217: The Excuse Destroyer | Jonathan Lopez
The Hard Way With Joe De Sena
Spartan Races
4.8 • 874 Ratings
🗓️ 16 October 2018
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
An adaptive professional athlete, veteran,and Adaptive Athletes Liaison for Operation Enduring Warrior he has been "Lopezing" friends, comrades and racers sparking their passion and fortitude to conquer the obstacles of life and on the course - over walls, up the ropes and on extended endurance challenges, all with one arm and a ceaseless smile on his face. The excuse destroyer knows you can do more than you think you can! In this interview Lopez gets honest about the difficulties he faced, even considering suicide at one point, and how he found the passion to get others moving.
Lessons:
• You decide how you define yourself
• It's important to clearly define your mission
• No matter what, just keep walking
• Make someone's day better, be a "spark" in their life
• Always put things in perspective
• Learn what hard work actually means
• Love the fear of a new direction
• Use what bothers you as fuel
• Your story is not who you were, but who you are and want to BECOME
• Be better today then you were yesterday
• Don't be afraid of the "hurt"
LINKS:
Spartan Elite Para Heat https://www.spartan.com/en/race/detail/4011/overview?filter=para
Operation Enduring Warrior https://www.enduringwarrior.org/
Jonathan Lopez https://www.instagram.com/lopez.oew/
Spartan Agoge https://www.spartan.com/en/race/endurance-events/endurance-events-overview?article=29031
This episode of "Spartan Up!" is sponsored by Athletic Greens. Get 20 travel packs free when you order at https://athleticgreens.com/spartan
Time Stamps:
0:00 host intro
0:33 Athletic Greens special offer
1:00 interview begins
1:40 does injury define you?
3:00 don't take no for an answer
4:00 what is your mission?
6:00 inspiring strangers
7:40 athletic greens break
11:50 Elite Spartan Para Race info
12:27 interview continues
13:55 turning what bothers you into fuel
14:14 attempted suicide
15:00 you story as who you want to become
16:00 Spartan's contribution to the adapted athlete community
17:45 Obstacle course racing as confidence building courses
19:00 Sefra, Angle, Johnny & Joe discuss the interview
24:15 Athletic Greens close
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CREDITS:
Producer – Marion Abrams, Madmotion, llc.
Hosts: Joe De Sena with Johnny Waite, Sefra Alexandra, and Col. Tim Nye.
Synopsis – Sefra Alexandra
Production Assistant - Andrea Hagarty
© 2018 Spartan
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | We're going to meet a guy today that reminds me a little bit of Joe Desena here. |
| 0:04.0 | He is an excuse destroyer. He is a guy who takes other people and shows them what is possible. |
| 0:12.0 | What they're what they can do. |
| 0:14.0 | As usual, I've got the lovely sufferer standing here to my right. |
| 0:18.0 | I've got my boss and friend Joe DeSena and good friend Johnny Waite over here on a far left. And I am |
| 0:24.0 | am Tim Nai. |
| 0:25.0 | The Colonel. |
| 0:26.0 | And we are going to be back after the interview because what we do is we talk about what we learn from it |
| 0:30.0 | and how you can apply that in your life. |
| 0:32.0 | This episode of Spartan Up is brought to |
| 0:33.8 | you by Athletic Green. Ensure your body gets the nutrition it needs. Athletic Greens has an offer just |
| 0:39.3 | for our listeners. Go to Athletic Greens.com slash Spartan to get a free box and 20 travel packets with your order, a $100 value. We are here for Spartan up podcast and my favorite barn in the entire world. |
| 0:54.0 | Pittsfield Vermont, with Johnny |
| 1:06.2 | Jonathan Lopez. John is not your typical, can I call you John? Yes sir. Not your typical Spartan. I mean this guy eat |
| 1:14.7 | shredded steel for breakfast. Always smiling, always lopezing people and what that |
| 1:21.4 | means is he goes in, |
| 1:23.2 | rips people off the couch, gets him out of their comfort zone, |
| 1:25.9 | and tells them they could do things |
| 1:27.2 | that they never thought they could do. |
| 1:30.3 | You've obviously been injured, |
| 1:32.0 | yes sir. But you haven't let it affect you. |
| 1:35.0 | Well, I did at the beginning. |
... |
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