Colin O'Brady, Conquer Your Mind and Develop an Unstoppable Mindset | Mental Health | YAPClassic

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26:13oh my gosh everything that you're saying is pure gold so there's a couple lessons that i see in this first of all i feel like a lot of people think that when they're going through a tough time they need this huge support system they want like 10 people around them supporting them Really, if you have one person in your corner when the time is getting tough, then you are like really blessed. Like you just need one person to help you if you're in a bad situation. And there's some people, unfortunately, who don't have one person. What advice would you give to somebody if they didn't have somebody in their corner the way that you had your mom?

26:45Because I do, I was thinking about this and I was gonna say, you know, if you have one person, but there's some people who don't have anyone to help them when the time gets tough. So what would you say to that? Oh, it's definitely, I'm blessed. My mother's amazing. I have an incredible wife as well, who has been so supportive and has gotten me out of some tough spots. I've called her from the summit of Everest, the core of my tent in Antarctica, crying and sobbing. And she's talked me off a cliff quite literally. But it is a good question if you didn't have that person. What I would say is this, is that I think cultivating community is hugely important.

27:18I think the people, you've probably heard it said before, the net product of the five people you spend the most time with. And the question is about not having anyone around you. What most people, I would say very, very most people in this day and age of connectivity, they have connection to the internet. They have connection to people that maybe are not, they're sharing physical space with, but maybe they're famous or they're not actually talking to or having a dialogue with, you know, I imagine most of your listeners have never sat down and actually talked to you. Exactly. But here's the thing, the internet, social media, all this stuff can be extremely toxic.

27:51We all know this. We all know the person on your Instagram feed that triggers you, that makes you feel bad or whatever. But the opposite is also true. Podcast, the internet, media, et cetera, can be the other thing, which is, so if you are actually in a place where you are so alone right now that you don't have a single person to support you, first of all, get rid of all those people in your social media feed that are continuing to make you feel bad. Right now, pull out your phone, unfollow. That will feel amazing. But then all of a sudden, fill up your brain with the access to this podcast, Young and Profiting, you're listening to right now.

28:22There are people that are sharing wisdom, advice, etc. And so that one person in your corner can be somebody that maybe you haven't even met. I have mentors in my life who have been dead 100 years, but I've read their books that they have profoundly impacted my life because their words are written down and have lasted the centuries or the decades. So that's what I would say to that person. I love that answer. Good answer, Colin. So the other big takeaway from this is that you used a big goal to get out of a rut. And I always do this. Every time I've ever failed in life, the way that I get out of being depressed, I've never had a bad health issue like that.

29:01But if I ever got like fired from a job or something like really devastating happened, the first thing I do is think of a new challenging project to basically distract myself with something positive, learning something positive and just taking some positive action towards some new challenge. In my opinion, that is the best and fastest way to get out of a rut is to focus on something new, which you did with the triathlon, right? And so I feel like those are all such great takeaways to your story. And you're just such an inspiring person. So let's get back into how you actually started making money doing this.

29:35Because like we just talked about, you only had a job for like a handful of months, a real corporate job. And then you started taking on these challenges? You did one after the other. You started climbing mountains and Mount Everest and going through Drake's Passage and sailing. And how did you actually make money? What's the business model behind that? It's a great question. So with the 12-hour walk, and again, I'm chomping at the bit to share the fuller message with you. I know we'll get to that. But... I promise. No, it's good context here, which is before writing this book, and we'll get to what it's all about, I said, I want to help people unlock their best life.

30:14And people define that differently. Like people define what that looks like. That can be making a million dollars. That can be saving a million lives. That can be spending more quality time with my family. That can be traveling the way you're right. There's no right answer to that question. Again, it gets back to that. What's your Everest? It's your Everest. It's not my Everest. It's your Everest. But the number one question, when I polled my audience, when I talked to people, what is standing in the way of you living your best life? The number one response was, I don't have enough money. And if you reverse engineer that, it's basically people saying, if I had more money, I would be living my best life.

30:48Now, I could probably poke holes in that as well. But I have gone from a life of being a kid who didn't have very much money to now at this space of my life to having cultivated quite a bit of abundance, financial success at an eight-figure exit with a business that I started a couple of years ago. I've had that success in my life now and I've worked hard for it. A couple of things. One is how did it actually start? Like in that moment, I actually, from my corporate job, went in the Chicago Triathlon and ended up at a barbecue at this guy's house. There's another commodities trader. He hears the story.

31:18Wait, you weren't walking a year ago and now you've won this triathlon. This is crazy. Do you want to continue to focus on this? And he said, I would be your first sponsor if you wanted to pursue this. Now, what was clear, and he even said this to me, he goes, but you're on a bright path. Like you have this financial career, you have this education, et cetera. If you keep doing this for the next 30 years, like you're going to make money, you're going to do quote unquote well for yourself, et cetera. And what I'm offering you is basically a few plane tickets. You can sleep on your friend's couches around the world and eat some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

31:48Back to basically what I was traveling around bumming around the world. But here's the difference. If you want to follow your heart, do it. And I went and quit my job on Monday. I literally walked into my office and quit my job that day. not exactly knowing how the business plan would work in the long run, but trusting that instinct, trusting that God. And I do get deeper into that in the book. Now, what that has turned into is I have figured out a way, and to me, this is what my best life looks like. This is not for everyone, right? Is how can I do the things that I love with a full heart, full of passion, and still create monetary success around that?

32:26Because I'm a big believer in economic solutions of things. I think we can have, I can have the most impact and my nonprofit is thriving at its highest level when I am also taking care of myself financially, because then I have more energy, more freedom, more flexibility, et cetera. When I'm stuck in this mindset of scarcity, I can't have that impact on the world. So look, it's been iterative. I'll tell you one story from the beginning. And I think this kind of sums it up in sort of the mindset essence of this, which I think people can apply, which is 2014. So I raced triathlon for about five or six years professionally, 25 countries, six continents.

33:02I don't save any money, but it's just enough to get by. But I, you know, I cultivate this passion for pushing my body, this curiosity, whatever. And the fall of 2014, I'm on a mountaintop and I've got a diamond ring in my pocket. And I asked my longtime girlfriend, now wife, to marry me. And it's 2014, we're in our mid to late 20s at this point. And again, I love this idea of a possible mindset. I love the idea to dream big. And so in this moment of this like turning point moment in our life, we kind of have this brainstorm on this mountaintop that says like, what do you want to do? Like, what do you want to do next?

33:33We're going to be together forever. Like, what do you want our life to be like? Family, you know, what? Like, let's just talk about it. So we have this super amazing brainstorm full of like all these high vibes. And I say, look, one of my childhood dreams has always been to climb Mount Everest. So I want to do that somehow. And I was like in triathlon, I was like, I feel like I'm I still want to push my body as an athlete, but maybe in a way that has larger impact on ourselves. And we get on this idea of there's this thing called the Explorers Grand Slam. So that's the climb the tallest mountain on each of the seven continents, go to the North and South Pole, and that includes Mount Everest.

34:02And I say, what if I do that, but I set the world record for that? So instead, you know, people usually do that over 10 years, but I was like, what if I do it nonstop over four months, one mountain, next mountain, et cetera. And with the media exposure of that, it'll allow us to have a platform around goals, around health and wellness. And we can start this nonprofit, hopefully inspire tons of kids and have all this impact. This amazing conversation. Then we get back, we come literally down from that mountain and go back to our one bedroom apartment in Portland, Oregon, at a time in our life where we have a lot of very, no abundance, mostly scarcity in this moment in our life.

34:35And this is the moment where most good ideas die. I know there's a lot of entrepreneurs listening to this. Like this is the moment. This is the moment when you're like having some beers with your buddy and you come up with this like amazing business idea and you hash it out on the back of a napkin and all this sort of stuff. But you wake up a little hungover on Sunday morning. You're like, yeah, man, like that business only works if we can raise$5 million and have like funding from like this massive like PE firm or whatever that is. Right. Or in less of a business context, you're like, you're out with your buddy.

35:04You're like, oh, we're going to run that marathon. We're going to train all year for it. We're going to do this, whatever. And you wake up and you're like, yeah, man, like I don't even want to go on a run today, let alone like for the next like six months. Right. Jenna and I wake up in that moment quite literally. And like this project, it turns out we map it out on a little spreadsheet, like it costs a half a million dollars straight up. That's not like making anything. That's to go to Everest. That's to like the North Pole, the South Pole, the logistics, the just kind of infrastructure around this product says it's going to cost about a half million dollars.

35:32We've got 10 grand to our name between the two of us at this point in our life. And like, that's it. So here is the lesson in this. There are two mindsets. One is a mindset of scarcity and one is a mindset of abundance. The scarcity mindset, similar to a fixed mindset in a different context, says, well, I have 10 grand and the thing I want to do costs 500 grand. I'm never going to be able to do this thing. And so therefore, I'm just not going to do it. We could have easily gone that way. But again, that possible mindset, which for me is a catch all for all these different mindsets. But that says that mindset of abundance starts to go, wait a second.

36:05Okay, I've got 10 grand right now. But what else do I have? What else do I have in my favor. Okay. I've got the internet. I've got Google. I've got like a handful of friends that I can ask a few questions to. And it's a long story. Like for the next 18 months, Jenna and I knocked on every single door, told people, I'm climbing these mountains. Like you haven't even climbed these mountains. I don't, it doesn't matter. I need a half million dollars trying to find sponsor, trying to find funding, trying to find this. And here's what happened. A thousand people said no to us. A thousand people, quite literally.

36:38Now, it's getting to be two months before we're leaving for this thing. And we are still head up being like, we're doing this. We've raised like 30, 40 grand. We still got like several hundred thousand dollars to go. I'm getting nervous. I'll be honest. We've been working on this for a year and a half. We finally picked a date. Well, you got to leave on this departure date, whatever. I get invited. A friend of mine says, hey, man, I know you're still trying to raise all that money and you're well short. just as a piece of inspiration, there's this woman that I want you to meet. And I said, great.

37:05At this point, I was willing to talk to any, literally talk to him. I tried my pitch on a thousand people and it kept failing. I was like, maybe I'm doing it wrong. So he invites me to the spin class. He's like, I'm like a spin class at an LA fitness. Like I'm a professional athlete. I'm not going to go to like a group. I'm like, my ego is getting better. I'm not going to go group fitness class at like a LA fit. What are you talking about? He's like, no, no, just come in. And I'm like, fine, whatever. So I come to the spin class. I walk in, there's this woman, she's probably in her mid fifties.

37:31She's already hitting the spin by card. She's sweating. Like the class hasn't even started, but like she's hitting it hard. And he goes, Oh, my friend, Angela, he goes, Hey, meet my friend, Kathy, Kathy Colin. And he goes, she was a world record holder. And she just laughed. She goes, Oh my God, bringing that up like a million years ago. And she was like, when I was 19, I set the world record in the 5k. This is literally 34, 30 plus years ago for her in her life. And I was like, Oh, that's cool. And she goes, Colin's trying to break a world record himself. Tell her about it. So it comes out of me.

37:58I said, look, trying to this or explore this Grand Slam. I got this nonprofit. I want to inspire kids. And she's like, oh, cool, cool. That's awesome. Like, good luck with that. Spin class starts. I'm sitting there on the spin bike going, what the hell am I doing here, man? Like, this is like, what the heck am I doing? And I get done with the spin class. I'm about to leave, wiping myself down with the towel, whatever, wiping the bike down. And she goes, hey, Colin, I've been thinking about your thing. Come back over here. My husband loves this kind of stuff. You know, you should tell him about it.

38:24And she waves over to this guy across the room. Guy's salt and pepper hair walks over. Hi, hi, how are you? I shake his hand. She goes, tell him. And again, not pitching this guy enough. And I'm just like giving like the 30 seconds before I walk out of spin class, give him the story. And he goes, wow, are you happen to be looking for sponsors for this? And I'm obviously my ears perk up. I'm like, well, indeed I am. He goes, yeah, I think the company that I work for might actually be interested in something like this. And so I go, what company do you work for? And he goes, I work for Nike. And I'm in Portland, Oregon.

38:55I mean, that's like the dream of all dreams. I think it's for most people on there, but I'm like in Portland, that's where the Nike World Headquarters are. Like that's like the dream of all dreams, sponsorship, I think for any like athlete or whatever, right? And I'm like, oh my God, great. Eight months before this, Jen and I had actually spent the$10 ,000, all the money we had to build a website. That was our plan. We said, we at least have to have a good enough website. Let's spend all of our money on it because if we're going to try to raise this money, someone at some point is going to ask to see our website and it's going to have to look good.

39:20He literally says word for word to me. He goes, do you have a website or something? You should email it to me on Monday. And I'm like, yes, I do have a website. Can I get your contact? And he goes, yeah, no problem. He grabs Russell's to his gym bag. Let me get a card for you. Pulls out a business card, hands it to me. I look down. Mark Parker, CEO, Nike. Oh my God. I have chills. I was just like, oh my God. Now, again, what is the moral of the story? Is the moral of the story, yeah, you just got super lucky. Like, good job. You met the freaking CEO of Nike in a spin class. I would argue that that is not the truth.

39:58My mom said to me, and I love this line, she goes, luck comes to those who are prepared. The scarcity mindset 18 months earlier said, don't even try this for a day. The abundance mindset says, keep pushing, keep finding a way, keep knocking on the door. And we talked before, you either succeed or you learn. Well, you could have said the 1 ,000 people that said no to me before that, I failed. I failed 1 ,000 times. But guess what? every single one of those times, maybe my pitch got a little bit better. Maybe my confidence got a little bit more sharp. Maybe the way I articulated my idea was just a little more polished so that when the person who could quite literally change the fortune of my life was standing in front of me, it came out with authenticity and passion and right place, right time.

40:44But the essence of that is that abundance mindset. And the book actually breaks down even more specific steps is, to your point, you set that big goal to get out of the rut. But then to actually get out of the rut, you have to keep chipping away at that goal every single day. The scarcity mindset says, yo, you've got 10 grand, you're never going to make 500 grand to do this thing. The abundance mindset says, build a website with your 10 grand and then go knock on a bunch of people's doors quite literally and figuratively. And you know what? The universe might just conspire to make your dreams come true.

41:15So it's a much longer answer to you probably expected. And there's even longer answer to how I've built all the pieces of business over time. but it's from that mindset. And that's what any single person walking this planet can apply. That's for sure. Oh my gosh. I'm so thankful that you shared that story. I feel like that's a story that everybody needed to hear. And I love that you showed up. That's also part of the battle when you're trying to accomplish a goal. You need to show up. You can't expect things to fall on your lap. You went to that spin class, even though it wasn't the most exciting thing to you, but your friend said, hey, there might be a little opportunity for you here.

41:48And you went out and you took it and you did your best and it led you on to this extraordinary life that you guys have. So what a great story. Let's move on. Fast forward to 2019. In between all that, you've had lots of crazy excursions. You've written all about it. Fast forward to 2019. At that point, you attempted the world's first completely human-powered ocean row across of Drake's Passage. And a year later, COVID hit. And that really made all of your adventures come to a halt. And during the pandemic, you decided that you were going to do something. You were going to take a 12-hour walk. So let's talk about that.

42:24Why did you think about taking a 12-hour walk? What inspired you to write your new book? And why did you take such a long, long-ass walk there, Colin? Why did you take a long walk? Why am I inviting every person listening to this to take their own 12-hour walk? Well, look, we'll get into it. So I got to go back in time a tiny bit, which is just to set a context, which is when I was walking across Antarctica for 54 days, 12 hours was my daily cadence. And there's a reason to that. Mostly because if I walked any less, I was quite literally going to run out of food. So I was burning 10 ,000 calories a day.

42:57And I was eating anywhere between five to 7 ,000 a day, which means I was on a three plus thousand calorie deficit from day one. By the end, I was a bag of bones, ribs sticking out, hips protruding, frostbite on my face. You look at my Instagram, you see pictures, there's like black tape on my face. It was so brutal. Minus 40 degrees, minus 80 wind chill regularly. But if I took even one day off, I had no hope of making it to the other side. So no matter how bad the weather, no how bad rough the condition, I walked for 12 hours. In that time, this was this at some points, this felt like a terrible idea.

43:30But I also before I left, I decided to delete all my music, all my podcasts, all my content, whatever, to actually spend the time alone in Antarctica in deep silence. Because I thought But if I try to distract my brain, it might work for a while. But the ultimate depth of this experience was going to come from tapping into basically a flow state. There's this walking meditation of sorts. Now, there was many times when I thought, now, that was the worst idea ever. I would love a podcast right now with somebody to talk to me because being alone for 54 days in Antarctica, this place that's trying to kill you every minute, is a deep place to go in your mind.

44:01But ultimately, my thesis proved to be true, which was on the second half of that journey. as my body declined, as my physical ability started to decline, my mental acuity actually started to strengthen. I felt so tapped in, not just to the competitive nature of becoming the first. And I was actually racing another guy out there, which is a whole other different story. That was a crazy battle that being out there. But I was pulling the sled and I tapped into day after day of flow. And what that actually led me to was way more than not, oh, hey, Colin, the, you know, you're talking about purpose.

44:36You know, I did it. I did it. I'm amazing. Put my name on the front page of the New York Times. I'm humbled by that, you know, exposure and all that sort of stuff. But that's not what it's about. What I got tapped into was fulfillment, purpose, gratitude, love, love of family, love of career, love of passion, love of building things, love of impact. Like I felt just like squarely in my body, mind fulfilled. And I think most people, unfortunately are walking through life pretty unfulfilled, pretty unhappy, wishing they had more, wishing they had something different, kind of stuck in a rut, so to speak, in life at some times.

45:11But I thought, wow, I got to the other side of Antarctica and I figured it out. Like, I've hacked it. Like, I've got this. I can carry this with me, this inner strength now forever. And that was true for a few years. I'll be honest. I had some big wins and some successes and really generally woke up feeling pretty great. And then as I think we all remember the spring of 2020, the world just comes to a crashing halt. And, you know, fortunately, I wasn't sick with COVID, but reading the news every day, the fear, the uncertainty, the borders are closing, stay in your house, this person might get sick, worrying about my grandparents, worrying about my parents, you know, it's all the different factors in that moment.

45:49It just really disrupted my mental health in a really significant way. And I found myself, I was my wife and I went and basically locked ourselves for the lockdown in a small house on the Oregon coast that my family has just me me and my dog and my wife in this little cabin this tiny little town my wife looks over me one day and she's like hey you don't seem like you're doing I'm like I'm not she goes I mean just throwing it out there like you haven't changed out of pajamas in like three or four days you've been sitting on the couch like doom scrolling the news on your phone and like reading these like intense headlines like it's just like hey like just check it in like And I was like, no, you're right.

46:22I thought back, when's the last time that I felt somehow a little bit more connected in my mind, body and spirit? I said, it's weird. But it was when I was walking across Antarctica alone, even though it was so hard, even though my body was so beat up, even though it was the depth of challenge and despair. Sometimes I actually felt really lit up in that moment. So I said, I'm grasping at straws here. I said to my wife, Jenna, I said, tomorrow morning, I'm going to wake up. I'm going to go for a walk 12 hours all day, just like I used to do in Antarctica. And she just kind of laughs. She's like, sure, like whatever.

46:52You know, it's like one of the few things you can do during a lockdown is walk around by yourself. And so I walk outside 20 minutes into this walk. My phone buzzes in my pocket and I instinctively reach down for it. And my buddy's text message texting me, you know, I'm gonna text him back, whatever. And I look, I'm like, man, I just been like doom scrolling the news, staring at social media, like maybe I don't need my phone for this. Like what? Like I just instinctively put my phone in airplane mode and keep walking. So I walk, I walk down the Oregon coast. I take breaks and but I'm out there all day long, 12 hours alone, no music, no podcast, nothing alone in my head.

47:23And I walk back in the front door of our house. My dog jumps up on me and my wife says to me, she goes, you're back. And I'm like, yeah, I told you I come back after 12 hours. And she's like, no, you're back. She knows me so well. She could just see like in my eyes that like the reset in my body, mind, spirit was instantaneously profound. I didn't even have to say anything. and she's like, you're back. Oh, it's so good to see you in that way, in a more greater context than actually just being physically there, right? And so I was like, yeah, I feel better than I felt in so long. Stronger in my mind, reset, et cetera.

47:59I'm so glad I did that. Now I thought, look, I'm the guy who walked across Antarctica solo. I'm the guy who've done all these ridiculous things physically, you know, tap deep into my mind, all this kind of stuff. This is just me like hacking back into my own ability to do this. But it's COVID. And so all my friends and family members are calling me. They're having tough times. We're Zoom calling, we're FaceTiming, everyone's like not doing well. Different people from different backgrounds. And I start telling people about this. I said, hey, look, I just did this thing. And a lot of people took me up on it.

48:27Young, old, fit, not so fit, doesn't matter. And I said, look, it doesn't matter if you go one mile or 50 miles, take as many breaks as you want, but take the day, the 12 hours in silence to be outside. Before I knew it, dozens and dozens of people were trying this. And every single person that I knew to come back from that walk came back with that same, you're back, lit up way. And again, it looked different for different people, but I was stuck in this job that I was frustrated with, and now I have a way out of that. Or, oh, I've been thinking about this goal. I'm actually going to apply myself towards it.

48:58Oh, wow, this business idea that I've kind of had in the back of my mind, had 12 hours to think about it, and now I'm jamming on my computer and my partner, and we're going for it. Every single person I knew to take that walk had this shift. And I take this as far Whereas my 77-year-old mother-in-law, she did the 12-hour walk. For her, that looked like walking one time around the block of her neighborhood and sitting on her front porch for an hour. There's no right way to do it other than to take the day. And what I have become extremely passionate about, why I wrote the book, The 12-Hour Walk, in the book, there's rich storytelling.

49:31In the book, you will be lit up with advice, adventure, how to overcome all of those common and limiting beliefs. I don't have enough money. I don't have enough time. What if I fail? What if people criticize me? The common things that are holding us back that we've all dealt with in our own minds, myself included. The stories that I share in there are me showing you how I have been in all of those moments myself, but I figured out how to overcome them. But at its core is this call to action of the book. The book is an essential companion to the call to action. I encourage everyone to pick up a copy.

50:03I'm very proud of it. I think you're going to love it. It's going to change your life. But at its core is this simple call to action. The book is called The 12-Hour Walk, Invest One Day. One day, conquer your mind and unlock your best life. Because I have found by literally putting a date on your calendar, stepping out front your door, taking this 12-hour walk, again, as many breaks as you want. If you're in a big city, it doesn't matter. Ambient city noise doesn't negate your silence. This is your silence. This is your commitment to not listen to music and podcasts and listen to your own thoughts during this time.

50:32I have seen people shift radically from a mindset of limiting beliefs, a mindset of things that are holding back on the other side of this walk by taking this moment to check in with yourself in this deep way, it is incredibly profound. And I'm just passionate about sharing it. I say my next Everest, my next Everest has inspired 10 million people to take this walk. And it's not because I don't get a dollar for every person that takes the walk. This is free out your front door, wherever you live. But this is a powerful prescription. And I'm so excited to share it with the world. We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors.

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55:11I love this advice because I feel like it's sort of the same outcome of meditation, but meditation is really scary for people. And to me, meditation like is boring, right? Like I'm an active entrepreneur. I have ADHD probably. Taking a 12-hour walk seems doable. You know what I mean? It seems like it's a little scary. I know you have to be completely alone. You got to really unplug. But you can, like you said, you could take as many breaks as you want. You don't have to necessarily go that far. And you just have to set a day. and you can potentially like really think through some limiting beliefs and overcome your Everest and figure out how you can accomplish your biggest goals.

55:54And having that alone time is so key. And I feel like giving people that roadmap is so helpful. So I'd love to go over the six steps with you. You talk about six steps to take a 12 hour walk and you need to prepare. The first three steps is all about preparing. The first step is to commit. The second is to record. And the third is to unplug. So I'd love for you to kind of just walk us through the first three steps. And then I want to talk, take a moment to talk about some common limiting beliefs, and then we can get to the next three steps. Yeah, for sure. So the first three steps is commit. That's the big one, which is you're listening to this podcast right now.

56:30And you're thinking to yourself, I always say the 12 hour walk journey actually starts right in this moment. The 12 hours of the walk is obviously very the profound element of it. But this is actually the moment, the decision moment. You're being suggested this for the first idea and your mind might be going, well, maybe, maybe not. You know, I have these limiting beliefs where what I found is actually this moment is actually where it starts because I am holding up a mirror to you just by suggesting this to you. People's brains do different things. They go, oh, my God, amazing. I'm going to do it.

57:01I'm signing up now. Or, oh, my God, this is terrible to you. Most people are in between. Well, I would do that if I didn't have such a busy life and the kids and this. Oh, I don't have enough time. Turns out that the limiting beliefs that people apply to the 12-hour walk when they're considering it are more often than not the same limiting beliefs that they're applying to on loop to many, many, many, many, many different things that are holding them back in their own life. But by taking step one, by committing, you rewrite that. I call them limiting beliefs on purpose because they're not, they're beliefs.

57:28They're not limiting truths. They're not limiting facts. They're beliefs. Beliefs can be rewritten. By committing and taking step one, you're proving to yourself, yep, I had that limiting belief. if I didn't have enough time. But you know what? Three Saturdays from now, I'm making the time. And so when that limiting belief comes up on the other side of your walk, after the fulfillment of the walk, you start to go, oh, I recognize these limiting beliefs. And sometimes when I push back against them, the outcome is positive. I can make that limiting belief voice quieter and quieter. So step one is huge.

57:55Commit. You can pick a day. On my website, 12-hour walk, come, sign up. That commitment, even just writing that down and you're committing to it and I'm holding you accountable to it, that makes a difference. If you're looking for actually more participation, September 10th, I'm inviting mass participation to walk. I'm walking that day. You're still walking from your front door. You're still walking by yourself, but there is a knowledge that there are lots of other people out there doing that in the same moment as you are. Step two, record. So this is meant for us to be able to have a little bit of something to look back on.

58:30And so I want you to set intentions. The book walks you through limiting beliefs. The book is essential companion because it opens up some ideas and some thoughts sort of around what you're working towards. But when you sit to your front door, we all have these phones in our pocket, myself included. It's like, fine, let's use that for a second. Put your video camera on. And this is a video for yourself. Hey, I'm doing this 12-hour walk. I'm a little bit nervous. I've never done this before. God, I can't remember the time I was alone this long. But on the other side of this, I want to act. Similar to meet my mother in that hospital room saying, hey, what do you want to do when you get out of there?

59:01Set that intention, set that goal. because more than anything, that ripple effect in your subconscious is extremely powerful. So you record that for yourself to look back on later. And then number three, very important, unplug. You put your phone on airplane mode. Now, I have actually, funny enough, created an app for the 12-hour walk. So you think that's hilarious. This whole thing's about unplugging and not having your phone. Why would somebody create an app for this? Well, here's why. Because most people are thinking to themselves, but I need Google Maps because I don't want to get lost. I need a timer of some kind that counts down the 12 hours so I can check.

59:35I'm like, great, I've created an app for that. The app tracks you on your walk in airplane mode. The GPS works in airplane mode. You can see a line of where you walk. You can zoom in and out on Google Maps inside of the app. Great, so you no longer have that excuse. And it also has a clock. So I have created an app. You download, you unplug, you put in airplane mode, you hit start, it starts tracking you. You shouldn't need to look at anything else. You don't have to check in on your social media that day. You don't need to take your phone out of airplane mode. But the unplugging nature is really phone and airplane mode.

1:00:05Put this tracking on just so you know where you're walking. And then you begin. So part of this whole 12-hour walk is to think of your Everest first, right? So I'd love to take a moment. We've mentioned it a few times. What is an Everest exactly? Like, how do you define that? To me, I define that as a big goal. And again, I use that terminology. I'm an adventure explorer and I've climbed Everest twice. but it's because my childhood dream was literally to climb Mount Everest. And so I'm like, that was mine, but I don't expect that to be most other people's. I expect you to want to go freeze your butt off in the middle of Antarctica by yourself.

1:00:40That's probably not your hope, dream or goal of any kind. But what is your Everest? What is that goal? And I think, as you said, to have that goal is a hugely important sort of determining factor. You know, I've come, there's a little bit of departure from the question, but I think it's important here because I've come to think about life a little bit on this of a scale of one to 10. Now, 10 being our summit moments, 10, you summit your out of it. You make that achievement. It's the high, high, or maybe it's, you know, not an achievement externally, but you have your first child or you fall in love.

1:01:12These are the peak moments of life, tens. And ones are a lowest moment, a lowest moment. I mean, just me being burned in that fire, being told I would never walk again, normally a massive setback. Your company who starts goes bankrupt, whatever that is, those are low moments. Like those are terrible. No one really wants to experience those. When I think back to all the tens that I've experienced in my life, I have realized that they're connected to the ones in that I didn't experience my tens in spite of my ones. I actually experienced my tens because of my ones. Now, most people in modern society, unfortunately, get caught in what I call the zone of comfortable complacency, the zone between four and six.

1:01:52Like, you have a job, it's fine, you don't love it, You don't hate it. You go every day, but it's like five, five, five. This is genius. Or you've been dating somebody for a while, right? And like you've been dating for a few years. You live together. It's not toxic. It's not abusive. It's not like a bad situation, like a horrible thing, but you're just kind of coexisting. You're cohabitating. It's like five, five, five, five. I have found that people live in this zone of comfortable complacency from four to six because they are so worried about experiencing a one. They're hedging so hard against not experiencing any of the low moments of life that they actually what ends up happening is you take off the table the tens.

1:02:34You take off the table the tens. You have to be willing to experience some of the ones to actually experience the tens. People ask me all the time, Colony, you've done all this dangerous, high-risk stuff. Aren't you afraid of dying? I'm like, look, the last thing I want to do in the world is die. I visualize myself as an old man with my wife, with grandkids, surrounding that. I know that that's going to be the end of my life. But I'll tell you what I'm more afraid of than dying. I'm afraid of not fully living. And a life lived only in that zone of comfortable complacency, that is the biggest fear of all.

1:03:08So when people think about, again, to your initial question about what's your Everest, it's what's your Everest? What scares you a little bit? What might be hard some of the time? You have to be willing to embrace that. This 12-hour walk, even for people is a step outside of the comfort zone. Will your feet get tired at some point if you're on your feet for the better part of 12 hours? Absolutely. Are you gonna get stuck in some loop in your brain because you're not used to be able to distract yourself by your social media? Yep, you are. Meaning you're gonna experience maybe not a one, but maybe a two or a three or some moments of discomfort.

1:03:39But I have never known anybody to get back to their front door not experiencing an eight, a nine, a 10, this peak moment. How many days in our life do we not even remember? What'd you do last Tuesday? What'd you do a month ago? What'd you do this? This 12-hour walk imprints on you, but in a way that allows you to go, oh, if I just for one day can prove to myself that actually a little bit of discomfort, a little bit of a shakeup outside the norm, not another blah five day can exist for me. How can I go chase other things in my life? And that Everest allows you to anchor that and go, oh, now I see the journey is not necessarily linear, but the negative, the quote unquote negative or the harsher emotions of that are actually a pathway.

1:04:21The ones are opening up the door to the tent. I have to say that was like maybe one of my favorite five minutes of this podcast ever. Like that was so good, Colin. That was so freaking good. So Colin, I want to go through a couple of these limiting beliefs in sort of a quick fire way. You went through the first one that I wanted to go through, which is being uncomfortable. And you said that beautifully. So another common limiting belief that people have is that they don't know what to do. They don't know where to go next. They don't know what actions to take. What is your guidance for people who don't know what to do next?

1:04:58So one of the things, and again, I said before, I'm a passionate Carol Dweck devotee, the woman who originated the concept of growth mindset, but where the possible mindset to me encompasses both growth mindset and some other elements and something that she doesn't talk about is intuition. is intuition, this inner voice, this inner knowing. Now, I'll leave it to you because I know we're at a limited time here to actually buy the book, read the book, this entire chapter. But it's a chapter about me being on a mountain in K2 and experiencing some significant tragedy where intuition actually quite literally in this instance saved my life.

1:05:33And I know this is rapid fire, so I'll be concise here. The fact of the matter is what I've realized in many, many big decisions in life is you actually do know. You do know. You do know the answer. And look, I'm a very analytical guy myself. I've found myself making the pros and cons list a million miles long or the logicking through something or whatever. It can be useful at times. But here's the thing. I'll give a couple of examples. Say you just got offered a job on the other side of the country. Big job, more pay, all this kind of stuff. But you got kids. You got a 10-year-old than a 12-year-old.

1:06:08And they're like ingrained in sports and community and whatever. And moving across country at this phase of their life is going to be disruptive. I do not have the answer for you what that is. And you can make a million pros and cons. But I bet if you actually listen to your intuition, you know the answer to that question. Or now here's another one. You're lying in bed late at night. You've been dating the same person for however many years. And you're thinking, well, I'm 30 years old. We've been together for four years. Should I go buy a diamond ring and make this official, put a ring on it, whatever.

1:06:37The answer might be a resounding, yes, this is my person, whatever. Or it might not be that. But here's the thing. You actually know the answer. You literally already know the answer. You don't have to make the pros and cons list. So the 12-hour walk, one of the beauties of the 12-hour walk, and specifically around this belief, is you can distract yourself. You can make a million to-dos lists and pros and cons and kick a decision down the curb. Go spend 12 hours by yourself when you have a big decision that you think you're going to weigh. I'll tell you the voice that gets loud, your intuitive voice, your gut.

1:07:12And when you can tune into that, what I say, when you know, you know, you already know. And that, the stillness that we don't allow ourselves too often in this modern society, that stillness allows that intuitive voice, a voice that quite literally saved my life in the mountains and has guided me in all sorts of other decisions I made. When you know, you know, and that's it. You know, act on it. So true. Okay. One more last limiting belief. And this one is my favorite excuse. I hear this excuse all the time. And that's, I don't have the time. This is one that I feel like people really just limit everything because they just act like they have no time.

1:07:53Talk to us about that. It's the most common one. It's definitely the most common one that applies to the 12 hour walk. And my publisher hates it when I say this because it's like bad grammar or whatever. And I'm like, you don't have the time. You don't not have the time. Meaning like, like for the important things in your life, you make the time. And here's the thing. I tell people, I don't have enough time for the 12 hour walk. And I'm like, okay, cool, cool, cool. Yeah, I got it. Got it. So like, just random other question. We're not talking about 12 hour walk anymore. Have you seen Game of Thrones?

1:08:22Oh, man, I love Game of Thrones. So good. Like that last episode though, it was about, I was like, okay, so you have watched 71 hours of Game of Thrones and you're telling me you don't have the time or like, you know, our phones do this now, right? They track our, you know, you can see how long I've been on social media. Look, I'm not like, I'm on social media. I love social media. It's a great tool. Like I waste my time sometimes, whatever, but I never find myself this excuse. I don't have the time that what it is, is I'm not prioritizing my time. I'm not prioritizing my time effectively. And I'll go one step further when it comes to self-care.

1:08:54Ultimately, the 12-hour walk is an investment in yourself. One of the most common ones, particularly with people with kids or kids and a busy job, et cetera, I don't have enough time because I've got this busy job that's important for me to support my family. And on the weekends, I got to be at my kids' soccer games, the ballet recital, the this, the that, whatever. And what they're saying is they're actually saying something with high integrity. I don't have this time for myself because my priority is showing up for my family, my community, being there for others, which is highly admirable. But here's the catch 22 in that, is that you get tired, you get worn down, you snap on your kid, you show up tired of the office, you're not as creative with whatever project you're working on, because you didn't take any time for yourself.

1:09:39We have this myth in our culture that self-care is somehow selfish. But I rewrite that in the book and I say self-care is selfless, meaning the 12-hour walk is one day. It is one day. If that makes you a better parent and a more present parent for the next 10 years, that was a worthwhile investment. The one soccer game you missed this weekend, kind of a bummer in the short run. But the fact that you show up for your kids even more connected present way for the next decade because of taking that time, because of taking that self-care, that is 100 % worth it. So look, time is finite. We get to choose how to use it.

1:10:15Do a time audit. Look at what you are wasting your time on, what's not in priority, you do have the time. And investing that time, some of that time in yourself to better yourself has a ripple and exponentially positive effect on all of the other things that you're doing. I am going to echo your sentiments there. I totally agree. We all have the same 168 hours a week. I always say this. And I honestly built a million dollar business, built this podcast because I stopped watching TV for like four or five years. Like that's it. It's like that unlocked all the time I needed, right? And so you can do it too.

1:10:52All right, so let's get to the last three steps. This is where we actually take action. It's the walk and rest and reflect. You hit on these a little bit, but let's get a little bit more detail and then we're gonna close out the interview. And for the walk part, Colin, I wanna understand like, what do we actually need to think about during this walk? Yeah, totally. So again, probably not in the time we have. That's why there is a book. That's why it's not a tweet. That's why it's not a blog post. I will say this. The book reads quick. It's meant to be exciting and page turning. A lot of people have read it in a day or two.

1:11:23So it's not like some insane, you know, it's not a thousand page Atlas shrugged or something like this to slog through. But it does lay out that it gives you a framework to be thinking about these things. So part of that answer is in read the book. But also during that walk, we're all dealing with different limiting beliefs. I write about the 10 most common ones. Three of them might be like, oh my God, I'm dealing with the other five or something like, oh, that's not me. But those other three might be something for a different person. So I can't tell anyone specifically what it is. Again, the book really lays out a framework for what to think about and how to engage your mind at that intention of that.

1:11:57A couple of things about the walk and just in practical matters, the website, 12hourwalk.com, you sign up there. There's lots of FAQs. I'll email you more inspirational content along the way to keep you accountable to your commitment. but more than anything, it's wherever you want it. I actually encourage people to do it out the front door and I say that for a reason, which is it's so easy to go, oh, one day I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna wait till I'm on that vacation a year from now in Hawaii on the beautiful trail of the da-da-da-da, like the whatever. Well, it does two things. One, that just kicks down the curb and you might never get to it.

1:12:28But more than anything, what it does is it puts the walk, this moment, as other, as a separate from the rest of your life. When you walk out your front door, this experience imprints on your day-to-day life. Meaning when you're driving to work the following day or the following week, you get to an intersection, you go, oh, I was here on hour three and I was thinking about this. And it brings you right back into that headspace, into that possible mindset. And so it imprints on your day-to-day life. So I encourage people to do it from their front door. A common question is, and I answered it before, city noise, street noise, people walking past you, totally fine.

1:13:01Can you stop off and go pee at a gas station or a deli or something like that. Yes, use common sense. Don't talk to people for 20 minutes inside the store. You can go in and out without really having deep interaction. And that's the 12-hour walk. The rest, also important. The rest is, look, this is meant to meet you where you're at. You're not hearing this from an out. You're like, well, great. Colin's a 10-time world record holding a sport. Walked across the Arctic at.375-pound sled. Must be nice. Like, this isn't for me. No, that is not the point. This is not a race. This is for you to meet you where you're at today.

1:13:32You don't need to train for this. You take as many breaks as you want. The rest is fine because the rest, you are still out there. You are ultimately out there training your mind. You are training your mind. That stillness, that quiet, that solitude still is maintained during those rests. The clock is still ticking. It's the 12 hours spent alone. Walk when you can, move your body when you can, be outside the whole time. That is the exercise. And then the reflect. The app prompts you to do this. I say this in the book. I prompt you to do this, but it's the same thing as the front end, that video on the front end, take that video on the back end.

1:14:06The next day you want to share it on social media, whatever, like that's your own prerogative, but that's not why I'm asking you to record the video. I'm asking you to record the video because I want you in your purest, most vulnerable, a little bit tired, sweaty, maybe a little dehydrated from a long day moment to reflect on how you're feeling. So a day from now, a week from now, a month from now, you can go back to that and remind yourself, right, I had this breakthrough. This happened for me. I actually did this. I accomplished this. It's a touchstone for you to mark that in time. And again, if people want to journal or write or any of that stuff, that's great as well.

1:14:38But I find we're just like, just talk. And some people share their videos with me, which I love seeing. And it's just amazing. I mean, people are emotionally cracked open. People are, that presence, that flow state that I described in Antarctica, people are there on the front steps of their porch and their family witnesses. And it's a beautiful thing. So to be able to have that moment to reflect on as maybe as life catches up with you and you want to go back then and go, oh, right, there I am. That's me at my truest, purest version of myself. I want to remember what that feels like and so that I can continue to apply that moving forward.

1:15:12Yeah. I personally think the concept of the 12-hour walk is brilliant. I feel like it's actionable. It's something that almost anybody can do, right? And we're going to stick all the links in the show notes for your app, for your book, and I can highly recommend the book. It was a great read, super fast read, like you said, and very entertaining. So I hope everybody goes and gets the book. And Colin, we're gonna close out the interview. I ask a couple questions at the end of the show and we do something fun at the end of the year. So the first question is, what is one actionable thing that our young and profiters can do today to be more profiting tomorrow?

1:15:46I mean, is it shameful to say do the 12-hour walk? Do the 12-hour walk. No. Do the 12-hour walk. That is actionable and that will make you more profiting. I love that. And what is your secret to profiting in life? Staying connected to purpose. And for me, that has been remembering the most important thing, which is the love of my life, my wife, my community. It all starts there. And I've been able to build abundance and profit financially in other ways because of that. But every time I forget that, all the rest of it doesn't matter. And where can our listeners learn more about you and everything that you do?

1:16:20Hang out with me on Instagram at Colin O 'Brady. follow me there 12hourwalk.com's got everything about the walk sign up for the walk we'll stay in touch with you that way download the 12 hour walk app and then my website at colin obrady it's got all the things about my speaking and other things about my career so uh come hang out come say hi awesome well colin thank you so much i've been smiling ear to ear in this interview it's been so inspiring and motivational and i think my listeners are gonna love it

1:16:53Thank you.