but really just the co-creator with me, we dream up these projects together. We build a nonprofit around inspiring young people and kids. There's tons of public schools, hundreds of thousands of public schools,

kids following along this project at the time. And that's really where our passion lies around health and wellness. Now we can talk more about that later. But anyways, I call home to Jenna and I say, Jenna, you know, I just summited Everest. We got one mountain to go. And she goes, okay, great. Like, how are you feeling? I'm like, well, I'm exhausted. I'm still up at 26,000 feet. It's going to take me a few days to get down and we can regroup for this next mountain. And she goes,

yeah. And she says something I'll never forget. She goes, I actually need you to put your boots back on right now. I'm like, wait, what? And she's like, yes, we've been doing some calculating back home. And it just so happens that if you can get down from Everest today, I've arranged for a helicopter to pick you up in base camp. The helicopter is going to take you to Kathmandu, but there's no time for you to rest in a hotel. An evening flight is going to take you to Dubai, to Seattle, to Anchorage. And instead of having three weeks to climb to Nali, you'll have three days. But if you can do all that, you'll set not one, but two world records. You can have the seven summits record as well. Wow. It's this moment where I just laugh now.

I love this quote. You've probably heard it, but it's a Henry Ford quote. He who says he can and he who says he can't are usually both right. Right. One of the ones I've lived by. And this is a moment of like, A, I know better than to not listen to my wife because she's a badass and she's amazing and knows when to push me. But I'm like, all right, maybe we can pull this off. And sure enough, a hundred hours after standing on the summit of Everest, I'm on the other side of the world at

the base of Denali, three days battling this insane storm. But on May 27th, 2016, make it up to the summit of Denali and in this case, set not one world record, but two world records. Wow, man. Finishing this project. Three days later, started climbing Denali. Yeah, 100 hours after being on the summit of Everest, I got to the base of Denali. And then Denali usually takes three weeks itself

to climb best case scenario. And only about 30 or 40% of people attempting it even make the summit. And I managed to get to the summit in three days, battling this ridiculous storm there as well. How do you get there in three days? How is that even possible? Like I said, it was come straight down from Everest,

not sleep a night, go all the way back down to base camp through the other four camps. There's a helicopter waiting there that took me to Kathmandu, fly to the other side of the world via a bunch of stops. Jenna's there in Anchorage to pick me up and drive me to the base of the National Park. But in Denali, a bush plane has to fly you

into the base of the mountain. It's a whole like the logistic, like not like I said, Jenna is a mastermind, not just of pushing my body, knowing my mindset, knowing how to support and love me and be compassionate running our nonprofit, but logistics, man. Like we're talking about nine locations, seven continents, red tape. I mean, all this sort of stuff. So it was an incredible project for us to cut our teeth on. And mean, in the spirit of what I know you're about, I love this podcast, man. And I love just the entrepreneurial spirit that really shines through and the innovation. Like Jenna and I dreamed this up with nothing.

Like we dreamed this up on a whiteboard. I had been racing triathlon professionally. We had gotten engaged. I mean, like what do we want to do with our life? Like what do we care about? And we had this moment where we literally rode on a whiteboard in our one-bedroom apartment. Like, what if we could set this world record but build a media campaign around it that has a lot of impact? And it sounded like this great idea.

But, like, wait, I haven't really climbed mountains. We've never started a nonprofit. I have, like, 200 Instagram followers. We don't have a platform. We know nothing about media. We know nothing about PR. We're literally Googling on day one. Google, what's the difference between marketing and PR? But in the end, it was a year of no, no,

no. Everyone's saying no, like no support, but just built it day by day, kept showing up. And ultimately a year and a half later, I'm on this project. She built it into something that had 500 million earned media impressions. We had a nonprofit. We had a partnership with a nonprofit where there was millions of kids following along, all these things. But it came out of literally nothing. We both didn't grow up with money. We don't have this background in any of these things.

But just this belief of like, we want to create this and put this love and impact out into the world through this storytelling, through this this. So it was fun to see that come to life. And now this Antarctica project is the latest version or iteration of this passion for us.

How many of these journeys have you done so far? Different adventures. Yeah, so the other world record that I set between this was that we did something called the 50 high points. And so I set the speed record for climbing the tallest mountain in each of the US 50 states. Some of those are like little hills. Yeah, some of them are little hills.

Exactly. But it was fun, man. We did it in, I of them are little hills. Exactly. But it was fun, man. We did it in, I did it in 21 days. The previous record had been 42. But the funnest part for me, because for me, I don't really want to think, I don't think of myself as this athlete in the arena. Like hey, watch me do this world record.

To me that's like not interesting at all. In fact, I've started to think of myself way less as an athlete and more so as an artist. I've started to think of myself, my canvas just happens to be endurance sports, but through that I want to paint these masterpieces that I can share with people out in the world that have this reverberation of positivity and inspiration. And so with this 50 High Points project before Antarctica, our goal with that canvas, with that masterpiece,

or that art project that we were trying to create, we did something we called the Forrest Gump Effect. So we literally got on social media and we said, hey, join us. We're going to be going all over the country. What we want to do is meet people. We want to meet people in each one of these states. Show us your backyard.

Hike a mile with us. Meet us on the top of a summit. We're going to be coming through here fast and hot, but come hang out. And we met thousands of incredible people. We met a member in Virginia. We were on the summit of Virginia with 50, 60 school kids, students who had never camped out before, never been in the back country, never been on a hike, but they came and joined us on a seven mile hike.

I met an 85 year old great grandmother in Illinois. Granted the hike in Illinois, it's pretty flat out there. It wasn't huge, but she did it. It was a mile hike, came with us. And I got to, I walked back with her and I said, what's the secret? What's the essence of Len? She's talking to me about life and love and her story and compassion. And so it's this way of, yes, I am doing these art projects or these athletic feats or world records or world first, whatever that is, but as a way to just connect with humanity, have these amazing conversations, meet people both in person and virtually. And for me, that's what lights me up. Yeah, amazing, man.

Why do you want to do these things in the first place? Because this is like, we did a, for those that don't know, we did Jesse Itzler's 29029 climb, which is like the equivalent of Everest, but it's like the dad's club version where you're like climbing a mountain. What was it, like a mile up? Yeah, but it's like the dad's club version where you're like climbing a mountain. What was it, like a mile up?

Yeah, so it was like a mile up. What was it, like 1,700 feet per lap. It's in Stratton, Vermont, and you have to do 17 laps of it uphill, which equals 29,000 feet, the equivalent of 29,000, 29 feet, the equivalent of Everest. And this is like, you know,

the dad's club version of climbing Everest, but I'm telling you, I was dying. It was like 35 hours, and I was just like dead. It was amazing. You saw me in the tent, and I was like, I'm dying, dude. We met there. We shared a tent, and, you know, obviously we get to know each other. We're having a good time, and you guys are out there chipping away.

You know, I'm climbing the laps. Not trained for this at all. No. You guys were coming off your big event. Not in shape, yeah. And I remember you were like, I remember coming in. I was two laps ahead of you guys.

I'm like, I'm going to go get a little bit of sleep. And it was like 11 p.m. And you've been going for like 15 hours straight. And you're like, Colin, I want to get to the same number that you're on so that tomorrow we can all finish together. And I was like, awesome, great. So you're like, I'm going to head about for two laps. And each lap had been taking like an hour maybe an hour 15 hour 20 something like that right and six hours went by

and i woke up and i was like oh man lewis just must have blew me off and just went through the night like a badass sure enough you unzipped the tent and you're shaking. I thought I had hypothermia, dude. You're like, turn the heater on. Turn the heater on. I'm shaking. I'm like trying to heat the tent up. There was no heat. You're just smiling cozy in your tent.

I was like, dude, I feel like. I was like, bro, did you finish? And you were like, no, I just did the two that you said I was going to do. We got to get back up for tomorrow. But it was like so wet outside. Oh, my God. We were just walking through water and mud. And it was like snowing or whatever.

And it was miserable. But I knew that if I timed this out, I was like, I need to get a certain amount of hours of sleep. If I don't get to 13 laps, I think it was, like I probably won't finish tomorrow. Totally. Like four hours of sleep. And I remember waking up. You were like, okay, we're going to wake you up in three hours. You took four hours. I was like, okay, I'll be good. You woke me up and I was like, I were like okay we're gonna wake you up in three hours or four hours

like okay I'll be good you woke me up and I was like I want to lay here all day I was like Lewis let's go and you're like yeah I almost had a moment where I was like I don't think I'm gonna finish yeah I had that moment in my mind I was like I gave an amazing effort my body is busted broken I was like I I can't break through this and then i think you left after being like okay but hope to see you out there and matt was like dude we're doing this let's just do one lap yep that's how it starts man you gotta focus on one lap that like i have five more to go i was just starting to do the time you're like that's like six or seven i know i was like but in the end you guys got out there 35 crushed it. You finished it with like an hour remaining.

An hour to go. And like, I mean, that event's tough. Like what, 50% of people finish and don't. What I love about that event, though, is that it's a celebration of everyone being out. That's not a race. It's not competitive. It's kind of, you know, Jesse says it's you against you. And I love that.

And then that's why I think that race is a race. You know, that event is really cool because you guys are out there. I'm out there. Like we're hanging out. It's just a fun, like participatory thing because you guys are out there. I'm out there. We're hanging out. It's just a fun participatory thing. It's such a good experience. We didn't have a strategy going into it until day two

when we had to stop like every 20 feet. Once it got steep, I had to drag my legs up the hill. You're like walking up just like no poles, just having fun. I'm dragging my legs. I feel like I tore both my hip flexors.

And I realized then you've got to have a strategy. And you had a strategy your whole time. Every time you're doing these experiences, you have a strategy. You don't just say, okay, I'm going to just push through until I'm dead. You have a strategy. And it sounds like Jenna's really helping you craft this strategy. But how does someone, you know, for me in this physical challenge, like, I got up and I did one lap. and I was like, okay, let me do one more. And then one more. And I was like, okay, now we have two more to go. We can finish this.

How do people push through these mental or physical challenges when it seems like, gosh, it's going to take me 10 years to launch a podcast like what Lewis has or 10 years to build this business or to do this thing? How do people push through that barrier and how do you do it? For me, people love to ask me about my physical training. How do I get strong? There's some fun stories about the crazy training that I did to prepare for this and whatnot. But I believe that it's the muscle six inches between your ears. It's about flexing your mind is really what it comes down to. And I described that moment of Jen and I writing our dreams onto this whiteboard. Sadly, as you know, that's where 99.9% of dreams die, as an idea. Because all of a sudden, we have these doubts in our mind.

Oh, I can't, or it's going to take 10 years, or I could never catch up to this person or that person or this metric or that metric. But it's about showing up. It's about getting out there every single day. So in Antarctica, so actually, my first day in Antarctica, I think, is really emblematic of that. And to be fair about the 2009 event, you're like, Colin, what are you doing in a couple weeks?

You seem like you're in pretty good shape. And I was like, well, I'm going to try to cross Antarctica by myself. And like two, literally like two weeks before I was leaving. So I was pretty well trained at that moment. But I get out there. We've been playing this project for well over a year. It's a world first. No one's ever done it.

There's so many doubters and naysayers. Someone actually died 100 miles from the finish line three years ago trying this project. Another one of the best explorers in the world went out there the following year and after 52 days ran out of food and had to be picked up and didn't make it. So there's a lot of people, there's a lot of print articles in big magazines saying it's physically impossible to do this thing. And so like I know that going in. And so we build this strategy. And the unsupported nature means you can't take any extra supplies with you. Basically what you have in your sled to start, no one can give you anything essentially. And so that case, like weight is of the essence. And so I pack my sled as much of food and as much fuel, the fuel,

I melt the ice into water and I don't bring extra anything. I literally don't even have an extra pair of underwear with me for 54 days because like, I can't, I'd rather have a hundred more calories in my sled of food. Same underwear. Same underwear for 54 days. Straight. Oh my God. That's some soggy underwear right there. Yeah, that's not nice. Oh man. You clean it at least? You try to? No, not much. You can't? Yeah, you just kind of like ride it out. Wow, man. So, no, not smelling good. One day of chafing and you're done too. Yeah, so you look after your body. But I get out there, I fly, this plane lands me on the edge of the Antarctic continent,

takes off, I'm all alone out there, right? Like I've dropped off alone. And, well, actually, you had mentioned before there was another guy out there, which is important to mention at this point because another British explorer, actually the most experienced in the world in terms of the amount of miles traversed in Antarctica and various other projects, he also decides that he wants to try to be the first. So not only am I now racing history, but this guy's a British Navy SEAL equivalent, you

know, special forces guy. His name's Lou Rudd. And he's like a badass. And he wants to do this as well. It was his friend who died three years ago. He's doing that to honor him. And I got a lot of respect for all. I mean, there's a camaraderie as well, of course.

And we both know what we're going through, but we both clearly want to be first. And he's looking at me like, who's this, you know, bit younger guy who doesn't have the real experience in Antarctica? Who does he think he is? And I'm kind of like trying to be like confident in my plan. And so plane drops us off.

We're at a mile apart from each other, equidistant from the first waypoint, the first GPS marker on the map. And I get out there and I've got this video of me being like, it's a blue sky day. It's great. After all year of planning, it's finally time for me to try to cross Antarctica. I'm taking the first step and I bend down and I pull the strap on my sled to tighten it for the first time and ping, the strap breaks. Literally, the strap breaks. It's minus 25, and the plastic can't handle it. It breaks. So right out of the gate, I'm like, wow, this is going to be a long journey. This is before the first step. So then I strap into my

sled, and the sled's the heaviest on the first day. 375 pounds to start was about the maximum I thought I could pull. So I put as much food as I could, even though I knew I was going to burn 10,000 calories per day, and I factored I could carry about 7,000 calories. So I was going to lose weight every single day, straight from the get-go, even eating 7,000 calories. That's how intense and cold it is. And so I start pulling my sled. And you asked me before about sweat. About one hour in, I'm sweating. And I'm like, wait, this sled's so heavy, but I can't not pull it without sweating. And so I start sweating. Then I realize I actually don't think I can pull the sled and I start crying. I literally start crying. But what happens when

you cry when it's minus 25 degrees out? It freezes to your face. So I have frozen tears to my face and I'm one hour, two hours into this journey. And so I do the only thing I could think of is I call home to Jenna. And so I pick up the phone and I go, hey babe, yeah, we may have named our project the right thing. It appears to be impossible. Because we had called it the impossible first. And she's like, oh. And so she tries to, you know, she's like, okay, well.

And meanwhile, I'm seeing Lou disappear on the horizon with this beautiful like ski stroke, like totally knows what he's doing, like strong and steady out there. And like at this point, I can't even think about the fact that there's a race in place. I mean, I'm just trying to like get through the first day. And so she says to me, Colin, how far are you from the first waypoint? Like she knows the route, we've studied it. She knows everything. The first waypoint is only a few miles from the drop-off point. And I'm like, I'm.63 miles from the drop-off point.

It's as if I'm saying it's a million miles. But she's like, okay, so you're half a mile from the first waypoint? This goes back to your original question of strategy, right? And she's like, do me a favor. Whatever you do, I know it's heavy. I know you're sweating. I know you're exhausted, and you're probably a little bit afraid, understandably. Get to the first waypoint.

Get to that first waypoint. And you'll have felt like you got somewhere on the first day. So for the next hour, I struggled and battled and get to that first waypoint, set up my tent, get inside my tent. And I say to Jenna, like, I call her again. It's kind of our safety check at night off the sat phone. She's like, how are you doing? I was like, obviously, I'm stressed. She says, look, I actually went out there intentionally with not a lot of music, not a lot of podcasts,

because I wanted to explore the silence of these flow states that I hope to tap into in my mind, something I'm very curious about, the sort of mental side of this. And she goes, tomorrow, do me a favor. Try to find the flow, even if just for a minute or two minutes. It's going to be a hard day. And so just those words, I went to sleep and I was like, okay, I made it to the first waypoint. I'll get up tomorrow and kind of regroup. And then I woke up and I'm big on mantras, but this mantra had never been with me before this and just came to me out loud as my alarm went off to wake me up on my first real full day out there. I said out loud to myself, I said, Colin, you are strong. You are capable. You are strong. You are capable. And that ended

up being my mantra every single day, waking up for the rest of the entire 54 day journey. And sure enough, that next day, was it stupid challenging? Yes. But instead of two miles, I made it eight miles. And I found that flow state for a minute. The next day was nine miles. And I found that flow for two or three minutes. And so we had a strategy. It went out the window on day one. Had to refocus, refocus on the mind, adjust a few things with our strategy because I was hoping to go further distances in that. She's like, well, like maybe it's not shorter distances at this at first, but as it gets lighter, maybe it'll go longer and all this kind of stuff. And so how do you strategize and plan for something that's been told is impossible? You're stepping into the unknown.

It's by being adaptable and ultimately realizing that these things are happening in our minds, these doubts, these fears. That's a human thing. I don't care who you are. I still have them. I have four world records and I've had some bit of success in my life through challenges. But I wake up every day with doubts and fears and challenges, but it's being able to quiet that in my mind and continue to get to that first waypoint or get to that next step forward in whatever you're doing. Man, what did you do to get into flow every day then? Besides the mantra, how did you get into flow and how did you stay into it? Yeah, so that's something that I've just been fascinated with. So I grew up as a kid as a swimmer. It's funny, I have five older sisters actually. And I'm the baby boy and an older brother as well but I'm a little boy of

seven, blended family but a big family, a loving supportive environment and my sisters and my parents would always be like, you're always talking all the time, you're always this, like I was trying to hang out with them, follow my sisters into their room, like always like chatting and all this kind of stuff but what I realized is I spent four hours a day as a kid swimming, two hours before school, two hours after school, putting in those reps of quiet. Swimming's this weird sport where you're staring at a black line, like you can't talk, there's no eye contact, there's no, you know, really can't really chat to your teammates even. You're kind of in this zone.

And so before I knew the word flow state or high performance, this is me as a kid, I realized I was sort of tapping in and out of those states. And I became more conscious of that as I went through my life and became a professional triathlete after a whole other crazy tangent of my life being severely burned in a fire in Thailand and being told I would never walk again. We can talk about that if you want. But more so, what happened when I was racing triathlon is a friend of mine came to me and she said, I don't know much about sports. This is a Turkish woman who's a wife of a good friend of mine named Ece, and she says, I don't know much about sports,

but just by observing this, I see that this is all in your guys' minds out here. And I was like, yeah, absolutely. This was triathlon, so this is triathlon, and this is when I was racing triathlon professionally, and she said, you know, I'd recommend that you go to these meditation retreats. And I was like, cool, I'm interested in meditation, but I don't know a lot about it, I haven't done it, this is 2011, and she's, you know, I'd recommend that you go to these meditation retreats. And I was like, cool. I'm interested in meditation, but I don't, like, know a lot about it.

I haven't done it. This is 2011. And she's like, yeah, if you've heard of Vipassana meditation, it's these 10-day silent meditation retreats. 10 days, no reading, no eye contact, deep meditation. And she's like, you should try it. And I was like, well, don't I need, like, a little background in meditation before this? And she's like, no. Like, just do it.

It's free. There's centers around the world. It's completely free to go, like go. And so me being the kind of like jump in head first type of person, as you can probably tell here, I was like, great, I'll go. So my off season in triathlon that year, I signed up for this meditation retreat. My step dad, he drives me up to the retreat and he goes, he goes, hey Colin, like I've pretty much never heard you shut up for a minute in your life. And so I'm going to wait here in the parking lot for an hour because once you realize this is a terrible idea, I'll be here waiting to drive you home. You know, joking. He's my stepdad. He's an amazing mentor and influence in my life. Incredible man. But he's literally going like, you're pretty

extroverted and you're telling me you're going to sit in silence by yourself for 10 days. Sure enough, I stayed for those 10 days and it had just a profound impact on my life of learning about that self-awareness in my mind, in my brain, etc. And so from that practice, which I've gone back to this 10-day retreat, I try to go every single year if I can, done several and as well as have a daily practice with it. I've kind of taken that into my canvas, into my artwork, into my sport. And this curiosity of the mind and where we can go in our mind and brain. And so one of my deep curiosity about Antarctica, honestly, was yes, unlocking the physical potential

inside of me, but as a gateway to do that, exploring the mind. And what better place to be alone in this endlessly white landscape. The sun never sets, there's no change of days. There's no dark. There's no dark. It's a blank white canvas. And like I said, I literally deleted

almost all the media from my iPhone as to not. I actually had a couple School of Greatness podcasts, a couple of Rich Roll podcasts, a few podcasts and a few albums out there. I listened to some Paul Simon Graceland, a couple others, but there was very few. I spent 80, 90% of the time in complete silence. And it was a beautiful thing to explore that. So how did I tap into that flow? Like I said, some of the times it was 30 seconds. Some of the times it was a minute or two. But as

I kept on these repetition of days, exploring this place in my mind, sometimes it was days, two days, three days, where the sequence of days would come through in high performance. And the stakes are high. It's 50, 60 mile per hour winds. If I let go of my tent, I have no shelter. It's gone. It's 80 degrees wind chill, minus 80 degrees wind chill. But I'm finding the space in my mind

that is locked in and calm, and the most profound experience of that was actually on my very last day. So it's worthy of mentioning, after the sixth day, I did catch up to Mr. Captain Lou Rudd and surpassed him and ended up in front of him the rest of the time. And on the 52nd day, I woke up and I'm 77 miles away from the finish. And I'm thinking it's about three days, probably give or take that. It's Christmas morning and I wake up and I get outside of my tent and the deepest flow

state of my entire life just comes over me. I just realize I recognize it. I say my mantra. I tap in, and I start exploring. When I'm in the deepest flow states, I'm also hyper aware. And so I start thinking, like,

how many more miles do I have to go? How much time would that take? Oh, it's three days? But what if I did it back to back? What if I did it in one big final push? I'd never gone more than 33 miles in an individual day, and I averaged about 15 to 17 miles a day. So I'm 77 miles away from the finish, and I'm 53 days in this expedition. But I get into this place in my mind that's so deep where I feel this strength and this power and this flow that I start to say to myself,

whoa, we have this capacity as humans. Not me. Not me, but as humans. And I'm tapped into the vibration of my family and friends and the school kids that are following along and just this radiant positivity that I'm shining out but receiving back in such a significant way that I tap into this flow. And for the next 32 hours, I don't stop. Wow. I continue onwards. I have to stop at hour 18 to put up my tent to melt a little bit of snow to get some more water

because I ran out of water. Call home to my family. It's Christmas night. It's 7 p.m. for them on Christmas night. They're all gathered together. They're like, you did your best day ever. 18 hours, I can't believe it. You're almost a day or two from the finish.

And I was like, I'm not stopping. I'm still going. And my mother, who's been a huge influence in my life, and certainly Jenna, my sister, these strong women who have just been like these amazingly positive influences on my life, they hear it in my voice. And of course, as a mother or as a wife or as a sister, you're a little bit worried. Your person is out there in this intense environment. But they reflect now as they've told me the story from their point of view.

And they have it recorded on Christmas Day, this conversation that we had, and they were like, we could hear it in your voice. You were more focused and more clear than you've ever been, and they just said, I can't wait to hear from you in 12 hours. You're going to cross this finish line and create history. Go live your destiny, and it was just this beautiful, beautiful moment of the mind, and I think, I mean, I'll say that, you know, coming back home and it was asked all these questions in the media and press, which is, you know, super humbling. And this question that kept coming up and it keeps coming up, which is, Colin, are you superhuman? And my question is similar. It's like, yeah, I'm superhuman.

And so are you. And so are you. Like what I'm tapping into in my mind is accessible to all of us. And like, yes, you may not want to walk across Antarctica by yourself. In fact, I don't blame you for not wanting to do that for seriousness. But like whatever it is, you talk about business, entrepreneurship, innovation, music, art, love, creation, positivity, whatever that is, like that is within us. And that's what I tapped into out there, which is the most special thing for me to come back and be able to share is that resonant positivity and the power that we all have within us.

It's crazy, man. What was the things you were saying to yourself the final 12, 15, 20 hours? Like, are you saying the mantra over and over? Are you white space in your mind? Are you having a conversation with yourself? Was it kind of random? What was cool about that really deeper flow was, I said, the clarity. And so it was actually, two things happened. One, the passage of time started to feel different. You know, 32 hours. I mean, if I told you to sit here at your desk for 32 hours, you'd be like, bro, it's like, come on. Or we just climb 29029 for 35 hours. It's a long time to do something like that. And I'm just staring at this compass. I mean, just literally staring at a

compass in an endless white space. So you're looking at a compass the whole time? Pretty much. Because it's very hard to, you can't even really see the distance in front of you, especially when it's white out and these blizzard conditions. I'm just staring at something. Wow. So yours is blank. You're pulling it around your waist or your shoulders? Pulling around your shoulders. I've got a compass strapped to my chest that I'm staring down at. And it's white on white. And sometimes, yeah, skiing, but like with skins on the bottom. So it's not like people think skiing is basically like glorified snowshoes. So it's got skins on the bottom just to give you a grip.

But so you're not digging into the deep snow. So anyways, pulling the sled. But yeah, in that flow state, I'm thinking about what actually happened in those last 15 or 20 hours. And this was really cool is that I realized that all the memories we have. So if I said, hey, Lewis, tell me about your high school graduation. You probably have a memory pops in your mind right now, like you've got an image of that day. But then we're going to keep talking, and we're going to talk about other things, you'll get distracted. But in that quiet space,

in that flow state, the memories in my mind, even of the mundane, became so rich. And so I start thinking about all the points in my life, but I'm a five year old kid on a swimming pool deck with my mom encouraging me to dive in for my first swim race, but I'm not there for a flash instant in my mind. I'm there and I can feel the wind blowing and I can see my mom on the other side holding a red towel and I can see, you know, my sister who's going to race in the race behind me and all this. Or like I started going back to driving to school with my sister, Kayon actually. And we did that every single day to high school for years and years and years. You know, we're siblings. Sometimes we would talk. Sometimes we wouldn't talk. Sometimes we'd

listen to music. Sometimes we wouldn't. I actually could start to remember full sequences of 10, 15 minute, these drives over and over and over again. So in this flow state, I was almost in this lucid dream state where I discovered that the memories, everything we've been through, even those memories you think like, that's not a part of me or I've let that go or that's not there, like they are there and in rich detail. And so in this flow state, I'm actually remembering all of the things that happened to me through my life to lead up to this moment. The kid in the swimming pool, the 22-year-old that got severely burned in a fire in Thailand, was told I would never walk again, spent three months in a hospital. My mom's recovery, helping me recover through that

and the positivity, triathlon, heartbreaking relationships, love, family, community, all of these things in this lucid detail, in this dreamlike state, walking across Antarctica for 32 hours, the finish line. It was an unbelievable experience. Crazy, man. Yeah. Tell me about this burn in Thailand. What happened? When was this? Yeah, definitely a pivotal moment in my life, to say the least. Just after graduating from college, I'd been a swimmer in college and didn't grow up with

a lot of money as a kid, but I'd always dreamed like, hey, one day I want to see the world. I had this kind of wanderlust inside of me. I grew up in Portland, Oregon and glad that I grew up there because even though we couldn't travel far and wide, you know, my parents would take me hiking and biking and the outdoors and things like that, a place that really embraces that. I'd never really been abroad. I hadn't seen other countries much, anything like that.

And so I'd been painting houses as a kid since I was 15 years old. And every summer I would save up, you know, a thousand bucks in my like life savings account. And so when I graduated from college, I had $10,000. I felt like I was like the richest man in the world, you know, like from eight, it was eight summers painting houses. And that was the money I also had to pay for like books and like, you know, day-to-day expenses. So it was this, this, this carving off this little amount every single year. But when I graduated, I had $10,000 and I was like, I'm going to go travel around the whole world as long as I can. And so I bought a one-way plane ticket. And the first plane ticket was from the West Coast to New Zealand. But this

was back in the day. You remember a place called STA Travel? It was like this student travel agency. This dates the story. So I graduated college in 2006. I think we're similar ages. 2005. Actually, did I read your birthday is March 16th yeah me too no way yeah bro what year 85 so come three yeah yeah my sister caitlin who i mentioned is march 15th 83 no way literally literally actually man so we've got some symmetry we got some place like symmetry five people on march 16th yeah so we're both march 16th birthday it's. I don't know that popped up in something I saw there. I was like, who's got the same birthday

as me? That's cool. Anyways. So I set off from the world and the first stop in STA travel tells me, oh, you're buying a one-way ticket for a student. You can actually stop in Fiji for free. And I'm like, great for free. Like, heck yeah. I'm just, I'm a 22 year old kid just trying to like, you know, see the world a little bit so I stop and sure enough on this tiny little beach in Fiji on this island that you could walk around the circumference in five minutes I meet Jenna 2007 who's now my wife Fiji first stop of my trip I meet this 20 year old beautiful college girl who's on a study abroad in Australia she's American but I meet I meet this girl and and it's kind of a chance encounter for a day or two,

and then I continue traveling, and she moves back to Australia, but our lives can intertwine, and here we are married, and she's the light of my life and the strongest anchor of everything that we've done. And so I'd say this trip started off to a good start. Right, right.

Then I went and hitchhiked around New Zealand. I mean, I basically have no money. I'm hitchhiking, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, oatmeal, youth hostels, sleeping on floors. I mean, whatever I can get, you know, but just to be out in the world. It was amazing at the time. And I find myself on this rural beach in Thailand, an island called Kotao. And have you been over to Thailand before?

I have. So you've probably seen there's fire dancing and poi balls and all this kind of stuff. And at 22 years old, when a bunch of people are jumping a flaming jump rope, I thought to myself, like sure, why not? That looks like fun. Clearly hindsight is 20-20 because the rope, the flaming rope wrapped around my legs, lit me on fire, spread kerosene the length of my body, lit me on fire completely to my neck. I jumped into the ocean to extinguish the flames which ultimately saved my life but not before 25% of my body was severely burned, predominately my legs and feet. And I'm here, I'm in Thailand,

I'm in the middle of nowhere on a beach on an island. There's no hospital on the entire island, no ambulance. So I'm on a moped ride down a dirt path to a one-room nursing station, like the size of this room that we're sitting in right now, basically, with like one bed. And I have to go undergo eight surgeries there, where there's a cat running around my bed

in this makeshift ICU. And the worst thing is, is the doctors are looking at me through this sort of broken translation of cultural and language barrier, and they're saying like, you'll probably never walk again normally. Like the damage to your ligaments, the knee joints, the ankle joints, the depth of the burn,

like honestly you're probably not gonna be fully functional, full mobility back again. And you know, obviously super dark time in my life, just this downward spiral, physical trauma, emotional trauma. I thought I was this young person seeing this world. How could I be so stupid? I'm down with myself, all these things. And the heroine of this story is my mother, who's just this incredible woman. And I don't have kids yet, although that's something I would like, another adventure I'd like to go on pretty soon, I think. But my mother comes in and I can only imagine what it's like to be a mother,

to see your kid on the other side of the world in this makeshift hospital, bandaged to the waist up, having doctors say this. And I know now that she's afraid. She's in the hallways crying and pleading with the doctors, asking for good news, begging for anything. But she comes into my hospital room every single day with this smile on her face, with just this air of positivity positivity where she's going like, Cohen, like, what do you want to do when you get out of here? Like, let's set a goal. Let's look towards the future. I'm like, mom, are you

kidding me? Like, my life is over as I know it. Like, I'm never going to be the same again. I mean, all I can see is the darkness. And she just fills me with this love and this positivity and leans in. And she finally says to me, like, do me a favor. Close your eyes. I sit there. I'm like, okay, I'll play along. I close my eyes. She goes, visualize yourself. Just picture yourself in a positive light doing something in the future. And in that moment, for whatever reason, probably because I was an athlete, I guess, I see myself crossing a triathlon finish line. And I open my eyes and I go, fine, you want me to set a goal? And I'm kind of saying it as a precocious kind of kid

just trying to play along with my mom a little bit. I'm like, you know what? One day I'm going to race a triathlon. And I love my mother so much for this. Instead of her going like, oh, I said set a goal, but maybe within the parameters of what the doctors are saying, your diagnosis is, or whatever. She's like, great.

That's what you're going to do. Let's learn everything about travel. I've never raced a triathlon before. I swam in college, but I never like bike competitively, run competitively. I don't even know like how you change your shoes from a bike to a run. I don't know any of this stuff. But she's like, great. That's your goal. And so it was three months that I was in that Thai hospital. And I was finally flown back to the United States to Portland, Oregon, where I'm from. Haven't taken a single step. I was carried on and off the plane, placed in a wheelchair when I got home. And I'm in my mother's kitchen that first day. And my mom says to me, she goes, Colin, she goes, I know you've got this big triathlon goal,

but you got to figure out how to take your very first step. And she grabs this chair from our kitchen table that I grew up eating around. She puts it one step in front of my wheelchair. She goes, I'm going to leave the room, but your entire goal for the day is to get out of that wheelchair and take one step and show me that you can sit in that chair that's one step away from you. It was three hours staring at that chair, like looking at it, and I finally, I get up, three hours of courage and strength,

I haven't taken a single step in months, and I take that one step. And the next day she moves the chair five steps away, and the next day 10 steps away. Each day a few more steps, and it went on like that for a year and a half you know the steps turned into moving from the couch in the living room to the dinner table at night and then one time I was like so I said mom I'm jogging I'm literally like shuffling

down the street probably like 30 minute mile pace I mean just like barely shuffling but like that day jogging just felt like flying like I'm just like on top of the world because I'm imagining myself racing this triathlon and And so sure enough, 18 months later, a year and a half after my accident, I'm trying to like get my life together. Like I got to get a job. I got to get out of my parents' basement. I take a job in finance in Chicago, 23, maybe just turned 24. I take a job in finance in Chicago. I'd studied economics in school and kind of trying to figure out my future, you know, like trying to do something, I guess. And I honored this goal. I said, I moved to Chicago and I was like, okay, they've got a

big triathlon here. In fact, the Chicago triathlon at the time was the biggest race in the country. It was 5,000 or 4,000 participants or something like that. So I signed up for the race. I trained at this local gym asking these random people like in spin class, like, how do you, again, how do you change your shoes? Like, I mean, I know nothing. I know how to train because I'm an athlete, but I'm like, curve this injury. I don't really know. And I show up at the Chicago triathlon and I race the race and I finish the race. My grandmother, who's since passed away,

she's at the finish line to congratulate me. Like, you did it. Oh my God, you finished a triathlon. You know, a mile swim, 25 miles bike, 6.2 miles run. It's an Olympic distance triathlon. And we go and we collect my bike and the way triathlons work is like,

people start in different staggered waves of 100 or so people, and we come back around after having lunch. She goes, don't you want to go check how you did in your age group or see how you did in the event? And I'm like, sure, why not? Let's wander past the scorer's table. We wander past the scorer's table.

I'm like, hi. Trying to figure out what place I'm in. What's your name? Colin O'Brady. I go, we've been calling your name over the loudspeaker. You won the entire race. Wow. So I had placed first out of 4,000-some participants in my first race ever,

and it was a complete and utter surprise. Even crossing the finish line because of the staggered start, I had no idea. Wow. People were finishing before you. People were finishing before I started because they started an hour before because they were in different waves and all this kind of stuff. Wow. And it was just this incredible moment when I really think about the entire sequence there.

And I look for, you know, this was 11 years ago now when this happened, of what's happened since then, is it was in that moment that I didn't go like, oh, wow, I'm the champion of Chicago triathlon. I'm so cool. I'm so amazing. What I thought about was like gratitude. Like what would have happened

had my mom not come into that hospital room with this positivity, daring me to dream about the future, forcing me to set this tangible goal for the future, where would my life have ended up, right? And so it's this moment where I look back and then I was like, wait, like I was able to do this, but I don't think of myself as special. I was like, as humans, I've realized like we all have these reservoirs of this untapped potential inside of us and can achieve these extraordinary things when we're focused, when we shine positivity and light, when we lean into those that we love and uplift and co-create together. And so really this journey that I've been on, these world record projects, ultimately I quit my day job as a finance trader and became a professional triathlete the next day, which is not like being an NBA player, MLB player, anything like that.

It's like still sleeping on couches and floors, but I got to race my bike around the world for several years. And it was an incredible journey to be up beyond, but it really started in that moment of turning this tragedy into a great lesson for unlocking potential inside of myself. and I'm humbled to be able to share the story and the formats that I get to as in the public speaking I do and podcasts like this or through my art creations and my projects out in the world is that what I want to shine out in the world

is this essence that we have this inside of us, that we really all have this ability and inside of us to create and do incredible and extraordinary things with our life. And that doesn't mean like your name in a newspaper or having a tech exit or whatever. That's one type of high performance. But I mean like loving each other and leaning in

and being happy and playful and enjoying life and co-creating, inspiring and lifting up all of the different ways that, you know, aren't necessarily the key metrics of success the way we think of them. But that's how I define it. Yeah. Do you think it'd be possible to achieve everything you have

without Jenna in your life? not absolutely not like there's that's a that's the easiest answer thank you for asking I have a softball of a question um how much could you create on your own without that support you know I think that you know there was 20 years of my life before I met Jenna and I it's not like I was doing nothing. I was a talented athlete, swimmer, collegiate athlete, this type of things. But ultimately, the next level came from this partnership, from this teamwork.

And that before I even met Jenna, although I had just met Jenna previous to this, it's having this strong mother that's influenced my life. These five sisters who brought me under their wing and teased me and played with me, but ultimately loved me and uplifted me. You know, my mom, when she's interviewed about certain things, she says, careful what you wish for when you tell your kids they can do anything they set their minds to. And she says that because she still worries about me, of course, as a mother would when your kid's going to go walk across, you know, Antarctica by himself. But she's proud of me. She's never held me back. She's encouraged me.

But Jenna, in that partnership of that coming together of love and romantic love, as well as business savvy and strategy and support, I could never have done it without that. And I recognize in saying that, we all don't, in this moment in life, when you're listening to this podcast, you're in this moment, like maybe you're not in a romantic relationship, or maybe you are, or maybe you're in one that's not serving you, or maybe you're not in a romantic relationship or maybe you are, or maybe you're in one that's not serving you or maybe you're, maybe you're not. But whether that's your romantic partner, your best friend, your brother, someone you have yet to meet, I believe we are stronger

together. And although it's an interesting thing to say, because people have pointed out, like, if you just look at the top headline of the New York times, man crosses Antarctica solo, it's like, oh, here's this guy completely by himself doing this badass thing that no one's ever done. Like that couldn't be further than the truth of the essence of this. Like this is a, I am a compilation of all of the people who have put love and energy into me throughout my entire life, as well as the people that have sat in the trenches with me when I've had a crazy idea on a whiteboard and didn't say that's not possible they said cool let's figure it out let's create yeah what's the mission moving forward you're taking some time to recover yeah to eat enjoy

life yeah are you back at the whiteboard soon are you just kind of taking it all in right now for me I finished two months ago yesterday so it's only been two months since I finished. And actually, after finishing, I knew that Lou was just a few days behind me. And so as badly as I wanted to change those underwear and get out of there with a warm meal and get the heck out of Antarctica, I was pretty done with it.

I wanted to honor him, and I waited at the finish line until he crossed. So I stayed there for a couple of extra days, waited for him to cross. He ultimately completed it, becoming the second person, the only other person on the planet that has done this crossing. And it was so amazing to be there, to be the first person to congratulate on him on what was an extraordinary achievement as well. So that was kind of the first order of business as I stayed in Antarctica a little bit longer. And then finally flew back to the United States. And I've been incredibly humbled by the press and the media and interviews and things like that.

It's been amazing in that regard. And the reason that I am proud of that, again, is not just because I liked seeing my name in print, but more so it validates this art piece, this reverberation of positivity and giving me this platform to speak about the things that I care about. And so having the opportunities now to, you know, I already was doing a bunch of public speaking before, but, you know, speaking at businesses and corporations, all the stuff that I do in schools with the school curriculums I do with school kids and continue my nonprofit work with Jenna and the stuff that we do there. I'm writing a book now, you know, all of these types of things is an amazing way to share this story. Are there other adventures on the horizon? Yes, I'm already, of course, sowing the seeds of those next adventures and way that I can push my limits.

But what I'm really passionate about in this moment is having this ability to kind of take a breath, take it all in and enjoy this moment and enjoy the ability to build off this platform that I've created to really share those human messages out in the world that I think are so important. One of the other things that came into my mind when I was out there, it wasn't so much as a mantra,

but this idea that kind of kept hitting me was these two words, which was infinite love, infinite love, infinite love. It just kind of kept playing in my mind, not so much as a mantra, but this realization that love is not finite in this world. Positivity is not finite. It's not like a zero-sum game.

If I'm happy one day, that means you have to be sad. Actually, and I think your podcast is an incredible example of this, in my opinion, of sharing and shining your light in the world and sharing that positivity. And so the more people doing that, and there's certainly people that have uplifted me to be able to have a moment in time right now where I have the ability to shine that back out in the world and have a multiplying effect on that.

I love it when people reach out to me. I was sharing this story every night on Instagram. I carried this satellite modem. It took an hour to load one image every single night. So I'm exhausted. I'm writing this thing and it's worse than a 1995 AOL dial-up modem. It's super slow, one picture and it takes an hour. But I want to share it out, and it's amazing

to have that come back and people having, hey, I followed you along, and now I have started that business, or I'm leaning into the love in my life, or I'm going to the gym for the first time in this, just having that, that sort of, it's like, oh, I sent out this energy to the world, and that's coming back, not to pat me on the back, but it's like, not, hey, Colin, I watched you do this,

you're really cool, it's like, hey, Colin, I watched you do this, you're really cool, it's like hey Colin, I watched you do this, and now I am taking that energy you sent out and creating in my life. And when that person does that in their life, I can only imagine the five other people that's gonna touch, or the hundred other people that's gonna touch, and the multiplying effect of that positivity, and so that's what I'm excited

about doing, and I think you know that better than anyone, the power of that. Dang, that's cool. Who is the athlete you admire the most in the world or respect? Who do you follow and admire? God, that's an interesting question. I love that question. Could be an adventurer or an athlete or any type of athlete.

I'm going to say two. This is like just off the cuff, the first thing that popped into my mind. This is truthful. When I passed Lou on the sixth day out there, I said I've spent most of the time in silence. This is a true story. This is not like a candid, I'm on the Lewis Howes podcast, I'm going to tell a Lewis Howes story. This is a true story. I happened to pop on your podcast, and I downloaded like maybe 10 episodes randomly, the top 10, the most recent 10, right before I left. But again, I limited the content I had with me. And the first one I play is your Kobe Bryant interview. And when I met you and said, hey,

I just did this Kobe interview. It's exciting. You got to check it out. And so I had it up there. And, you know, I've admired Kobe from afar, although I'm a Portland Trailblazers fan through and through. So, you know, we have a little problem with the Lakers, but they will beat us a couple of times, you know, down the stretch in the early 2000s when I was a kid. But there was something about that interview and his ethic that was so pertinent to where I was in that day. Perfect for you. When he literally says, he goes, I'm trying to stay ahead of Lou. This guy's more experienced than me. He's like more, kind of more badass adventure outdoorsman than me, you know, with all the miles he's done in Antarctica. And Kobe says in that interview, he goes, with all the miles he's done in Antarctica.

And Kobe says in that interview, he goes, talks about being at the gym and being like, I'm just going to stay here longer than any other guy. I'm going to outwork him longer than any other guy. And so right in that moment, when I'm in front of Lou, I actually clicked in and I go, okay, Lou and I are tied now. I was supposed to be out here for 10 hours. How long am I going to stay out here today? One hour longer than Lou. Oh, my gosh. He goes 10, I go 11. He goes 11, I go 12. So I would never have said before that Kobe Bryant was my favorite,

but I say, influentially, in this moment, Kobe Bryant, that in his message of working and beating on the craft and him talking about studying the game film and the tape and all these things is a reflection of me as I work on my craft of public speaking or writing or creating these other projects. It's not only to look forward to the future, but to look back and learn these lessons from that.

But that work ethic of working hard or harder than somebody else was really valuable in that moment. So him, and then the second one I'll say, which is more kind of in tangential related to the same space that I inhabit, shout out to Alex Arnold, who just won the Oscar for Best Documentary with Free Solo. I still haven't seen that. I need to watch it. I mean, highly, highly recommend.

It's amazing. Is it on Netflix yet? I don't even know. I'm not sure. Isn't that Geo? It's got to be coming on Netflix soon. I mean, they just won that Oscar. They were on Film tour for it, and Jimmy Chin and his wife who shot it and created an incredible piece.

Talk about an incredible piece of art, just the way that they created it. But that story, it's very easy again to look at that and say, wow, what a risky thing to do to climb El Capitan with no ropes. But I look a level deeper of that, and the focus and the mindset and the true high performance that it took to pull that off wasn't some crazy thrill seeker. It wasn't some crazy like, oh, I'm going to like show this. Like that's a humble, kind, quiet guy who has been beating on his craft to such a level that he felt so, I mean, again, I'm maybe I'm biased because I love the outdoor community and stuff like this, but like to me as a lifelong sports fan,

a lifelong Olympic fan, I mean, a Michael Phelps or a Usain Bolt, I go on and on. I'm in traditional sports, NFL, Tom Brady, whatever you want to say. Like I go across the gamut. But that performance on El Capitan, I believe stands above perhaps

every other athletic achievement on the planet as a true compilation of both physical craft, but the highest order of mental focus and acuity to pull something off like that. Because it's life or death. The stakes are so high, you're like finger crimped. But the style of which he did it, to me, was just so authentic in the way that he memorized the steps and the movements. It was almost like a dance out there. I don't know. If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend seeing it.

But those two things pop into my mind as two really influential things that have happened recently that have had an incredible amount of inspiration and impact on me. Wow. And when do you feel the most loved? That's a good question. I like where we're going with this. I like where we're going with this. This is great. When do I feel most loved? Is it when you accomplish something big? Is it when you're in the strategy sessions?

Is it when you're in the flow state? Is it when your mom says something to you? I was just having a conversation about this yesterday. Jenna, of course, is the nucleus of this, but a dear friend of mine, a guy named Blake Brinker, has been a huge influence in my life over the past couple of course, is a nucleus of this, but a dear friend of mine, a guy named Blake Brinker, has been a huge influence in my life over the past couple of years, particularly with helping me with some of my public speaking and things like that. And we're talking about one of the times that I felt the most loved, actually, was a couple years ago. I had the opportunity to give a TEDx talk. And I don't know if you've given one or not, but you seem like the type of guy

that would have. I've been asked to do many of them. I was going to say, many people would want you to do that. Waiting for a strategic moment. The right one, of course, sure, of course. I was honored by the invitation to do that, and that's not something you get paid to do or whatever, but again, it's a format that I love and I've always found inspiration in, so I wanted to take it very seriously. And we ended up having, you know, he was a tech founder working on something else or whatever, and he kind of stopped what he was doing for a couple of months and really dove into the ability to help me craft

this story and this was a story of the seven summits and explorers grand slam and sort of talking through my journey one of the first from a bigger public this is a couple years ago we ultimately called the speech change your mindset and achieve anything and it's something I'm really proud of but it's not the the essence of that. The fact that it's a million and a half views, I mean, that doesn't matter. The part that I felt loved in was that in a moment of creativity where I had something I wanted to say

but didn't know exactly how I wanted to say it and express it in the world, and Jenna was right there with me supporting me, a friend who has no stake in this, who has nothing to gain from this, just loved me and said, let's create together. Let's play.

Let's laugh. And we ended up, he would start out as being like, I'll help you out for a couple hours and review a couple drafts and like hear you say your talk once. And it ended up me, Jenna, and him for two months probably spending 100 or 200 hours. Wow. And yes, we created a TED Talk in the world that I'm proud of, but the love was this playful space of creation behind the scenes of us laughing and we cried

and we got into real stuff, not just about me and my story, but about him and his story and his life and Jenna's life and all this. And so I love these shared experiences, whether that's climbing a mountain with a friend, whether that's having the mountain with a friend, whether that's having the tangible goal of creating a speech or art or whatever that is. Those are the moments where I feel, I think I'm also intertwining joy, but joy and love in these moments of work and play and creation innovation together. Yeah, it's cool, man. Where can people support you right now? What can they

jump on the next journey with you? Just base level, follow along on Instagram. That's a platform I'm most active on. It's just my name, at Colin O'Brady. I love sharing my insights and visuals and images and my journey and path there. And certainly my next expedition or creation will be told through that lens as well as any other. And come say hi. I love it. I mean, I read my DMs. I love people, you know, saying hi to me, telling me what your plans are, your Everest, your canvases, whatever that is. I love hearing that. That's amazing. And I get so much inspiration from that. So come say hi on Instagram. Then at Colin O'Brady is just my website. It's got all my speaking stuff and everything up there. So you can find me there. And as I'm working on writing this book, it's not out yet, but it will be out next year.

So I would love the support and love as I go through that journey. And, you know, people hopefully like what I have to say in that medium as well. Yeah. Well, your Instagram just blew up over, I think you had like 10,000 followers before you started. Yeah, I think it was like 30,000. It was small. And then it just, every day I just kept seeing it and something now and it's going up so yeah it's been fun to to kind of dive into that platform it's just a it's a fun way to reach people and talk to folks if you

guys want to go follow them right now you can see the whole journey like day by day because you posted a photo i think almost every day yeah every day and it was cool to just hear like to read the captions and learn what you were thinking and what you were going through. So if you guys want to really kind of follow along, you can go follow you and watch that a couple months back. This is called The Three Truths, this question. I think

you might have heard it from the Kobe interview. So imagine it's your last day. You've accomplished every dream that you've written up on a whiteboard. You've 100 world records or whatever you want to do. All the world records. Every world record. You own them.

You're the first to do every crazy thing. You're still alive and happy and healthy. But you've got to pick the day you've got to go. It could be 100-something years from now, but it's the last day. And every book you've written and thing you've done, you've got to take that information with you. So no one has access to the content anymore. But you get to write down three things you know to be true about all your experiences. The three lessons that you would share with the world.

What would be your three truths? Hmm. I think the first one I would say is achievement is not for the select few. It's for the person who can overcome what I think is the greatest obstacle of all, but our own minds. And the second you can tap into that mindset, there is that reservoir of untapped potential waiting to be released by you. You are the creator of that. So that was a lesson that I would definitely share with the world. So that's number one. with the world. So that's number one. Second of all, I said this before, but infinite love,

infinite love, infinite love, this reverberation of the abundance of love that we have the capacity to both love ourselves, share out in the world, and the importance of that and how we can all uplift and create in that way. And third, I'm going to go with this mantra that certainly just changed my life. I would just write it down on this paper that you just said, this paper that I could leave behind for someone else to read. You are strong. You are capable. I love that, man. Well, I got to acknowledge you, Colin, for your infinite love. When I first met you in the tent, you just exuded this joyfulness. even when we were climbing up and just dying You were just like smiling and just talking along Pushing us forward with your energy, so I appreciate your inspiration. I acknowledge you for completing this

it's unbelievable you completed this thing when no one's ever done it and The the push you give people you know you striving to be your best and be superhuman allows other people to do the same. So I acknowledge you for all the gifts you bring in the world. And I also acknowledge you for, you're not like this specimen of a freak athlete. Yeah. You know what I mean? You're not like this prototypical looking shredded, like super speedy, fast guy. Yeah. You look like an average looking dude. Not in a bad way. No, I know what you mean. I appreciate that.. You look like an average looking dude. Not in a bad way. I know what you mean. I appreciate that. But you look like an average looking

athlete, but you're able to push your mind past boundaries that most fit athletes can't. And that's what I acknowledge you for, showing us what's possible, even when it doesn't seem that way. So I acknowledge you for that, my man. We can follow you on Instagram, at Colin O'Brady, website. Get your

book when it comes out. And what's your definition of greatness? Final question. Definition of greatness. I think too often greatness is thought to be the amount of dollars in your bank account or the amount of Instagram likes or whatever external metrics are in there. Instagram likes or whatever external metrics are in there. But I'll choose something that I've sort of tapped into,

which is impact. And so, you know, the amount of millions or billions or trillions or whatever you have, a reverberation of your impact on others and that infinite love that you shine out there, that's greatness to me. Come on. Thanks, bro. That's greatness to me. Colin, thanks brother. Thanks. I appreciate it. There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Colin O'Brady. Inspiring story. We can all tap into our potential so much more than what we've done

in this life today. You can become that superhuman you've always wanted to if you just learn how to tap into it the way Colin has here. Anything can be possible. Continue to push beyond the limits of what you think you're capable of. Your body and mind can endure so much. You have no clue until you're willing

to put yourself out there and see what it can endure. If you enjoyed this, share with your friends, lewishowes.com slash 775. Tag myself at Lewis Howes. Let me know what you think. I reshare a lot of people's stories over on Instagram. So the best and most creative stories with the best comments, I usually reshare those. Again, make sure to check out Colin and what he's up to over on Instagram as well. Again, thank you all so much for being here.

And let's wrap it up with this quote from the beginning. Success is not measured by what you can accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds. Orison Madden, I love you all so very much. You're capable of much more than you know. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you.