Confidence Classic: Conquer Your Mind and Redefine What’s Possible with Colin O’Brady

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1:08Those same limiting beliefs that are popping up for you when thinking about the 12 hour walk are the exact same limiting beliefs that might be holding you back from having breakthroughs in other aspects of your life. Come on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. I'm ready for my close up. Tell me, have you been enjoying these new bonus confidence classics episodes we've been dropping on you every week? We've literally hundreds of episodes for you to listen to. So these bonuses are a great way to help you find the ones you may have already missed.

1:44I hope you love this one as much as I do. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to meet our guest today, although he has been on the show before. And if you haven't caught that episode, go back and consume it. But you're going to love this one. Colin O 'Brady is a 10-time world record-breaking explorer, speaker, entrepreneur, and expert on mindset. His feats include the world's first solo, unsupported, and fully human-powered crossing of Antarctica, which is insane, speed records for the Explorer's Grand Slam and the Seven Summits, and the first human-powered ocean row across Drake Passage.

2:23Colin's highly publicized expeditions have been followed by millions, and his work has been featured on The New York Times, The Tonight Show, Joe Rogan Experience, and The Today Show. He's the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Impossible First, and now the 12-hour walk, invest one day, conquer your mind, and unlock your best life. Colin, thank you so much for being here with us today. So great to be here with you. Thanks for having me. Oh my gosh. So as I was mentioning to you before we started recording, I read a ton of books, you know, for the podcast. And I was so blown away by how differently you did this book versus your last one, and how much work you put into this thing.

3:04I mean, this is massive. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's certainly a book, but I think of it even more so as a global movement. So really trying to inspire people to take that action in their life. And the book is really a blueprint to what they can do and invest one single day to make a sweeping and monumental change in their life. So guys, he didn't just write the book. Every chapter has key takeaways. Every chapter has ways you can apply it back to your actual walk, which we'll get into what that means in a minute. but he also created videos for every chapter so that you can reference and go back.

3:34You know, so often when we read a book, we forget, oh, what was that about? And now you have videos that are really short. They're a minute, two minutes, and you can go check them out to help support you when you want to stay committed on this journey. So I want to start, Colin, I love the opening of the book when you tell the story. I'm a super visual person, so I'm thinking of it right now, of walking into that really intimidating, like gorgeous New York, really incredible event that you were going to with all billionaires and you show up in a t-shirt. And what struck me from that evening was the conversation that you had with that older gentleman at the end, because it really hit so close to my heart.

4:13And I was hoping you could share it with everybody. Yeah. So, you know, I do a lot of public speaking. And in this sense, I was invited to give a speech for a Wall Street group. And I was giving the speech the following day, but the day before they kind of invited me to a small intimate gathering with like eight or so folks. You said all billionaire, hedge fund manager, investor, big hotshot guys in Wall Street. Older gentlemen, average age was mid-60s, maybe early 70s. It was a very interesting night. I certainly maybe was a little bit of fish out of water, as you mentioned, walking up in a t-shirt and jeans and low-top Jordan sneakers.

4:46They made me feel welcome. We had a really interesting conversation just around hopes and dreams and aspirations and goals, but they really wanted to hear about my expeditions. Oh, what was crossing Antarctica like? What was it like being on Everest? Did you see dead bodies? And every single time I tried to kind of pivot questions back to them about sort of their life philosophies or really their goals, aspirations, or more deeper vulnerable questions around that, they sort of kind of pivoted off of that. And so at the end of the night, as I was getting ready to leave, an older gentleman, I guess his age around 75, kind of pulls me aside.

5:18We had this short but very memorable conversation that really stuck with me where I love to ask people, you know, from school kids all the way up to CEOs, you know, what's your Everest? For me, that's metaphor for my childhood dream. I always wanted to climb Everest and I've been fortunate to summit that mountain twice, but I recognize that most people don't necessarily want to go climb mountains or walk across the continent, but we all have huge, you know, goals, I think in our life. And I'd asked that question and no one gave me a response. And he pulls me aside and he says, you know, Colin, I'm sorry, myself and none of my friends answered your question.

5:48It's a super important question. And he says, I feel like I want to share this with you, which is when you ask that question to me, I keep thinking about this moment I had in summer camp when I was 14 years old and I was sitting quiet alone on this peaceful mountain lake. And he goes, you know, I have made more money than you can possibly imagine in my life, but there's not a day in my mind that I don't go back to that mountain lake as a 14 year old kid and wonder what would have happened had I actually allowed myself to ask this question. I got so caught up in the rat race and what was expected of me.

6:21And by everyone else's measure, I've been, quote unquote, successful. But there was something in it, the way he told me this story that he was like, he felt like he had kind of missed out on something that life had to offer without having asked him this question. So it's an interesting moment. I chose to open the book with that. Just as I think we all have an idea of what success looks like externally. We look at somebody on television or on our social media feeds or, you know, in any sort of context and say, oh, he or she has it figured out. And this guy would be like the most obvious sort of archetype of a person.

6:49I'm like, well, that guy did it. He crushed life. He made so much money. It had this impact and whatever. And even for him to share with me, like, hey, I'm not sure I actually summited my Everest. I summited a bunch of other mountains, but it wasn't my personal Everest. And so I opened the book asking people, you know, what is your Everest? You might be down pretty far down a path. You might be wondering what your purpose is, what you're driving towards. And it is vulnerable to actually ask yourself that question. And then, of course, this book doesn't just ask you that question, but allows you to answer it and gives you an action towards actually how to move towards it, how to actually reach that summit.

7:23But I think it's important. I think it's super important to be vulnerable with ourselves and actually say, you know, what is my Everest? Even if that's not what other people around you think you should do. And this book really starts to break down the limiting beliefs that pop up for us. Well, my Everest is this, but then you start going, oh, but I don't have enough money. I don't have enough time. But what if people criticize me? What if I failed these limiting beliefs and the book really goes through the lens of really exciting adventure stories, but through how we all have these limiting beliefs, myself included, but how I figured out how to overcome many of them and thrive and how you can as well.

7:55So, you know, I love everything you're saying. I know everyone that is listening loves it too. And so my Everest, I guess, I didn't even really know when I was back in corporate America, to your point, I was caught up in the rat race, caught up in the paycheck, trying to get, you know, upgrade the car or do I never even thought about things like this, literally up until I was 43 years old. But I remember at one point in time, I was taking a stage speaking a huge event back years ago, and I might have been 40 years old. And I remember the day I got at that stage feeling like I was flying, like I'm magic.

8:26And I never felt like that before at work ever in my life. And I said to someone, Oh, I wish to God, I got to do this for a living. I'm like magic right now. And someone said, Oh, yeah, that would be so cool. And then I forgot about it. You know, I went back to work, I got fired three years later. And then randomly, I found my way into speaking business. And that's, you know, what I do now for a living. And it's so crazy. So I feel like I found my Everest, but it took a weird way to get there. Your way of finding out what your Everest was to begin with was a little different, but it was still it was harder than mine, because I got fired with which pushed me out the window, you quit.

9:02So maybe you can take everybody down that road a little bit. Yeah, you know, you said something that really strikes me, which is you kind of felt it in that moment. You were on a stage and you were like, this is what I'm meant to do. You know, you felt that. But then it's hard to listen to that echo. One of the chapters of this book, we'll talk about kind of quitting my job, but there's another chapter that's really about intuition, you know, listening to our gut and being able to say, oh, wait, recognizing those signs. It's so easy to go, oh, one day, maybe I could speak again. One day, this, you're like, wait, this is what's lighting me up.

9:32How can I do more of this? You know, like you said, it's a throwaway comment, like, God, I'd love to do this for a living. It's like, actually, turns out, Heather, you can. And I love speaking myself. I've had that same feeling on stages. But it's interesting, you know, when we ask ourselves that question, we kind of, oh, if only I could do that. But we think for some reason that that life or that better life is reserved for somebody else. Oh, that somebody else is a public speaker. Somebody else is that entrepreneur that I want to check. No, that can be you. Any person listening, like whatever that there's no reason that that cannot be you.

10:02Absolutely. For me, you mentioned quitting my job. Early on, I have an economics degree from Yale. I grew up as a public school kid in Portland, Oregon. So an Ivy League economics degree was not necessarily in the cards for me, but through swimming and academics ended up out there. It was a great opportunity for me and exposed me to kind of a whole new world, New York City and the big, fast moving, fast high paced life of that. But there was something sort of in my intuition that was like, I don't know if this is for me or not, but certainly the money was enticing, of course. right? Like I had never, you know, been around money like that.

10:37And so, you know, I ultimately took a job in commodities trading, you know, rewind from that. We imagine we talked about on our last podcast, but I was severely burning a fire when I was traveling in Thailand, was told I would never walk again normally. So that's a whole other part of this, but recovering from that injury and ultimately getting my first real job out of college, I took a job trading commodities in Chicago. And I thought that that would sort of be my path, but because I had just been burning in this fire, I had set myself this goal to recover from it by racing a triathlon by saying, Hey, you know, doctors say I might never walk again normally, but I'm going to figure out a way somehow to get back on my feet, literally start moving my body.

11:14You know, I said, maybe I should race a triathlon. That was my goal. And certainly there was, I need to interrupt, but your mom played a big part in that. I love that. Huge, huge. Yeah. So I was just going to say that, which is there were many around me that said, Oh, that's a crazy, that's a ridiculous goal. But my mother and ultimately this entire book is really about mindset and my mother said to me, you know what? That's your goal. Let's start training for it right now. Let's start working on it right now Like why not and she instilled in me what I call a possible mindset Which is a core component of this book What I define as an empowered way of thinking that unlocks a life of limitless possibilities So even when the doctor is saying you would never walk again normally and I said well, i'd like to race a triathlon My mom was like great with a possible mindset.

11:55You know what anything's possible So I started training for this triathlon, take this job in commodities trading. And it took me a year and a half. I mean, I was in a wheelchair, had to learn how to walk again. You know, I had to wear slippers on my feet to my first job interview for this job. I mean, I couldn't wear shoes. But eventually, 18 months after being burned in this fire, I did race the Chicago Triathlon. And as my complete another surprise, I didn't just finish the race that day, but I actually won the entire Chicago Triathlon, placing first out of nearly 5 ,000 other participants on the day.

12:25Now, you might be thinking like, oh, that's where I might be thinking, well, I'm just some superhuman athlete. But it's the opposite for me. It's the moment I went back to that moment in the hospital where I could easily have given up, where I was going in the depths of despair, emotionally, physically. People were telling me, hey, your life's going to be this way because you screwed up and burned yourself in this fire because of a mistake of my own. And instead, my mom forcing me to set that goal, forcing me to believe that I could do more beyond this tragedy forced me to sort of open up to these limitless possibilities and ultimately win this triathlon.

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16:18I recount this in the book. You know, each chapter is a short story. Like I said, it brings you right into an adventure story or a story from my life and then kind of zooms out and talks directly to the reader because ultimately, I'm not the hero of this book. I'm not the hero of this story. I'm using my life as some examples. But you, the listener, the reader, you are the hero of this story. This book is geared around getting you to unlock your best life. And I'm just teaching through some stories from my own. And after that triathlon victory, I got offered a sponsorship. Now, being sponsored in triathlon is not like the NBA or the NFL or a secure Wall Street future or anything like that.

16:52And so I call up my grandmother who lived in Chicago where I was living, and she was a huge influence on my life. And I said, hey, grandma, I think I'm going to quit my job tomorrow. And she's like, what? No, you're not. Like, what are you talking about? I'm like, yeah, I think I might try to like race triathlon professionally. She's like, that's not like what that's not even a professional. What are you talking about? You know, just kind of knock some sense into me. She's like, look, you work so hard to get this education. You have a bright future in front of you. And she gives me all the reasons, which honestly are pretty reasonably good logical reasons as to like why what I'm thinking is not the best idea for this sort of secure, well-off financial future.

17:29But I won't give away the whole story, but the long story short is, I think people are giving good advice, particularly people that love you. There's certainly people that are giving you bad advice, but at the end of the day, it's your life. It's your life. And so if you're trying to do things to please every other person, whether that's your grandmother, your colleague, your sister, your best friend, whatever, but it's not in alignment with your truth, then you start living other people's lives. And so this chapter in the book breaks down this limiting belief, like what if people criticize me?

17:56And I break down the different types of criticism. One's like random people on the internet or on social media criticizing you. Like that's easy. Like, you know, throw that aside. Like that doesn't matter, but it's harder to be discerning about my mother, your grandmother giving you advice. But in this case, I said, I love you, grandma, but I'm going to follow this path. And I ended up quitting my job racing triathlon professionally. And it's a long road from that, that I explore in the book of, of ups and downs and success and failure, but ultimately sitting here with 10 world records. And, you know, I should say for the entrepreneurs on the phone, you know, I don't think of myself as just an athlete, but also an entrepreneur.

18:29You know, I've, I've started and co-founded business. I've had an eight figure exit with a business I bought and sold. I speak, I write books, you know, I've, I've turned this into a very lucrative career, but by virtue of following my heart and by following that Everest, it's not a trade-off, so to speak, a say of like, oh, I could either do what I love or make money. It's like, can I do what I love and make money, right? Can I have those things work in symbiosis? And don't get me wrong. It's not like that happened overnight. That happened because I kept doubling down on my intuition and my passions.

19:00But I honestly believe that like, just like I said, I don't think I'm a superhuman athlete. And that's why I won the Chicago triathlon, I don't think I possess skills any different than anybody else. You know, I think we all have this capacity inside of us to unlock this possible mindset to conquer our minds and really live our best lives. When you sort of take the time to think about that when you take the time to commit to those goals. So I think we should talk about what the large call to action is at the center of this book, which is called the 12 hour walk. So the book is called the 12 hour walk.

19:29I crossed Antarctica was the first person in history to cross Antarctica solo unsupported and unassisted so nearly 1000 mile journey pulling a 375 pound sled with all my food and fuel across the frozen continent no one had ever done that before and people had attempted it and people said this is gonna isn't possible you'll never make it across and so that I didn't run out of food and I was racing another guy I started pulling my sled every day for 12 hours so it's 12 hours every single day in Antarctica pulling my sled. Well just so people know it was usually 10 was the max correct yeah yeah so going in i had this plan which was i'm gonna pull it 10 hours per day and there was another guy out there who ultimately i was trying to raise history but it turned out and this is what i wrote my other book the impossible first about there's this other guy this british military sort of special versus military guy named lewis rudd captain lewis rudd who we got dropped off on the same day same moment to start this race across antarctica and the first day he kicks my butt i mean he just takes off i'm no nowhere to be found behind him And I think, man, I'm never going to catch up to him.

20:29And I eventually do catch him on the sixth day. And we have this kind of standoff between each other and we're walking side by side, ignoring each other. But it's this intense battle. And I say to myself, I'm not going to stop until he stops. And 10 hours, I thought, was my absolute maximum. Keep in mind, it's minus 30, minus 40 degrees outside. You know, it's brutal weather, winds blowing in your face. I mean, we're in Antarctica alone with no external inputs. And I get to 10 hours and he's still walking. I think, man, I didn't think I could ever go further than this, but I'm going to keep walking.

21:0111 hours goes by, 11 and a half hours go. Eventually, I see him sit down and pull out his tent. And I'm exhausted at this point, but I think I'm going to take a little bit further and I complete a 12-hour day. But then I start doing some math and running some background back home. My wife, Jenna, who is incredible, I always say it should have her name on the cover of the books and all the things we do because she has been my, not just the love of my life, but my business partner, my co-creator of everything we've done in our life. We've been together for 15 years. So blessed to have her in my life.

21:29And I'm on the phone. She was trying to talk you into going 12 hours and you were not buying it. A hundred percent. So I was on the phone with her on the satellite phone connections, crackly subtle. And I was, I was literally, she's like, you got to go more hours per day. And I was like, I can't pass. I was like, I wasn't like yelling at her. Like, and yeah, I was angry with her, but I was frustrated with myself. I was like, you don't understand. man, I'm in Antarctica, pulling a 375 pounds. So this is my limiting belief. Like I'm like, it is impossible for me to go one step further. So anyways, this day proved to me that I could go 12 hours, but she's spreadsheeting miles and calories and all the things back home.

22:04And she realizes she's like, look, if this doesn't become your new norm, you don't figure out in your mind how to say, I didn't just go 12 hours one day, but 12 hours have to be the exact, you know, every single day to make it. So I switch over to going 12 hours every single day. I decide I'm not going to take a single day off because I'm going to run out of food otherwise. And sure enough, on the 54th day, basically with my last bite of food in my sled, I complete this crossing. And had I gone 10 hours per day, you know, multiply that by 50 some days, that's 100 hours less. I would have come nowhere near the finish.

22:34I would have run out of food and had to be evacuated from the continent, et cetera, unsuccessful. So it was the difference for me. But believe it or not, this is not about my 12-hour walk. This is about you. And you might think, wow, now this kid's talking about walking across Antarctica by himself, 12 hours, pulling through a 75-pound slide. How could this possibly apply to me? But something I think we can all relate to is the darkness of the COVID deep lockdown. You know, those first couple months where it was like, I mean, obviously, the last couple years have been really tough. But those first couple months was like, what's going on?