The School of Greatness - The Untapped Potential Inside You | Colin O'Brady

Episode Date: July 3, 2026

There's a reservoir of untapped potential inside you right now. The only question is whether you'll reach it. Colin O'Brady is the first person in history to cross Antarctica solo, completely unsupported and unaided, covering nearly 1,000 miles alone in 54 days while pulling a 375-pound sled through temperatures reaching minus 80 degrees wind chill. He's also a world record holder for the Explorers Grand Slam, having completed all Seven Summits and expeditions to both poles in 139 consecutive days -- a project he called The Impossible First. Before any of that, he was a 22-year-old backpacker in Thailand with 25% of his body severely burned, told by doctors he might never walk normally again. What pulled him through was a single visualization exercise, a mother who refused to let him see his own darkness, and a goal set from a hospital bed he had no business believing in. What you'll hear in this conversation is how he trained his mind more than his body, how flow states carried him through 32 consecutive hours on the final push across Antarctica, and what a four-word mantra repeated every morning for 54 days can actually do to a human being. The 12-Hour Walk: Invest One Day, Conquer Your Mind, and Unlock Your Best Life Amazon Ebook Audiobook The Impossible First: From Fire to Ice―Crossing Antarctica Alone Amazon Ebook Audiobook Colin on Instagram In this episode you will: Discover why flow state, not physical fitness, was the deciding factor in crossing Antarctica alone for 54 days Learn the four-word mantra Colin repeated every single morning that kept him moving through frozen tears and impossible conditions Hear how he went from a hospital bed in Thailand, told he would never walk again, to winning the Chicago Triathlon just 18 months later Understand the philosophy of infinite love and why positivity multiplies the more you put it into the world Rethink what it means to be superhuman and why this capacity already lives inside you For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1949 More SOG episodes we think you’ll love: Alex Honnold Kobe Bryant Wim Hof Get More From Lewis! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness Podcast. We've got The Legend in the House. Good to see you. My man, great to see you. How 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 65 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. Yeah. You sprinted the last like two days or something. Indeed. Indeed. Yeah. And it was incredible 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 completely. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. It was a wild ride to say the least.

You know, it had a few other words. 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, sort 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 or 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, you know, no kites, no dogs, no vehicles. Just this is like a man versus nature, mono-e-mono out there. And so it was a beautiful challenge to take on as I'm really, you know, just fascinated as myself is 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. It's 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 wish 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 a thousand miles. A thousand miles. Yeah.

Pulling a sled. Yeah. 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 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. That's how cold that is. Yeah. It's crazy. Then for me, that's like, sometimes it's hard to put a perspective board. 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. And 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 potentially a little hyperbolic. But to be honest, it's pretty true in that, you know, if you're pulling a 375 pound sled, it's amazing, you can stay 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 saying comfortably cool. So it's moving at a pace that keeps you warm enough, but also being aware enough of your body temperature, they're not sweating. But when I would stop, I would eat food every kind of a steady flow of food and these column bars that were self-created for this project. I would eat very frequently.

but even in those little like 30 second breaks, I'd put on a huge puffy jacket. 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 can set. And I got a little bit of frostbite on my cheeks and nose from these windstorms. Like the conditions are real out there, no doubt. Wow.

And how many world records do you have for this first? So. 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, Donali, Kulmanjaro, 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, but 69 miles to reach each of the poles across the last degree of latitude, which seemed hard at the time. Yeah, because then unaided. Seemed hard at the time, but now when I've done a thousand mile journey in Antarctica, But that project was a 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. You know, fewer than 50 people had ever completed the Grand Slam. Most of those people have done so in five years or 10 years, train for an expedition, rest in between, plan the next one. And I built it to do it all consecutively throughout. Crazy, man. Yeah, yeah.

How long it takes 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 floating ocean. You're at the North Pole. and the ice is floating around you, you're actually removing 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, known because the human body, even with supplemental oxygen, can't survive for long. Oh, my 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 at my very first push. No, I didn't have any guides with me, just one Sherpa who has climbed with a guy by the name Pissangbodi, incredible Nepali 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, you know, 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 Nollie, like, I could probably do this. Like, 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, 100,000 public schools kids falling 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 summit at 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, yeah, so 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's going to take you to Kathmandu, but there's no time for you to rest in a hotel. And evening flight's going to take you to Dubai to Seattle, to Anchorage. And instead of having three weeks to climb to Nollie, 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 Summets record as well. So 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. One of the ones I've lived by, and this is a moment of like, you know, 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, you May 27th, 2016, make it up to the summit of Denali, and in this case set not one world record, but two world records finishing this project. Three years 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 percent of people attempting to 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 it even possible? Like I said, it was come straight down from Everest, not sleep a night, go all way back down to base camp through the other four camps. There's a helicopter waiting there that took me to Campanod, 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 logistics, like I said, Jedda 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. 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. I 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, you know, kind of shines through the innovation. Like, Jenna and I dream this up with nothing. Like, we dream this up on a whiteboard.

I had been racing triathlon professionally. We had gotten engaged. I mean, like, what do we want to do? our life? Like, what do we care about? And we had this moment where we literally rode on a white bar 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 sounds 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, this. And so it was fun to see that come to life. And now the San Arctic Project is the latest version or iteration of this passion for us. How many of these journeys have you done so far? So 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 Tals Mountain in each of the U.S. 50 states. Some of those are like little hills. Yeah, some were little hills. Exactly. But it was fun, man. We did it in, I did it in 21 days. 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 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 Forest 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 like come hang out. And we met thousands of incredible people. We met, you know, remember in Virginia.

We were on the summit of Virginia with. 50, 60 school kids students who had never, you know, camped out before, never been in the backcountry, 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 was a huge, but she did it. It was a mile hike. It came with us, and I got to, I walked back with her, and I said, what's the secret? Like, what's the essence of Len? She's talking 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 Hetzler's 29029 climb, which is like the equivalent of Everest, but it's like the Dad's Club version of it's where you're like. climbing a mountain, what was it, like a mile up?

Yeah, so it was like a mile up. Yeah. 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. This is what?

35 years or 35 hours and I was just like dead, dude. It was amazing. You saw me in the 10. I met there. Yeah. I'm like dying, dude. We met there. We shared a tent.

And, you know, obviously we get to know each other having a good time. And you guys are out there chipping away. You know, I'm climbing the laps. Not trained with us at all. No. You guys were coming off your big event. No 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 lights. And each lab I've 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 were 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. It was like so wet outside. Oh, my God. We were just walking through water and mud. It's 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 waking up in three hours. He took four hours. I was 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, about that. I almost had a moment where I was like, I don't think I'm going to 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 can't break through this.

And then I think you left after being like, okay, I would 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 got to focus on one loud. I have five more to go. You're starting to do the time.

You're like, that's like six or seven more hours. That's this. But in the end, you guys got out there and crushed it. 35 hours with like an hour remaining. 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 your 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. 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 to 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 that I'm like, you've got to have a strategy. Yeah. And you had a strategy your whole 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. Yeah. 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 then I was like, okay, let me do one more. Yeah. And then one more. And I was like, okay, now we have two more to go. Yeah. 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? You know, 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. When I describe 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, and it's also the ability to be able to adapt.

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 in like two weeks before I was leaving. So I was pretty well trained at that moment.

But, you know, 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 at 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 for you. Same underwear of 54 days.

Straight. Oh my God. Not fancy. Yeah. Some soggy underwear right there. Yeah, yeah, that's not enough. Oh, man. You clean it at least?

You try to? No, not much. You can't. Yeah, you're just kind of like ride it out. Wow, man. So, no, not smelling good by the other. One day at chafing and you're done too. Yeah.

So, yeah, look after your body. But I get out there, I fly, this plane lands me out on the edge of the Antarctic continent, takes off. I'm all alone out there, right? Like, I'm, I've dropped off alone. And, well, actually, you had mentioned before there was another guy out there, which is, like, important to mention at this point, because another British explorer,

one of the, actually the most experience 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 like 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 like try to cross Antarctica. I'm taking the first step. And I bend down and to pull the strap on my sled to tighten it for the first time. and ping the strap breaks. Literally the strap breaks.

Like it's minus 25 and the plastic can't handle it. Break. So right out of the gate, I'm like, wow, this is going to be a long journey. It's 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 up? 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 China. Wow. 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. Wow.

And she's like, uh, uh-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 wait point?

Like she knows the route, we've studied it, she knows everything. The first waypoint's only a few miles from the drop-off point. And I'm like, I'm 0.63 miles from the... 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? Like, and this goes back to your original question, a strategy, right? And she's like, do me a favor. Like, 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, like, get to the first wait point. Get to that first wait point. 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 weight point, 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. And she's like, how are you doing? I was like, obviously, I'm stretched to just 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 in 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 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, a

just 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, you know, how do you strategize and plan for something that's been told as 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 had, you know some bit of success in my life through challenges but like I wake up every day with doubts and fears and challenges but it's a being able to quiet that in my mind and continue to

get to that first waypoint or get to that next step forwards and whatever you're doing man what um what did you do to get into flow every day then besides the mantra how did you get into flow and how do you stand to it yeah so that's something that I've just been fascinated with so I grew up as a kid uh as a swimmer um and it's funny my my five older sisters actually and I'm the baby boy and an older brother as well but I'm you know 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 the 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 for school two hours after school putting in those reps of quiet. Swimming is 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. It became a, you know, 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 the, uh, more so what happened

when I was racing triathlon as a friend of mine came to me and she said, I don't know much about sports. This is this Turkish woman who's a wife of a good friend of mine named Eché and she says, I don't know much about sports, but just by observing this, I see that like, this is all in your guys's minds out here. And I was like, yeah, absolutely. Like, do you go out swimming or the, uh, this was triathlon. So this is a triathlon. And she, and she, this one I was raising a triathlon profession. 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. This is 2011. And she's like, yeah, if you're heard of Apostana meditation, it's these 10 days,

silent meditation treats, 10 days, no reading, no right, 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 and meditation before this? Or she was just 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 in my off season and trifle on that year, I signed up for this meditation retreat. And my stepdad, he drives me up to the retreat. And he goes, hey, Colin, like, I 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 like, he's an amazing mentor and influence in my life, incredible man. But he's literally going like, you're pretty extroverted and your time 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 the 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 mine. 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. 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 of School of Greatness podcasts, a couple of a couple of ritual podcasts, a couple, 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 kind of 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 them and ended up in front of him the rest of the time.

And I, 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've 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've never gone more than 33 miles in an individual day and I average 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 falling 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 miles, 18 hours. I can't believe it.

You're almost a day or two from the finish. 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 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, you know, your person is out there in this intense environment. But they just, they reflect now as they've told me the story from their point of view and they have it recorded on Christmas Day, you know, 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. Wow. 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 super humbling.

And this question that kept coming up and it keeps coming up, which is, Colin, are you superhuman? And my question is simple. 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 seriously.

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? Is it kind of random? You know, 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 30 hours, you'd be like, bro, it's like, come on.

Like, or we climbed 29029 for 30 hours. 35 hours. We're talking. Like, 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 the 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 here's blank. Because you're blank can be in your mind. You're pulling it around your waist or 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 bottom. So it's not like, people think skiing is, basically like glorified snow shoes, 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 this 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 space, 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 and the race behind me and all this. Or like I started going back to driving to school with my sister, K.on, actually. And we

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 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 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 a 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, heartbreak in relationships, love, family, community, all of these things, in this lucid detail, in this dreamlike state walking across Antarctica for 32 hours of 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've been a swimmer in college and didn't grow up with a lot of money as a kid, but it'd always dreamed like, hey, like, one day I want to like see the world. You know, I had this kind of wanderless inside of me. I grew up in Portland, Oregon. And I'm 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. But I 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, $1,000 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's expense.

So it was 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 is 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's March 16th? Yeah. Me too. No way.

Yeah. What year? 85. So, 53. Yeah. Wow. My sister,

Caitlin, who I mentioned, is March 15th, 83. No way. Literally, literally actual day before. So we've got some symmetry. We've got some placey symmetry. I've only been like four or five people on March 16th.

Yeah. So we're both March 16th birthday. It's funny. I don't know that popped up in something that's other. 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 20 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. In Fiji. First stop on 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 it's a kind of a chance

encounter for a day or two and then like 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 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, like 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 Kotow. And have you been over to Thailand before? I have. So you've probably seen there's fire dancing and poy 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.

And clearly hindsight is 20-20 because the rope, the flaming rope wrapped around my legs, lit me on my body, sprayed kerosy in 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, predominantly on my leg. 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 the doctors are looking at me through this sort of broken translation of cultural and language bear. And they're saying, like, you'll probably never walk again normally. Like the damage to your ligaments, the knee joints, the ankle joints, that's the depth of the burn. Like honestly, you're probably not going to be fully functional, you know, 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 to 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, where she's going like, Colin, like, what do you want to do when you get out of here? Like, let's set a goal. Let's look towards a 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'll 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 or 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 trathlon before. I swam in college, but I never like bike competitively, run competitively. I don't even know how you change your shoes from a bike to run out, 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, the Portland, Oregon, where I'm from, haven't taken a single step. I was carried on and off the plane, placing 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've got to figure out how to take your very first step. She grabs this chair from our kitchen table that I grew up, you know, 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 a chair five steps away. And the next day, ten steps away.

Each day, a few more steps. and you went on like that for a year and a half. Wow. The steps turned into moving from the couch and 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, it's 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 so sure enough, 18 months later, a year and a half after my accident, I'm trying to like get my life together.

I got to get a job. I got to get out of my parents based, man. I take a job in finance in Chicago, 23. maybe just turned 24. I take a job in finance in Chicago. I'd say economics in school and kind of trying to figure out my future, you know, like I'm trying to do something, I guess. And I honor this goal. I said, I moved to Chicago, and I was like, okay, they've got a big triathlon here. In fact, the Chicago trathlon at the time was the biggest race in the country. It was a 5,000 or 4,000 participants or something like that. So I sign up for the race. I train at this local gym,

asking these random people like in spin class. Like, how do you get? 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 a I'm like, covered with this injury. I don't really know. And I show up at the Chicago triathlon. And I race and I finish the race. My grandmother, who 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 around. It's an Olympic distance triathlon. And we go and we collect my bike. And the way to triathlon's 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, like, you know, how did you did in the event?

And I'm like, sure, why not? Let's wander past the scorers table. We wander past the scorers table. I'm like, hi, trying to figure out a place man. What's your name? Colin O'Brien, Brady, 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 another surprise. Even crossing the finish line because of the staggered start, I had no idea. I literally had no people. People were finished before. People were finished before because they started an hour before because they're in different waves and all this kind of stuff. 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 and 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. It's this moment. where I look back and then I was like, wait, I was able to do this, but I don't think of myself as special. I was like, as humans, I 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 in 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 on,

but it really started in that moment of turning this tragedy into a great lesson for unlocking potential inside of myself and why I love, and I'm humbled to be able to share the story and the formats that I get to is in the public speaking I do in 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. And 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. Yeah. Do you think it would be possible to achieve everything you have without Jenna in your life? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Like, that's the easiest answer.

Thank you for asking you. I have a softball of a question. 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 it's not like I was doing nothing. You know, I was a talented athlete, swimmer, you know, collegiate athlete, this type of things. but ultimately the next level came from this partnership, from this teamwork. And that before I even met Jen, although I had just met Jenna previous to this, it's having this strong mother, this influence 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. But whether that's your romantic partner, your best friend. 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. Eat. Enjoy life. Yeah. Are you back at the whiteboard soon? Are you just kind of taking it all in right now? You know, 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 bad days, 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. I stayed in Antarctica a little bit longer. And then finally flew back to the United States and I've been, you know, I've been incredibly humbled by the press and the media and interviews and things like that. It's been been amazing in that regard. And the reason that I am proud of that, again, is not because I like 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 up 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, sewing the scenes of those next, you know, adventures in a 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, take a breath,

take it all in and enjoy this moment and enjoy the ability to build off this platform 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, like, love is not finite in this world. positivity is not fine. It's not like a zero-sum game. Like if I'm happy one day, that means you have to be sad.

Actually, and I think, you mean, 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. You know, sharing the 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 at the night, writing this thing, and my skin is like, it's worse than like a 1995 AOL dial-up mode. I'm like it's like, it's super slow, one picture that takes an hour. But I want to share it out.

And it's amazing to have that come back in 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, you know, 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, hey, Colin, I watch you do this. You're really cool.

It's like, hey, Colin, I watch 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 going to touch or the hundred of the people that's going to touch and the multiplying effect of that positivity. And so that's what I'm excited about doing. 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 really, I love that question. It 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. It's not like a candid. I'm on the Lewis House podcast. I'm going to tell Lewis House story. This is this truth story. I happen to pop on your podcast. And I downloaded like maybe 10. episodes randomly, the top 10, the top, the most recent 10, right before I left. But again,

I limited the content I had with me. Sure. And the first one I play is your Kobe Bryant interview. And when I met you, it said, hey, I adjusted this Kobe interview. I was going to check it out. I was exciting. I 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 it's through. So, you know, we have a little problem with the Lakers. But, you know, they will beat us a couple 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 experience than he's like more

kind of more badass adventurer outdoorsman than me, you know, 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. 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'd say, influential 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 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.

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. 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? There is, 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 years, and 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'm going to have a TEDx. Yeah, I've been asked to do many of them. I was going to say many people would want you to do that. Yeah, waiting for strategic money. 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 just that 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 summons and the explorers Grand Slam and sort of talking through my journey, one of the first round of bigger public. This is a couple years ago. ultimately called the speech change your mindset and achieve anything and it's something I'm really proud of, but it's not the essence of 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 like 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.

create together. Let's play. Let's laugh. And we ended up, you know, it started out as being like, I'll help you out for a couple hours and review a couple of drafts and like let's hear you say your talk once. And ended up me, Jenna and him for two months, probably spending a hundred or 200 hours. And yes, we created a TED talk in the world that I'm proud of, but that 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 by 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 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 and innovation together. Yeah, that's cool, man. Yeah. What do we miss in? Anything else you want to share? Where can people support you right now? What can they jump on the next journey with you?

You know, 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. You know, 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 and say hi on Instagram. And at Colin O'Brien is just my website. It's got all my speaking stuff and everything up there. So, you know, 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 when before you started. Yeah, I think it was like 30,000. It's like small. And then he just, every day I just kept seeing it grow up.

Yeah, 200 and something now and it's going up. So yeah, it's been fun to kind of dive into that platform. It's just 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 post 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 yeah a couple months back um 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 uh 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 a hundred-something years from now, but it's the last day. And every book you've written and the 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? The other one. I think the first one I would say is achievement is not for the select view. 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. By you, you are the creator of that. So that would a lesson that I would definitely share 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 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 day. Yeah. Not a bad way. I know what you mean. I appreciate that.

But you look like an average looking athlete. Yeah. 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. Thank you. 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. 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. Colin, thanks, brother. Thanks. I appreciate it.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcast. as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy,

and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.