The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk

Episode #299: Kyle Maynard

Full show notes can be found at www.LearningLeader.com

Kyle Maynard is a motivational speaker, bestselling author, entrepreneur, and ESPY award-winning mixed martial arts athlete, known for becoming the first quadruple amputee to reach the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Aconcagua without the aid of prosthetics.

Oprah Winfrey called Kyle "one of the most inspiring young men you will ever hear about." Arnold Schwarzenegger described him as "the real deal," "a champion human," and "one of the most inspiring people" he's ever met. Even the great Wayne Gretzky has spoken of Kyle's "greatness."

Show Notes:

• Commonalities of sustaining excellence:
  • Consistent action... Plotting
  • Life is a marathon
  • "I've struggled with this."
• "We live in a society that we think we have to reach the summit"
  • "Climb as hard as you can but relinquish the fact that you've ever arrived."  It will never be enough to fulfill you.
• "You've never arrived, you're always becoming."
• "I question what we're driven towards."
• Losing the first 35 matches... His dad told him that no wrestlers win in their first year and convinced him to go back for his second year
• "What you're looking for, you're going to find."
  • A self-efficacy belief.  It's in your deeper nervous system... It becomes automatic.  His dad planted the seed.
• "We have this illusion in our head, but it doesn't happen overnight."
• "The world will not be tailored for your every need."
• "We are softening the edges, we need to learn how to mentally deal with things."
• "We need to choose conscious suffering."
  • "Voluntary hardship"
• The power of meeting veterans in an airport on a way to giving motivational speeches
  • "It shifted, it wasn't about me."  The message helped veterans not commit suicide.
• "It's B.S. to think anyone is self-made.  We all need help."  The ripple effect.
• Why climb?
  • "I want to experience the world.  Just did scuba dive at the Great Barrier reef."
• Crawling 19,340 feet in just ten days... Climbing Mount Kilmanjaro
• "Focus on that next three feet in front of you..." Just the next step.  Before you know it, you put your head up and you're at your destination
  • Reminds me of Alison Levine -- "Just put one foot in front of the other and take that next step. Just keep going."
  • "I don't know if I have enough in the tank, but I'm going to keep going."
  • "The 3 feet in front of you is the only thing that matters"
• "Anything is possible is a lie... Tell the truth, know how to test your limits"
• "What gets measured gets done"
• How long can you enjoy accomplishments?
  • "It's a weird dance."
  • "What I'm learning to do now is plotting the essence of it..."
• Favorite book: Empire Of The Summer Moon
• Fasting: "When you fast (don't eat), your body picks the weakest cells and eats them."  There is a lot of science to support fasting
• Advice to others:
  • Value money but not too much
  • Have a small number of possessions
  • Namaste = "Light inside of me.  Recognize light inside of you."
  • Take calculated risk, go on adventures
  • "Follow your bliss"