Get Out of Your Wheelchair

Pain is a universal and personal experience that we will all experience. Even though it is such a common thing, most people don't understand it. Even those that study pain still have so much to learn. In this episode I provide an brief explanation of pain. Understanding pain can have a significant effect on how we perceive and experience pain. 

A short while after being paralyzed, I made my way back into the gym. Since I wasnt' able to use my legs, I gravitated to the bench press. There was a lot of uncertainty with my ability, but I set a goal or 275 lbs and pushed forward. Where I ended up at 405 lbs is much further than what I thought I could do and in the process of achieving more, I learned a lot along the way. 

This journey we call life will rob you of many things including your happiness, peace, joy, and safety. We lose in life if we sit back and let life take these things from us. Winning in life happens when we decide we want to rob life of its ability to take those things that are important to us. 

I can make myself cry at almost anytime I choose to. All I have to do is take myself to a place where I bring back feelings of hurt or sadness from experiences that I have had in the past. Every experience has different senses and emotions that are woven into them. When we have experienced negative things in the past, it can be easy to bring ourselves back to those negative feelings by what we chose to surround ourselves by. If we want to change how we feel and create a more positive space, we can choose to surround ourselves with those things that will build that more positive space. 

April 1st, 2024 marks my 6th year anniversary to becoming a paraplegic. There are many things that my life has provided me the opportunity to learn. This episode covers the 10 most meaningful lessons that I have learned in the last year that have helped me progress to where I am now. 

One day during one the most difficult times in our lives, my daughter and I discovered one of our favorite things to do together. It came from a time when I was struggling, but she was probably struggling even more and in her struggle I had no solution, so the only answer I had was to just be present. 

We often hear labels, or statements, or judgements from others about who we are. If we allow it, those labels can blur our vision of ourselves and who we can be and keep us in a place of losing. To put ourselves in a place where we are winning and moving forward in our lives, we need shed ourselves of the weight of the labels that others put on us and focus on who we want to be ourselves. 

Negative feelings that become attached to things we enjoy and love can often lead us to missing out on things that we love and enjoy as we try and hide from negative feelings. What we are willing to miss out on is up to us. We have the power and get to decide whether we will change our perspective and actions to take back those things that we love and enjoy. 

When we feel like we hit rock bottom, it is common to say "it is only up from here". The challenge with that, is we can still go down. When we are in the moment, it may feel like we can get worse, but it can. We have to choose to make the steps and the choices that will move us toward better.

Past experiences, negative ideas, or current limitations in one area can cause us to hold ourselves back from what we have the potential to be and do. While we may be limited in some ways, making the most of what we have allows us to move toward where and who we want to be.  

How does hiding behind a beard get in the way of making progress in our lives? In this episode I discuss how sometimes we can use superficial things to avoid or hide from taking an honest look and making the more meaningful changes that we need to make. 

Your Personal Brand is the representation of how you would liket o be seen and thought of by others and yourself. Your personal brand is your promise of who you are and what people can expect when they seen or interact with you. 

This is the first episode of the Winning... While Losing Podcast. What is winning... while losing? Well, we all will experience loss at some point in our lives. Some of us will experience more loss than others. Whether that will in the sigificance of one loss or the number of times we will feel like we are losing. Winning... while losing is using those times of loss to learn, to grow, to heal, and build something better from the difficulty that is loss. 

True stories. True crime. Reality TV. In the entertainment world, we have a tendency to be attracted to true. Even though we are entertained by true in what we watch and listen to, it can be much harder to be true to ourselves, but making sure to be true to yourself is one of the most important things we can do to help build our most successful self. 

What is a moment worth? Most of the time, we can let a moment pass and think nothing of it. It is relatively insignificant. But what would happen if we took command of the moments right in front of us? Taking control of the moments right in front of us, helps us set ourselves up for success the next moment and puts us in a better place to create our best life. 

Talking is talking. Words without action mean little. Action demonstrates our desire to work, sacrifice, and build to what we are trying to achieve. Unfocused action can be just as harmful as inaction. Action with intent is how we can truly focus ourselves in the right direction to achieve our goals. 

Choices have power. Power to change lives. Power to change direction. Power to help us achieve our goals. The hard part of choice is that to achieve a goal, we have to make choices that move us toward our goal. Consistent progressive choices. A choice that moves us closer to our goals over time. 

There are parts of every situation that you can't control. There are parts of every situation that you can. A choice. It is one of those few things that are available to everyone. You may not have power over every situation of circumstance, but you have the power to make a choice to decide what you will do in every situation you are in. 

Failure is a part of life. We can either let failures be permanent setbacks from progress and growth or we can recognize the opportunity to learn from a failure or loss. If we recognize we have the ability to learn from a failure or a loss, we have the ability to reach for goals that we might have thought we would never achieve. 

A personal best, also known as a personal record is a report of your best performance in a task, sporting event, training session, or daily activity. Working to achieve a new personal best can help anyone progress in a positive direction. Everyone can benefit from setting and working to beat a personal best. 

Planning is arguably the most important part of working to achieve a goal. In this episode, I go over the importance of the second part of the Precision Performance Training Manual, making a plan. 

In this episode, I introduce the Precision Performance Training Manual, which I use to help those that I train improve both physically and in the way they approach setting goals and focusing effort. I then discuss the first concept in the manual, Setting Goals. 

In this episode, I relate 2 seemingly similar, but different stories to how comparison of ourselves to others can either be something that can be motivating and inspirational or it can cause resentment and sadness. Learning to use comparison constructively is important for a more positive experience. 

In this episode, I start to introduce the idea that when we understand our value as a person and our value in what we have to offer, we need to start to live and use our time in a way that shows our true value. 

In episode 5, I share a story about the most painful experience in the aftermath of the accident that rendered me paralyzed. I discuss how this experience help put into perspective what matters most to me and lead me to make more of a commitment to focus on the most important things. 

What we choose to accept can make a difference in where we can end up. Accepting things that happen in life can leave us trying to force ourselves to settle for less and be happy or it can leave us working towards and achieving more. 

Defining moments are those moments that people feel define who we are or points in time at which the essential nature or character of a person or group is revealed or identified.  Defining moments can leave a lasting mark, but the everyday moments fill in the gap of who we are and they allow us to define ourselves. 

Get Out of Your Wheelchair... Why call the podcast Get Out of Your Wheelchair. This episode discusses where the concept and the title came from. 

This is the first episode in the Get Out of Your Wheelchair podcast. This episode is the origin story. From not being able to imagine life could get much better to paralyzed from the waist below to the beginnings of picking up the "pieces" of life and moving forward. 

Welcome to the Get Out of Your Wheelchair Podcast. We all have those things that get in our way of making progress or achieving the goals and dreams that we want to. Those things whether they are excuses, lies, lack of ownership, anger, or any other barrier keep us stuck. Stuck in a wheelchair of excuses. To be able to take steps in the right direction, we have to be able to Get Out of Our Wheelchair.