Jim: Welcome to the fifth episode of Wrestling with Greatness, the show for former wrestlers who want to achieve their fullest potentials and get clarity on their goals so they can take massive action to lead their ideal life. I’m your host, Jim Harshaw. I’m a former Division 1 American individual and head coach. I’m an entrepreneur and I’m the seeker of the truth behind the secrets of reaching your fullest potential in life so you can live the life you’ve only imagined in your wildest dreams. In this show, I’m going to take you inside of the minds of the most successful people on the planet who’ve wrestled. And we’ve learned the blueprint of success and fulfilment. I’ve had some great wrestlers on this show, some Olympians, some national champions.

I’ve also had and going to continue to have people who never really wrestled at a high level, wrestled in college. But the lessons that they learn on the mat has helped them achieve a greater level of success in other areas in their life. Today, we have an amazing guy on the show, Kyle Maynard. Kyle’s a motivational speaker. He’s an author, entrepreneur and athlete. He wrestled for a really good high school team in Georgia. He set records in weightlifting. He fought in mixed martial arts. He actually not too long ago climbed the Mount Kilimanjaro which is the highest peak in Africa. If you don’t already know, there’s something really amazing about all this, if you know Kyle. And once you find out, it’s going to absolutely knock you off your feet. It’s an amazing story.

He’s been on Oprah. He’s been on Larry King. He’s been on Sports Center. He’s been on HBO’s Real Sports. He’s been on 20/20, Good Morning America. He had a cover story in USA Today. I mean, the guy is amazing. It’s an amazing story, you’re going to love this. He’s a best-selling author. He wrote a book in 2005 called ‘No Excuses,’ highly recommended book. Before we get into this interview, which is going to be amazing with Kyle, I just wanted to let you know I do this for all my shows. I create an action plan in PDF form from everything we talked about with Kyle here. I take it out and boil it down to a one to two page PDF with just the highlights. So if you go to my website, go to jimharshaw.net, go to the blog, you’ll find it there. It’s jimharshaw.net/5 for episode 5. Just the number 5.

You’ll get to download this free PDF, this one to two pager. I really urge you not to just listen to this and move on. Take action. In this PDF, this action plan really helps you do that. Finally, let me say this. We all want to grow wrestling. We want people to experience and respect our sport. How cool would it be if we get this podcast, a podcast for wrestlers listed in the iTunes section called ‘New and Noteworthy?’ Only popular podcasts get listed there. In order to get listed there, you got to get a lot of downloads and you got to get a lot of ratings. A lot of you have already stepped up and given me ratings and thank you for doing that. If you haven’t, I urge you really just to . . . a couple of things here. If you go to iTunes, you got to do a search for the show and even if you’re subscribed, you got a search function. Search for the show, ‘Wrestling with Greatness,’ and then just click on the icon there for the podcast and you’ll see ‘Reviews.’

You can leave a one to five star review and even write a few words. So that really helps and the other thing is just getting downloads, getting people to listen. So here’s how you can help me do that if you’re interested. Go to jimharshaw.net/podcast. On there, you’re going to see two buttons, one for Facebook and one for Twitter. Just click it and you’re already done. The post is already written so you can just send it or if you want to edit the post, you can do that. You have that option too. Takes two seconds, jimharshaw.net/podcast. So without further ado, let’s jump into the interview with Kyle Maynard.

All right, welcome to the show everybody. This is Jim Harshaw and we’ve got Kyle Maynard on the show. How you doing, Kyle?

Maynard: I’m doing really good man, how are you?

Jim: I’m fantastic. Thanks for making time. I know you’re always [inaudible 00:04:46]. You always got something going on. So thanks for squeezing us in. So before we get into some of the amazing things you’ve done in your life, for the listeners who don’t know who Kyle Maynard is, you’ve done amazing things. You’ve climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, you’ve finished top 12 in the country in high school in wrestling, you’ve fought an MMA fighter and you’ve spoken in front of hundreds of thousands of people. But for those of you who don’t know you, can you talk a little bit about your disability and something you’ve had to overcome that very few people in the world have to do?

Maynard: My disability is that I can’t do anything until I consume at least 20 ounces of coffee in the morning. Kidding. Actually, that’s true. I was born with a condition called congenital amputation. It basically means that my arms right at my elbows and my legs, right at my knees. It’s I think it’s like one in every couple of thousand kids that might get a finger or toe amputated. And it was more like one in several million, maybe like 10 million that they have four limbs affected symmetrically. So basically, if you imagine your arms ending at your elbows and your legs ending at your knees and that’s basically what I got. The cool thing was that’s the only way I’ve ever known and so, it’s not like I’ve had to go through a sense of loss like a lot of people have that go through an injury. It’s just really the only thing I’ve ever known.

Jim: I typically start out with questions about wrestling, just diving right into wrestling. And I tell people, this is not a wrestling podcast. This is podcast for former wrestlers. So we’ll talk about some wrestling stuff but I do want to ask you, I’ve heard you talk about how your parents have told you, growing up, they said everybody’s got a disability. And I’ve heard you say that you think most disabilities are more mental than physical. Can you talk more about that?

Maynard: Yeah. I really believe what you just said is true. Something my family taught me a lot about is disabilities aren’t just a physical thing on the outside. It’s literally every person has things that you never really see. Walking down the street, you never really have any idea and it comes from life experiences. You know, maybe some past experiences where they’ve could have made some decisions about themselves. Which we all do, every single person. It’s just part of being a human being. It could even come in a physical-internal thing, like Crohn’s disease or diabetes. Things like that that you’ll never be able to see on the outside. There’s a whole host of different disabilities, be it psychological, mental, character, integrity, a lot of stuff that doesn’t have to do just with the physical outside thing that put on a wheelchair to deal with. I think that is probably bar none my favorite thing about wrestling is that it forces you to confront a lot of that stuff. Everybody who is a wrestler knows you’re not going to be good at everything all the time. And if you think that you are, you’re going to get smashed by someone else who’s really mastered something. It kind of forces you to work on those weaknesses. You’re only going to be as good as your weakest link and I don’t know, I think it’s just such an amazing sport in that sense that literally, it’s like the only form of legalized elementary, middle school, high school combat that we get to go and partake in. It really forces you to dig deep and learn something within yourself.

Jim: Yeah. I mean, every wrestler’s lost and we’ve all been humbled. We’ve all maybe been humiliated a little bit, it’s part of wrestling too. When you lose, it’s not like you lost a soccer game or a football game. A lot of great sports out there but when you walk off the wrestling mat and you lose, you’ve been dominated by another boy or another man. That’s a pretty humbling experience. Just stepping on the wrestling mat, you have to face your fears. Your deepest fears. Your deepest self-doubts. I tend to believe that – of course I’m bias and I think you probably are too – that wrestlers are the most prepared for dealing with challenges and difficulty in life. And everybody’s life has challenge and difficulty, and I think wrestling prepares us best for that.

So tell me how did you get involved in wrestling? I think your dad was a wrestler, is that right?

Maynard: Yeah. My dad was a wrestler. He was a very successful wrestler up in Michigan. I remembered his stories from [inaudible 00:10:13]. I’d look at his yearbook and see pictures of him doing his thing and it was like . . . we both actually had broken noses during our senior years and had to wear that hideous mask.

Jim: Yeah, I never had to wear one of those, thank goodness.

Maynard: Yeah. Even seeing that, I was like, “Whoa,” that’s just cool. I remember him also convincing me, because I was a football player at the time. I started out as a nose guard. That was my first sport. So nose guard, defence of line. He said wrestling would make a big difference for my football tackling and that was his logical reason trying to get me into the sport. But it was really total Trojan horse, trying to get me into it. By the time I got into high school, wrestling was my sole sport.

Jim: I’ve done the same with my boys, “Wrestling’s going to help you with everything else.” Anything to get them on the wrestling mat, man. So you played football and I’ve heard about the very first snap you ever took at the very first play. Tell us all about your football experience and how that started off.

Maynard: Yeah. Guys sometimes, they just didn’t really know how to block me. So that snap you’re referring too was basically, the guy just stood straight up. If you imagine, like I said, I’m bear-crawling when I’m down on the defensive line, or on the wrestling mat too. It’s the same thing. So I’m down on all fours and basically just dove underneath the guy’s leg. I smashed my helmet in the quarterback’s leg and it knocked him over. So it’s kind of sad. They just told me, it was like, “Your one job was to get in there and cause this much havoc possible,” so that was basically what I did.

Jim: That’s awesome. So you struggled in the beginning of your wrestling career, right? You didn’t win a match for like a season and a half and something like. And you wanted to quit if I understand correctly, and your parents wouldn’t let you quit. Tell me about that experience and I’ve got four young children. A lot of listeners are fathers and how do we handle it when our kid wants to quit something that we know is good for them? Tell me about that whole experience for you.

Maynard: Yeah. The truth is, I definitely did want to quit for sure, 100%. I had a lot of fun playing football and I was not having fun with wrestling. It was as simple as that. In wrestling, I lost every match my first year so I didn’t want to come back out and do it again in 7th grade. It was 6th grade when I started. My dad basically tricked me into coming back out again as a 7th grader and he says, “Wrestling is a really tough sport. There’s a lot of people that go their entire first year and not win a single match. But everybody wins a match their second season because you’re going to find somebody who’s there in the first season and you’re going to beat up on them.” I thought that was like so appealing, the way that he put it out there. I was like, “OK, all I got to do is find some kid who doesn’t have any idea what he’s doing and I’m going to smash him.”

It was like halfway through that year, I still had not won. To be honest, it wasn’t like my parents would have never allowed me to quit. If I hadn’t won a match that 7th grade season, I wouldn’t have done it again. I’m fairly certain of that. Not 100% sure but pretty sure that would have been it. But it really was a big psychological swing. When I won that match that second year, then it was like whoa. I started winning a lot of after that. In fact, I ended up winning the regional tournament. In 8th grade, you go to state. It was crazy. I went from just getting pounded on all the time . . . the only moves  – listeners would appreciate this – that I knew probably in the first six or seven tournaments that I did was I had to let somebody take me down, apply a Half Nelson and I would attempt to wean the Half Nelson. So try to roll them and come on top. So I had to give up the takedown, allow them to go in secure position where they’re going to put me on my back potentially, and then that was my only offense as weapon. That just didn’t work for a while until finally, you beat that first kid and it was like, “Cool, I can do this.”

Jim: All right, so let’s talk technique here. I was the head wrestling coach at Slippery Rock University and your senior year, the High School National Championships were in Cleveland. I drove over with a good friend of mine, Brendan Buckley. He was the head coach at Columbia at the time. He’s at Cal Poly now. Brendan and I, we had heard about you and this was the round of 16. So we went down to watch you, like, “This guy is advancing through the tournament. We got to see this,” you know? So we went down and we stood mat side and I watch you beat this kid. I was amazed. But I could see what you were doing. You would get a single and you would have your head inside and the guy would be sprawled and you would sit on his butt and you’ll get a takedown. So is that something that you developed? Talk to me about that technique. I mean, it was a single and it seemed to work quite a bit.

Maynard: Yeah, that’s my bread and butter. Still to this day, I’m competing actively in Brazilian jujitsu and it’s kind of like the same thing. I depend a lot on that single leg and yeah, just work that, twerk the leg and like you said, put the guy on his butt. Sometimes, guys will try to keep their hips sprawled out and I just come up underneath. It makes a big difference because the toughest times that I have is when people control their distance effectively with me. And my goal is to close the distance and create as little separation as possible. So if I can get in tight on a single leg, then I’m not frigging letting that thing go.

I’ll hit low singles, I’ll hit sort of like a duck-under modified high crotch. Or if somebody gets down on their knees and tries to wrestle me – because a lot of the guys try to avoid the low single and they’ll try to keep me from coming in and shooting that other ankle. If I do hit it on the ankle, then I’ll catch it between my neck, my chin and my shoulder, and use that as a way to lock it down. Other than that, working underhooks, shucks, stuff to pressure guys forward where they’re having to be more reactive to what I’m doing. I think that’s like a really critical element. Conditioning plays a really big role there too. Like you know to have that aggressive style, you have to be able to push the pace.

Jim: Kyle, we all have things in our life that we look at. Myself, you, the listeners, everybody kind of goes, “Yeah, this is a challenge that nobody else faces,” or “This is something I can’t overcome,” or “This is an obstacle that is in front of me and I can’t get through it so I’m going to lower my dreams, lower my expectations, changes my goals.” We’ve all given up on some dream. We all have this dream of this ideal life and achievements and what not. To some extent, everybody’s given up on that dream on some level, right? What’s the mentality?

You embody the mentality of overcoming obstacles more than anybody else I know or ever heard of. How do you develop that mentality? If you’re staring at an obstacle, somebody wants a job promotion or they want to start a business or they’re wife wants to divorce them or they’re struggling with their kids, whatever it is, what you got to do? Is there a mechanism, is there a step-by-step? What do you do to create self-belief when there apparently is no reason to have it?

Maynard: That is a fantastic question. It’s really like what I would consider my “life’s work”, is really to try and dive deep and discover that. That inquiry is really what drives me in my career now because just to understand that . . . I can be the biggest quitter on the planet, I promise you. I’m capable of that and sometimes, I do. There’s got to be that moment where it’s gut check where it’s like no matter what is thrown my way, I’m not going to stop. I think a lot of have one foot in, one foot out. It’s that survival mentality, right? We’re ready to go and bolt for the exit as quick as we can if we hear a gun go off or something. It’s like that we have that response to fear, to rejection, to the hurt, the setback and I think that something amazing happens when we put both feet in and we fully commit ourselves and we go and say, “You know what? The only way I’m going to stop,” and this is crazy, and maybe only wrestlers will get this mentality but they’re literally going to have to drag my dead body out of this room before I quit.

That’s the mentality. It sounds really crazy to say but you almost have to have it. I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in 2012 and for the first four days, I was like frightened by what I got myself into. And I was thinking about quitting, I was thinking about getting a helicopter off and I realized pretty quickly, I had one foot in and one foot out. I was ready to stop and it was only when I was like, “You know what, I don’t care what this takes for me.” The thing that we had was we had this amazing honor of carrying the ashes of a fallen veteran and I thought about his sacrifice. I was like, “You know, this guy literally gave his life for us and I never met him. And there are thousands of other guys like him, just my generation, hundreds of thousands and millions in American history. I’m not going to stop.”

There’s literally nothing that’s going to get me to stop. The only thing that’s going to get me to stop is if this boulder goes and rolls on top of me and squishes me. That’s the only way. We could probably have an entire 30 episode podcast talking about this concept, which I’m actually kind of considering because it’s such an interesting topic. But I think that is really that first step of at least many steps where it’s like you fully commit yourself. It’s like no matter what, you bring it to life and it’s no different than when you get in on a shot and the guy sprawls out on top of you and he’s so heavy and you want to quit. Your grip’s breaking, you’re losing it and you’re like, “Screw it. I’m going to finish this.” You do. You just find and make it happen.

Jim: So when you climbing Kilimanjaro, when we say climbing, you were basically bear-crawling this thing. It’s never been done before. What a huge goal, right? We have these goals but you had a really powerful reason. You had a really powerful ‘why.’ Sounds like the reason why you were able to push through that is you had a ‘why.’ You had a reason for doing that. You were carrying a fallen soldier’s ashes to the summit. And that’s a really powerful ‘why’ and I think when people understand that, it helps create not so much self-belief, it’s a reason. You have to do it. You don’t have a choice to not do it.

And the weird thing about wrestling is the ‘why’ for wrestling is – I’ve been exploring this a little bit too – why do we wrestle, right? You’re never going to get rich doing it. So scratch that ‘why’ off. You’re never going to get famous really, from wrestling. Scratch that out. You’re going to be famous within our niche but you’re not going to get famous and worldwide known. Scratch that one off, and through process of elimination, I think the reason why we wrestle is because of the person that we become through the process. I remember growing up and going to wrestling camps. These guys were my heroes. These college guys [inaudible 00:24:00] and I look up to these guys.

Erik Burnett’s one of them. He’s got a wrestling club up in Ohio and I wanted to be like that dude. [Inaudible 00:24:11] and I just wanted to be like these guys. I thought if I worked and pushed and persevered, you’re on a single you’re your face [inaudible], “Why do I want to do this? This is ridiculous, it’s so hard.” But I think part of it is who we want to become, I think that’s a little piece of it. But it’s also you had that reason why which is very powerful for you to get you up that mountain. And I also heard an interesting quote recently. I think it’s on a podcast. I think it was on Lewis Howes’ School of Greatness podcast.

I think it might have been on his show but the guest said, “If your mind is a supercomputer, your self-talk is the program that’s running it.” And I think it’s so important. You must have that. You must have that different self-talk within you, these different things you are saying to yourself. Even if you’re saying “I want to quit, I want out of here,” at some point, you’re changing the language that you use to yourself and you’re making a different decision. I know you’ve got plans to climb an even higher peak now, Aconcagua, right?

Maynard: Right, yeah. You’re 100% right. The self-talk changed really as a consequence I think of eliminating that decision you know, where it’d come up. “Oh, this is really hard. You should quit,” or something like that. Whatever my brain would say, “What the heck are you doing to yourself?” And then it’s like, “OK, thank you for contributing.” It just goes away. When you make that final decision where it’s like I’m just going to do this, it’s like that. And really, interesting point with the why thing. I think there’s an important distinction there to go and understand.

A lot of people think that the ‘why’ so to speak, is like this actual thing all the time. And for sure in my case with Kilimanjaro, it was like an actual thing. Getting to carry Cory Johnson’s ashes to the summit was really critical. However, we were given those ashes by his mum before we left and I knew it was such a huge honor but I didn’t know until I got there and started this process, like how much that would mean to me. And I never would have known had I not just shown up and done it.

A lot of kind of make an excuse frankly, and they don’t get started because they’re like, “I don’t know what my ‘why is.” It’s like the ‘why,’ the thing at least that I’m talking about, that’s not in your head. It’s frankly not so much in your heart. To me, I think about it, it’s deep inside your guts. It is like so inside you that it’s not something that you put into words.

Jim: Yeah, it’s so hard to define.

Maynard: And that’s where it’s like trying to explain it, it’s kind of ridiculous because it’s like trying to explain something that really is not defined by language itself. It’s more of like an intrinsic feeling.

Jim: Like you’re driven by some invisible force.

Maynard: Totally, yeah. And who knows, and that’s just like an internal thing you got to cultivate. That I think is an important thing for people thinking about, “I don’t know what my ‘why’ is.” Your ‘why’ is just your context for being alive as a human being. Why are you here in this planet? And don’t try to put it into words. Like it’s inside you already, just start using it.

Jim: Man, I’d love to talk to you more about that. That’s a really powerful concept and something I think a lot of people are searching for and trying to figure out. I know you don’t have a whole lot of time left but there are a couple of questions that I want to get to you. So give us the short version of how you got from high school wrestler to speaking in front of hundreds of thousands of people across the planet. Best-selling author, mountain climber, MMA fighter, all these great things. Give us the short version of how you got from wrestler to where you’re at now.

Maynard: OK. I’ll make it really short. Attention deficit disorder. I think there’s a lot of stuff I wanted to experience in my life and I don’t know, you just go out there and do it. I just kind of continued to have that attitude, even from an entrepreneurial perspective rather than just wanting to try new stuff. The speaking was a complete accident. It was actually at that senior Nationals tournament where you mentioned that you watched me compete. I gave a speech to 300 wrestling coaches and someone taped it and sent it to the Washington’s Speakers Bureau and I started speaking after that.

Jim: Wow, that’s cool.

Maynard: Yeah. So that was my first speech and that was right after I cut close to like 15 pounds or so in 36 hours to make the . . .

Jim: This was after weigh-ins but before the competition?

Maynard: Yeah. I had not eaten a real meal yet. I’d just eaten the post weigh-in meals. Like I don’t even eat this crap anymore, just like whatever I used to eat, Pop Tarts and bagels and stuff like that. But they’re like serving this big steak dinner and I’m like “Damn, if I can get through this speech, I can get to this dinner.” So that’s what pulled me through.

Jim: Wow, that’s crazy. So people who are listening to this, they like an action item. What’s one thing that people listening to this can take away? What one action can they take today to help them reach their goals?

Maynard: I’ll tell them the same thing I tell when I speak. One of the things I talk about is just to think about what is one of the biggest excuses that you’re making right now in your life that’s keeping you from reaching your highest potential? Just getting awareness round it, and I don’t mean something like that’s intangible, like excuses and fear of failure. I want to know what you are actually physically doing, like in this tangible, physical universe. What are you doing that is your form of an excuse? Just consider how different your life would be in a year if you change that one thing.

Jim: Powerful. We all have something we can do that we’re not doing. Whether we’re afraid of it or afraid of failure or whatever the excuse might be. So let me ask you this. Do you recommend a book or a series of books or a couple of books, or resources? For me, I’m a podcast junkie. But what’s one book or one resource that has changed your life the most that you can recommend?

Maynard: Oh man, I’d say my favorite book . . . I’m a big philosophy junkie. My favorite author of all time is Ralph Waldo Emerson. His biography called ‘A Mind on Fire’ is absolutely amazing. It really encapsulates a lot of the influences that he had so you can learn about the path that he took in terms of learning and understanding and growing in his life. That book is fantastic. Another smaller, more digestible philosophy book that I’m obsessed with is ‘Meditations’ by Marcus Aurelius where you get inside the mind of the Roman emperor who is the emperor at the height of Rome. But like his most amazing sense of humility and service and perseverance, it’s absolutely unbelievable.

Jim: Love it. I’ve never heard of ‘Mind on Fire’ but I’ve heard of ‘Meditations.’ I actually haven’t read either one of them but they’re going on my list of books to read now along with the other 20 that’s sitting on the nightstand of my bed. All right, last question. If you could give your 20 year old self one advice, looking back, what would it be? What would you tell yourself?

Maynard: I would say just buckle up and enjoy the ride.

Jim: Why would you say that?

Maynard: Because I think we’ve got to learn through our own experiences, right? And I think by going back and kind of giving away anything that I’ve learned unnecessarily through those last 9 or 10 years, I wouldn’t be at a place at 20 years old where I’d appreciate it or understand it. So I think I experienced enough and transformed enough as a human being in the last 9 to 10 years that it’s like just crazy. I’ve just learned a lot. I feel like I’ve grown a lot as a human being and I think I really wouldn’t want to [inaudible 00:33:45] that experience for that 20 year old to go through that same thing. And also just to remind them to enjoy the journey. It’s not always about hustling so hard to wherever I want to go. It’s really just like sitting back and enjoying that process.

Jim: I know you’ve got to go right now. Where you’re going right now? You got practice, MMA practice?

Maynard: Yeah, jujitsu. I’m five weeks away from the world championships.

Jim: Yeah?! You’re competing the world championships?

Maynard: Yeah. I’ll be fighting at that last weekend of May.

Jim: No kidding. OK, great. That’s good to know. I’ll share that with the listeners and this is going to be published sometime before that so we’re recording this a little bit early. But yeah, we’ll definitely share. Are you going to be keeping people up to date through Twitter, Facebook, your website? Tell us how we can follow you through that event but also just in general, where can people find you?

Maynard: Yeah, for sure. Just kylemaynard.com. Instagram’s @kylemaynard and Facebook and Twitter and all that stuff. I’m probably most active on Instagram and my Facebook page. But yeah, for sure. You can get on there and it’d be awesome to connect with some of your community.

Jim: Cool. We’ve got a lot of wrestlers, a lot of people who followed you and read your book ‘No Excuses’ and they’ve followed you for years. And you’re just an inspiration to all of us. We all consider ourselves tough and maybe tougher than the average person and having to persevere through a sport like wrestling. But I think nobody’s had to persevere like you. What an inspiration you are to all of us. Kyle, appreciate your time and appreciate you, and good luck in the world championships.

Maynard: Thanks Jim, I appreciate it man. Thank you for what you’re doing for the wrestling community.

Jim: All right, thanks man. Bye.

Maynard: Thanks, bye.

Jim: I told you that was going to be amazing. What an amazing person he is. Kyle, he seems to simply speak things into existence and I actually had some experience recently that’s strengthen my belief in self-talk as well. For one, I’ve only said I’m not a runner. I’ve been a wrestler, I’ve been a wrestler at fairly high levels, All American and the Olympic Training Center and competed overseas. But I just never was a runner. I went out for cross-country in my senior year in high school because a bunch of my wrestling teammates did and they were good runners, and I was like, “I can do this.” And they always crushed me. They left me in the dust. I just couldn’t do it. For whatever reason, I just couldn’t do it.

Ever since then, I just said, “My body’s not built for it. I can’t run. I’m not a runner.” But I hate having something I can’t do. So I made a decision in January because I was going to run a half-marathon. It’s not a marathon but I’m going to run a half-marathon. Up to this point, I’m running three miles and it’s a struggle for me, and I’m fairly fit. Work out fairly often, but three miles is even just a challenge. Changed how I talked, I wrote down on my one-page goal setting worksheet which I offer on the website as a free download on one of my blogpost. I filled this out and I decided to change my self-talk. I set a clear goal. I created a plan and I spoke it into existence. Early April, what I do? I ran a half-marathon and ran it pretty easily. I actually really enjoyed the whole race, I actually enjoyed the whole training. I was running 6, 8, 10, 12 miles for my training run and I was enjoying it.

It was amazing what you do once you get clear on your goals and you change how you talk to yourself about something. Here’s the other thing. I didn’t have time for training for this. I’ve got a full-time job, I got four kids, I work a lot of nights on weekends, I don’t have spare time. My priority is my wife and my family. And part of my goal for this is this isn’t going to interfere with my life, my priorities. But once I created the goal, I found the time. Time just appears and it’s been the same with this platform. This jimharshaw.net and this Wrestling with Greatness, the podcast and the website, I don’t have time for this, right? But it’s my passion, I want to do this so badly. Again, I fill up my goal setting worksheet. I change how I talk to myself about not having enough time and I found time to do this.

I honestly don’t know where the time came. I don’t have extra time in my life to do this. But once I got clear on how I was going to do this, the time appeared. I’ve never been a morning person. Not ever in my life. I was afraid to get a full-time job after college because I was afraid of waking up early. I wake up at 5 a.m. every day. This just started six months ago. I wake up at 5 a.m., I work for 90 minutes, and then I go on with the rest of my life. This doesn’t interfere with my relationship with my wife, doesn’t interfere with my kids, my job, but I found time to do this and you can do. Whatever it is you want to do, you can find time.

But here’s the key. You have to be willing to stop. Get your hands off the wheel and figure out what it is you want. Do you want to be good at Fantasy Football or do you want to watch TV or do you want to play golf on the weekend? It’s up to you. They’re your choices. They’re the choices that I made and it’s a struggle every day for me to fit everything in. But if Donald Trump and Richard Branson and Oprah Winfrey and all these people have the same 24 hours in the day as you do and as I do, if they can find time to be successful and do a lot of big things, so can I.

As usual, I created an action plan in PDF form from what Kyle just shared with us today. You can download it at jimharshaw.net/five. That’s the number five. That’s jimharshaw.net, slash numeral 5. I urge you to download this PDF and take action on this. As I said at the beginning of the show, if you can help me grow this thing and get this thing listed in the ‘New and Noteworthy’ sections of iTunes, it would be so awesome. It’ll be awesome to get more listeners for this, awesome to spread the gospel of how awesome our sport really is and let people know, “Hey, wrestling is popular. We’re listed in the ‘New and Noteworthy’ section of iTunes. Two things I need for that is a review. If you go to your iTunes app on your computer or your phone, just search for the podcast. Even if you’re subscribed, you got to go to the search function and just click on the icon and click on ‘Review’ and you can leave a review.

Then help me to share this to get more downloads and get more people listening. Go to jimharshaw.net/podcast is a really easy way to do that. Just click Facebook or Twitter to share that. You know, I’m going to add an email button too, I haven’t done that yet but I’ll add a button where you can just click and open up an email. A pre-populated email to send this to somebody. Thank you for listening and thanks for helping me grow this thing. That’s all for today. Until next time, attack your day with intensity and focus, and outwork everyone because you can’t get pinned when you’re on top.