997: Overcome the Odds with Scott A. McCreight

Robert Plank 00:05 Welcome back to the podcast. We're here with Scott a MacWrite, who has an excellent book called overcoming insurmountable odds, how I rewired my brain to do the impossible. And Scott, in this book, he chronicles his transformational journey from life as a shy, underdeveloped kid with cerebral palsy to becoming a confident, accomplished engineer and extreme athlete and bodybuilder. So we're going to hear about some of these life secrets, some Scott, how to be your best self, how to be productive, how to be happy, and so much more. So Scott, glad to be speaking with you.

Unknown Speaker 00:39 Glad to be here.

Robert Plank 00:40 So what are you all about? Maybe introduce you a little bit. But if someone says, Okay, what's the message? What's the passion? What is the 30 to 62nd? Elevator Pitch about what you are and your goals are? What's the answer?

Unknown Speaker 00:53 Oh, wow. Very, very short elevator ride, never quit, never give up. There's so much out there are so many people out there trying to cut us down or trying to make themselves look better and us look not so well. In life, that society in general is it's hard to stay focused and, and upbeat. Two things that I live my life around is always stop, always keep learning, never stop, complacency will kick in. And when complacency kick kicks in, we basically get lazy and crazy things happen. That we don't want to happen.

Robert Plank 01:45 Crazy, unpredictable and negative things happen. And I think you're so right, Scott, that there's all this noise around. And for some reason, what comes to mind is that I don't know how many pieces are in an airplane, say like a million pieces. And if you took all those pieces and scattered them all on the runway, and you randomly connected the different pieces, you would never get an airplane, it would never happen by random chance all the millions upon millions of possible combinations. But if you went forward and had a plan and had step by step instructions, then you could navigate the noise and the randomness to get to where you want to go. And I think that's what the what we need to be thinking about. It's just how to focus and how to not let the noise and the negativity when. And so when that comes to you and your origin story and how you came about, like what was that like for you? Like what does never quitting mean for you? And what have you gone through?

Unknown Speaker 02:39 All right, so back to the airplane analogy. And then I will get back to that question because it all fits together. When we build a plane, or we get on an airplane, and all these parts are together, focused in on a task of getting, it's an air taxi, basically, he getting you to Part A to point B, you know, when people build this plane, you know, they have an instruction set, they have all these complicated diagrams and all this and then it forms this plane, they test it and they get it out there. So when you get on a plane, you may not even think about that. And you sit down in your seat and says, Okay, I'm going to be in Chicago in about two hours or wherever you're going. In life. It's not that simple. We're born. And in this case, I talk about neuroplasticity, because the inherent brain's ability to rewire. Our brain is always always learning. No matter if you're asleep or awake. It's I call dreaming, defragging your hard drive, so to speak. So it's playing movies in your head, or whatever it how you ever think about it. But it's still reorganizing, and all that. So in the plane analogy is, if you want to better your life or whatnot, you a lot of people get out a notebook and says, All right, step one, get out of bed, or whatever it is. It's not that simple. It's the brain learns in a novel way, the better meaning if it's boring, we don't learn. We've all been through those classes in school, and you're going now why am I learning this? And there's no reality to what you're learning and then our brain just doesn't like, engage if we make this life interesting novel, our brains pick up on it easier. My My philosophy is, I grew up with a neurological condition and I still have it called cerebral palsy. Basically, it's a stroke at or near birth, whereas stroke is a stroke afterbirth is basically an interruption of oxygen to your brain at a particular moment. In that time, it was cerebral palsy. It's in the birthing process or slightly after or before In the old days, they said, Oh, your brain is hardwired, you're never going to get better. Or you may get a little bit better, but don't expect miracles. Okay? There was a lot different back in the 60s than it is today. But still, it was the hardwired concept. Ironically enough, I was told, Do not attempt and you will not fail. That's the kind of what I learned in life. And so therefore, I would never attempt anything. So therefore, I would never fail and look stupid, or whatever the kids would, you know, ridicule on the playground, whatever the I mean, when I was a little taught, you know, stuff like that. Unfortunately, this is a behavioral pattern that is not correct, should never be enforced. You may learn a little slower or a little more different as I bring out some very colorful characters in the book, Leo eLion, and a mouse, a little lab mouse, that turns into a really Mighty Mouse. And there's some crazy things, they're all analogies for us being as a young kids. I learned that the easy things in life should be easy. And therefore for me, they weren't and I shut down. As a Leo the Late Bloomer is a book by Robert cross is an A an analogy for me being this lion with cerebral palsy that learned on his own timetable. Didn't mean I couldn't learn, I just had to find a different way of, of novelty and all that. Throughout my life, I gravitated to the very hard, the very hard stuff in life. And I don't mean the easy stuff. That was hard for me. But the very hard stuff because I learned that, okay, the easy stuff where it was not easy. And I would fail, therefore, don't even do it. So I skipped over the easy to the very hard stuff that most people would never even dream of attempting. And there's a an incredible story about getting into scuba diving when I was 15, certified at 16 with cerebral palsy, met the time didn't know if, if my doctors and all the instructors didn't know if I could do it. But what the heck, let's see if Scott can do it. I not only mastered that, but I am now in a scuba diving technical dive instructor with over 850 hours underwater. And 16 certifications including full cave mix gas rebreathers I mean stuff that is insanely outside of the normal range. I'm also a skydiver, and I talk about that as well. In the book that people said, No, you can't do that you got cerebral palsy. And it wasn't I was being defiant. But it's like, okay, these are things that most people would never even attempt to try. Therefore, I know that if I fail at something like this, okay, I gave it my best shot. But it's better than not trying. Trying is a word I don't like using because it's a you've already convinced yourself, you're not going to be able to achieve it. I like to attempt something or do something. But when you're saying I'm going to try this chances are you've already convinced yourself subconsciously you can't do it. So getting into the sports, whitewater rafting class five, climbing rappelling hang high angle rescue or sort of stuff that people just said, you know, Grand Canyon. I mean, there's a beautiful story in the book about the Grand Canyon from water Dorinda water to rim and six days with a group of folks that were very much more qualified that night. And yet the story of surviving and triumphing over that. And one of the one of the guys who said, Oh, by the way, and you have cerebral palsy, you know, at the very end of it, it is very challenging, but I did this, not because I wanted to prove my worthiness, but it's because life is meant to be lived. And, you know, God has all given us bodies and, and stuff and we all have deficiencies. It's how we use our, you know, our, our intellect, our brain. And these techniques that I describe on functional movements and in these neural plus cystic behaviors that we can train our mind to do far, far more than we could ever ever dream of doing. And I bring you along the journey. I don't even tell you the stories but I invite you in tune in to the point where no, I'm not just doing this, I show you how to do this as well, and do far, far more than I will ever do. And that's, that's the exciting part is, I can't wait to come along others. And I'll get that we'll get into this in a minute or two, but come along others that will have their own stories that follow this book, you know, in Volume Two, or whatever, I don't know, just the next, you know, in that story of coming alongside others that are have their you, you got your own stories, and they're beautiful stories. And this is how we use our bodies to get the best out of it. I mean, a lot of people that have stroke, traumatic brain injury, or cerebral palsy, they've already convinced themselves that they won't be, quote, normal, or they won't be able to do this or that I'm here to challenge that. We all have deficiencies. It's how we allow our brain to recover from that, and get the most out of it.

Robert Plank 11:04 I love it. That's beautiful. And there's so much to think about in what you said there in that life is meant to be lived. And also in just paying attention to the trash that's in our heads. And being careful with our words like I am working with you is I do my very best as well to not use the word try to not use say things like weight or should to be more direct can Yes, that's a big one. It's like, well, there's cans and that there's you haven't found a way or that that what you're trying to do maybe can be different or does not serve you can't is just very defeatist. And there's something to be said there abouts being aware of the language of the written word and the spoken words that other people say and also that more importantly, what we ourselves say because it's so easy to to just get caught. And these repeat patterns. And this repeats self defeatism. And then you become your own worst enemy. And you're not achieving these things not because you can't, but because you just will not let yourself do it. Or you will not use your imagination or you do not have the support system. And some of this sort of exciting excitement and fitness mentality that you're mentioning here of pursuing those hard things of going for those challenges of having a plan of having focus, and of learning, and not just learning the fun and easy stuff. But learning the rules, like you mentioned here a few times about you get certified for this. And this, you're not just dabbling. It's not just a hobby, you're saying, what are the rules of the game? And what do I need to do? And how can I accomplish that? And how can I use whatever limitations not as something that defines me or holding me back. But I suddenly need to say, well, let me let me try to use that and say, Well, other people or maybe me myself thought that I couldn't do this? Well, let me prove that wrong. And let me just get the data, the evidence to find out that that isn't wrong. And so we all have these things in life, right that we can accomplish, whether it's physical or mental, or going back to school or climbing that mountain. But how do we overcome the usual pitfalls? Because it's easy to have, like too many ideas, not enough focus, it's easy to quit when the first obstacle happens. So what do you think that you were tapped into that we can learn from to follow through and to focus and to achieve these things? So that way, we're not just doing halfway? How do we follow through and actually accomplish these things,

Unknown Speaker 13:42 a methodology and organize methodology. Some call it a systematic approach. I come from an engineering background. Again, when I was a small kid, you know, I, this is kind of a Kiki story. But I built my first ham radio when I was about 11 years old. It couldn't legally operate it without a control operator until much later in life 21 And I And that's the story in the book itself. But I always wanted to be an amateur radio operator, I didn't even know really what that meant. I just love the idea of being on the air all over the world listening stuff. You know, again, I grew up as a shy, introverted kid. So instead of being in front of people in being ridiculed, or whatever, from my looks, or you know, oh, Scott has CP, you can definitely tell that or whatever. And there's a self image there. It's it's the geekiness of, of understanding the engineering world. bring that forward a lot. I struggled to get into college, because they said, I wasn't smart enough to go to college and they're into the adults, so I believed it for a long time. Well, I now have four degrees for advanced degrees in all science, by the way, curriculums. And what I learned from all of this is, there's a systematic approach to how our brain organizes and how these neurons are impeded through or because of cerebral palsy, I use the analogy, the the pothole in the road. So when we're young, you know, the being born or whatever our brain is damaged brain damage. And it's like a pothole in the road, when you drive to work every day. You know, you learn to go around this pothole, and that route that we take to go around this pothole. But two times a day to go back or whatever it becomes a fastest way to network meeting is, you don't even think about it, you just go around it. So in the middle of the night, these guys repave the road, you know, the pothole is gone. But the next day, we get up and we're still going around a pothole that's no longer there. Our brain has the power of healing. And that's the neural regeneration process. And in a baby is typically by the age of three, three and a half years old. However, these vacillated networks have been formed, you know, you don't think about picking up a glass of water and drinking it. It's just natural to most of us. But that's an elegant dance between your bicep and your tricep. And I explain all this in in scientific terms. And for the average person that are drinking the water, we just pick it up and drink it. So this vacillated network is maladaptive in its form, because we're going around this pothole. So I teach the techniques in these books of how to go over that pothole that's been filled in, ie creating a new neural pathway and muscle map. You can never unlearn a muscle map, but you can over learn it the correct way, or more efficient. And that's, that's why people train in the gym, and, you know, hours upon hours of sports related training, and all that, and I picked up this concepts of this is we got to go back and form. Vince Lombardi, for instance, said, Perfect practice makes perfect. Not practice makes perfect. If you do the wrong thing over and over again, all you're doing is going around that puddle again, but on the other side, or whatnot. But if you do perfect practice and getting that instilled, then when you go out and do these things in life that I talk about, you'll be doing the Grand Canyon before you even know it. And that's what happened to me most of this that I talked about was even before this concept of neuroplasticity, even rang in my head, I was doing this and didn't understand why an incredible trainer came alongside me in 2011 and showed me that I had the wrong wrong mindset. Somewhere in my past, I learned no, you can't do it. So don't try. I was already doing a lot of these things. Not perfect, but 90%. And this person showed me that that mindset not only had to be changed, and now I'm talking about subconscious, that can't that try attitude to Yes, I do. And I can overcome not the arrogance, but the fact that do not let yourself be limited. And I use a mouse in the maze. As you put me through these experiments. With me being the mouse in the maze, in the stimulus response. We had the mouse in there and you wanted to do something to see if it will happen. I being the mouse unaware of these experiments, were out running her maze every time. And then I started realizing, and she realizing that the maze isn't the limiting factor. It's my own head. My brain had already healed the MRIs are clean and perfectly right. I just hadn't yet caught up to my potential. So my psychological impact of it was we limit ourselves and what we do and that's partly because of the environment that we're in, partly because of the company we keep and I don't mean like your best friends. I mean the world around you is is you know so that like this stuff like the Grand Canyon trips, whitewater rafting. I was on a class five won a rafting trip in Colorado and I joined the illustrious whitewater swim team. That's an honorary membership. And when if you fall overboard during a rafting trip, you know, like you just don't fall over, you fall over. And you actually have to be rescued and pulled back in the boat and all that. And this the water was cold and it was great. That instructor came by later says, Hey, man, was actually rough on you. Was that alright says, Oh, hell no, this is awesome. Because that was one of the first times that somebody didn't treat me with that I had kid gloves or cerebral palsy that, you know, I was not only normal, but I left that raft, when crazy things happens and everything was fine. The training kicked in at all. But you know, it's like, Oh, heck yeah, like, give me more, you know, not throwing me off the raft again. But in that case, this is finally somebody started treating me like a normal, average person that had capabilities and all that, instead of this, this kid that was shy and introverted, and had this self imposed limitations. Now, yeah, we all have limitations. And I'm not saying those are real, but we can limit those. And these techniques that I bring out on. I'm a bodybuilder now, power lifter. And I don't do it to compete, I do it. Well, I do compete, but it's against myself. It's what can I do? Where is my bar, so to speak? Where's that limit, and I explained in the book, that the bar of your limitations are is really a figment of your own imagination, you know, and I tell you how to raise this bar, to the point where it's no longer a bar, in the case of the mouse going through the maze, that mouse became mighty and began to fly. And, okay, Mighty Mouse, you get the idea in that analogy, but I went into skydiving, as a result of that. And it's not because Oh, you can jump out of a perfectly good airplane, why would you do that? In my responses, because it's there. It's fun. It's something that I've always wanted to do. And the fact that no one's going to tell me that cerebral palsy is going to limit me in that. And I don't mean tandem jumping, I've never done a tandem, I met on my own with my own parachute, learning the skills like everybody goes through and stuff like that. And so I go through these stories, and it doesn't mean that you, the the listener, or the reader has to do these things. But there's other things in your life that, that you may not even know that you really, really, really want to do these, I didn't wake up one morning and says, Oh, let's go skydiving. Or, as in cave diving, oh, let's go jump in a hole in the Yucatan Peninsula filled with mud and go hours into this case systems with a limited supply of gas and a very little string to get back out with. And now we built that up into the systematic approach of overcoming these insurmountable odds. And that's why the book was titled that is we all have our insurmountable odds. And that's what, that's what life is all about.

Robert Plank 23:13 It's helpful to hear your engineering and trainer and sort of combined with like, the fun mindset of choosing these big, hairy, scary goals, and then having a long term plan and having the milestones to get there, right? Because it's easy to say, like we were talking about that we're talking this whole time about self sabotage, right? And you can say, well, I want to go cave diving. Oh, that's, that's so beyond my capabilities will sure at the moment it is. Right right now. And it's easy to see, it's so far away. It's just a black and white kind of thinking. But instead you say well, what's the how have others done it? How have others train and get there? What are the steps between point A and point B? What kind of equipment do I need? What kind of certification do I need? What kind of things do I need to learn about like just the the head learning but then also like the the physical learning and going and doing some, like smaller dimes? And just what's the plan to get there instead of just saying, oh, too hard, can't do it. And so in your book, you may have all kinds of flashbacks to things like, you know, backpacking for like five days and Boy Scouts or being in band or being a little league, all these things where it's all the same but different, right where you have just, here's my current status. Here's what my goal is. And then here are the steps I needed to take it knowing that along the way, I might say well, the these kinds of tasks come easy, but then these other things even though they might be fundamentals, you know, catching flyballs and baseball or grounders, that might be hard and it's just like you do the repetition to get there and then track your results and then overcome those unexpected obstacles and get to the milestone that way you can do and look at what the next milestone is. And that sort of thing is doable once we have this sort of engineering mindset. And don't just give up, don't let the emotions win, use the emotions and have this long term plan. And you know, you mentioned a few minutes ago about how a lot of what makes this work is not just the thinking and the planning and the dedication and the repetition and the fun, but also involving other people, right. And you mentioned a little bit about kind of this, like paying forward and abundance mindset. And it's not just about you, but it's also about helping others. So can you unpack that a little bit and tell us what you're all about as far as like the people the relationships and helping others instead of just yourself?

Unknown Speaker 25:42 Yes, good point. To capture on on your last comment about having that plan. You make. I give the example the, the backpacking trip to the Grand Canyon, I didn't wake up one morning and just say, I'm going to the Grand Canyon. Let's go jump in to a canyon. And I mean, I've been there as a kid, there's no way in heck, I'm gonna go down there, you know, as a kid, because I was told no, I started hiking with a group of very experienced hikers on day trips around and just trained every day for these long hill country hikes or whatever. And then finally, they said, Well, we're putting together a team of folks to go the Grand Canyon, would you like to be a part and I went, my negativity, you know, in Titans inside voiceover and there's no way in heck, but then I said, Well, what the heck, okay, let's see if I can do it. So it was a progression of steps. I may not know what the outcome you may not know what the outcome is. But for instance, if you wanted to go scuba diving, you wanted to get certified. You know, okay, take the class. See where that leads, see if those interest sparked another interest. And before you know it, you'll be down in the, in the grand Caymans or something doing a great liveaboard or something, I don't know, whatever they are, I mean, I didn't get into scuba diving in this story to be where I am now. I just got it because it was something I always wanted to do. And they said no, you can't do that. I little hint in the book, I was raised in a competition waterski family. So I was always around water, I actually learned how to swim before I was able to walk come to find out that with neurological impairments like cerebral palsy, and stroke, water therapy is one of the best best mediums to to practice in to do your therapy and because it takes the gravity forces the the muscle sets that work against gravity out of the equation to help you balance that muscle so Wow. Now I wouldn't have planned that my my folks who didn't know I had CP until 18 months after I was adopted and born and adopted. It was I just grew up in that back to the backpacking thing is I just went along that path so back here you see the the wall the photos here, this is a an area of photos of things that I would love to do coming up. And I won't go into that because that's for the next book. Now. I mean these things that may or may not become reality but these are visual points from my head to say this is roughly the goal that I think I want to go next. How do I get there and that's an organic process. So your question of the people the communities and that ties back to complacency when you stop learning you stop living and complacency will kill cave diving directly pounds that in you if you do something wrong in a cave there's called a cascade failure by the third failure it's fatal that in most of it is complacency that we didn't keep up the training or the gas supplier or whatever in skydiving same thing the complacency in you know not checking your gear keeping current and training will kill you boil that down to regular life is if you stop learning and expanding upon what you want to do you'll become eat too much get out of shape have a heart attack and kill yeah wait Same deal but a lot slower. And that almost happened to me in life I gave up complacency not physically give up but my mental capacity gave up and I talked about that. That in my book a great it sneaks up on you. Complacency sneaks up. I talked about some imaginary Three friends in the book to help visualize this. And what I was getting at is when you surround yourself by, quote experts, or people that know more about these areas than you do, you learn from them, you're going to get brains gonna absorb this material a lot faster. Or use the term novel. When you train an ATM, doing novel approaches to weightlifting, your body picks these up faster, your brain learns faster, we want more, you surround yourself with more people, people start coming around you, before I knew it, I was written up in three medical journals and two PhD papers for doing what I'm doing, and I'm going, I thought you were just patronizing me, this is really sad, know what you're doing? were dumbfounded. And my doctor said, we, we have no idea why you're able to do this, I want internal talk only I didn't say this to them, you're the experts. And I'm just the person that's doing a horrible job at it, I thought, but maybe I'm doing something right. And but it wasn't because I wanted to show the world. I wanted to live life to the fullest. And so coming alongside others, and I talked about this in the book, in the chapter sharing what I have learned, brain muscle alliance is forming. And it's a pun on words, but brain muscle Alliance, because in my brain, my body has to be in a line to be able to do these things. And I 1/3 of the book is talking about the neural connections, and how to how to strengthen those connections in the brain muscle Alliance. But I'm also talking about the people that come along the brain doctors, the brain specialists, the psychiatrists, and all the all the brain type of people come together with the muscle experts, you know, the kinesiologists, the doctors, the the people who know the body and how that works together to help form that alliance, not only between them, too, but by you like Robert, Robert, you come to me and says, I want to be able to do something like this, I'm, you know, I need to lose about 10 pounds. I'm not saying you but a, you know, a person who says how do I do this. And so you have to get these experts together to have that holistic approach. I call it sharing what I have learned, not with myself, but that I'm just a model. And in somebody that has figured out not rocket science, but how to how to take the systematic approach, you know, the classical doctors that you go to, may only say pill and drill, well, we can like do lipo sections and take it all out, but you're not changing how your body's reacting to all this. So you're just gonna gain that back? Or, well, you know, you, you were gonna have to break your toes and and reform them because they're all cricket. And it said, but if we look at it from the holistic perspective, the brain muscle Alliance, if you can get your neural circuits to say, hey, my toes are bent or whatever, let's straighten them out the neural connections on specificity and I talked about that. I'm not saying the pillar drill is not the answer. Let's just look at it from if you can get that brain muscle Alliance working properly, external and internal. You know, I mean, God created you perfect, and in wonderfully made. We're not perfect, but that's the whole point. Because if we were perfect would we need one another to help guide this through now this is challenging and you know, Mighty Mouse, you know, if you go back to the comic strip, or the the cartoon, Mighty Mouse didn't wake up one morning and fly off, he had to learn he had to go through all that trouble learning. You know, Leo, that lion was laid at everything he did. But when he did learn, and when he did start to excel, he was a mighty lion to come. And I use us those philosophies and all of us. We all have a little lion in us or a little mouse that we're trying to get through this maze of life. So it takes a village to raise an athlete as I say in the book, it's it's never been about me, I love going into the gym and I work out about six days a week. And I'm in the gym, not because I want to be in the gym necessarily, but but I want to do these activities that are out side. But in order to do that I have to perfect you have to practice and I don't mean that you have to do this. I have to go to the gym, you know, hundreds and 1000s of hours a day and in all all this craziness, but whatever you set your mind to, you will do it. But it takes people to come alongside you, and help you learn from them. And by the way, they're learning from you. So I love this one. People come up to me and it says, and you're, you're doing amazing things. There's no way in heck, I can do that. And I want really,

Unknown Speaker 35:22 that's the challenging word. You know, it's like, I challenge you that you can do more. And I said, Oh, no, but you're buff and or whatever the words are, they're used, and said, No, no way that I have cerebral palsy. I didn't start out this way. And I showed them that call it the fat photo, the year zero, you know, my baseline photo of a being 198 pounds 39% body fat and pre diabetic didn't even know about the diabetes part. Until the next year when I took year one at 163. At at 16% body fat and my blood chemistry was great. But I show them that says, No, I think you can do more. And so I said, What is your effing problem, we're all whatever, to them going, that it's not a it's not a body problem. It's it's your attitude to going into it. So this book was written in three parts, the, the science behind it, the neuroplasticity part about it that builds on the science. And then oh, by the way, I put in these stories. And to bring the reader alongside what it feels like to have a child with cerebral palsy. The parents or new parent doesn't know what they're about to get it that they're in for, or the kid doesn't know that there is a, you know, if I can go back to my younger self, and share this book with myself, that would have solved a lot of pain and hardship. But would that pain and hardship that I would save myself resulted in the book not being here, I don't know. It's one of those chicken and eggs. But if I can help that, the next generation or that, you know, to live their fullest life, now, that would have sought to solve so much pain and hardship. In lives to come but, but the point being is, life is meant to be lived to the fullest. And these techniques are easily done, if you just employed them. And I don't mean they're simple. I mean, they're there, it's not like you have to have a PhD in astrophysics, or some outrageous stuff that like there's no way in heck I could do that, or my case is so much more severe than that said well, could be, but doesn't mean that the brain is not neural plus cystic in nature and can be, you know, it's it all starts here. When you tell your brain what you can do, and get your body to be in line with that, that brain muscle alliance is powerful.

Robert Plank 37:57 That's wonderful. And I agree completely at that it takes a village. And that simple does not mean easy, right? Something can be simple, but also hard. And that we owe it to ourselves to get the sort of momentum like you have that momentum of the basically a vision board behind you of those things that you want to accomplish. And in the in the moment and the every day, it seems silly to push yourself more, but you're saying that it's sort of one or the other that they're either the choice is to figure out what you want your passion or your obsession to be in whatever form whatever accomplishment and be ruthlessly pursuing that in some way. Because the alternative is to keep making these compromises with yourself of the Cascade fear of failure that you mentioned there, where it is so easy to say, you know, I'm tired today I'll skip the gym or to say, Well, I'm driving my car, and there's that check engine light again, I'll just ignore today. And next thing, you know, the or, you know, maybe you're in some relationship, you need to take it for granted, you say, you know, I won't buy her flowers this month, or I won't take her out on a date, or I'll cancel this meeting. And then it's harmless in the moment. But if you end up on that path in that pattern, then bad things will happen. And then it requires effort all over again to get the muscle back to get back to where you are. So this is very helpful and powerful to think about with this sort of slippery slope to be always pursuing these goals, to have the support system to learn from others to be watching the YouTube videos to be reading the biographies to be in some kind of a club or a mastermind group. Are we speaking with mentors and mentor others because that's as you said, it's the only way to live right life is meant to be lived. And the alternative is to just kind of have this slow failure and you hear about that sometimes, right? You hear about that, like in the in the nursing home and the old age. They don't participate. They don't do the crossword puzzles, they don't read they don't challenge themselves and then it's just like a slow decline towards death. And even some young people are like that, right? So at any age, you can easily just stop Learning and start reading. I think I saw some statistic one, Scott, we're like 41% of college graduates have not read a book since college, just terrifying, no way to live. And so the solutions are maybe do not readily present themselves. But as long as we're looking into pursuing and being dedicated and this sort of thing, then we can and we should get there and kind of navigate that path. And so your book is called overcoming insurmountable odds, how I rewired my brain to do the impossible. And so Scott, we want to send people and get that book. And we want to excite them, but also leave them thirsty and we don't want to outstay our welcome. So we're in our final few minutes of our discussion here. And so do you think, as we're kind of winding down our talk here, is there anything that we left out or that you think requires some attention? That is not discussed enough?

Unknown Speaker 40:51 Yes, one thing that I will bring up, expect failures. What I mean by that is, there's always going to be an unexpected slowdown in your overcoming. And I talk at great lengths of several major slowdowns or unexpected, quote, failures, that ended up re coercing the, the my life want one in the book is called The Reckoning. It was about a skydiving accident. so severe, it required three surgeries and all that. And, you know, on the surface, people will say, Oh, he flew too high, or, you know, the proverbial the mouse, actually too high or whatever. I use that example. It's nothing that I did wrong. It's nothing that my lack of training did wrong. It stuff happens. You know, there's another word for that. But stuff happens in life. But there's some stories in that book that I go into detail on, expect the unexpected. Expect that you're going to get on this, there's going to be several ways you know, you, you first of all, you in my case, a trainer had a spark, that that divine in me that go beyond what I thought I could, I did not realize it, but I had already come so far up to that point. Most people have never even gotten to that point. I have a story in the book, a military Special Forces guys said, Scott, you don't do easy well, but you do darn well, hard, hard. Let me try that again. You do hard, darn well, most people will never experience or including special forces guys, what you have done, and I don't mean, going out and do the warfare and all that. But he said, You don't let that limitation stop you. And if that drive is what has created this, when I started this program in 2011, all I wanted was two hours in a gym, and maybe a personal trainer to get a little bit in shape and figure out how to use this stuff called equipment. And I had never been in a gym before. What I didn't realize it was going to spark a movement that is growing 16 years now. And has I mean, worldwide. I get requests from people all the time about, I'm an elite athlete, or I have cerebral palsy or I have a stroke. How do you do this part in your book? Can you tell me more information about that? It's their knowledge of Spark then in them, I tell them, I tell folks all the time Expect the unexpected, you will come to a point where you think that you can't overcome that whatever that is, don't stop. You may have to go around a little bit and find a different avenue. or have somebody come alongside you. You know, I say this in weightlifting, we use the term spotter. When you're bench pressing, for instance, you have a spotter, that they're there to make sure that you do it correctly. But in that last bit of that final push to get to that weight to the very top. They're there to help you. That's what your brain muscle Alliance, so to speak is all about, you know, people that come alongside you never give up. The biggest thing that about the skydiving incident is I had to start over not once, not twice, but three times over. I had to start again. From the very baseline of my physical therapy from going under the knife surgeries. Incredible story. I don't say that to you know to bring pity or whatever. I bring that to say infallible odds against me. Everyone was saying, you know, stop. Why are you doing this? And I said because that small voice and side me says I can't give up. I I am not supposed to give up, do not be defeated. I mean, I had to find a different path around it, or the complication students surgery, or the rehab that I started over four times over, but I didn't. And so it's taken me five years to get over the skydiving accident. But I'm back and I'm, I'm breaking the records that I have in the book. And it's it's so fascinating to see these people that have come into my life now. And that have been there from the day one of that transformation, and getting them together and forming this community, this quote, user group, so to speak, of Leo's you know, they're all on their paths of doing these things. The biggest thing I would say is push, push beyond what you can do. Because you know, what, you're the you are the only thing that can stop you from achieving unexpected gains the overcoming those insurmountable odds, it's not your neighbor, it's not, you know, your co worker, it's not your parents that that say the yeses, and noes to at all, it's you. Because guess what, you control that brain. And you have to find those unique methods that I described in the book, to make your body do what it's supposed to do. And these techniques, you know, I referenced these massively more experienced and massively more smart doctors, and Kinesiologist and physical therapists. And I freely give this information in the book, because it's not mine. I'm using those techniques and coming alongside them, and they're coming alongside me. And I do this with other people as well. It's the whole, as I said, before, that whole tribe, you know, it takes a tribe, the whole community to raise an athlete, it takes a whole community to make you successful.

Robert Plank 47:13 Inspiring, it takes a village and a community to do anything, right, like when survival of the fittest, those are the days of living in Hudson, hunting the buffalo but nowadays, when you sit in a chair, someone made that you sit at the table. So when made that you flick on the light switch, you drink, the orange juice, you eat the bacon, those are all things that required whole teams and trucks transporting and so many things. And we take it for granted. Because if we focused on every little thing that happened in our life, at every moment, we would be overwhelmed. So we have to do a little bit of the abstracting, but it still means that we should not take it for granted. And be pursuing those mentors and doing the hard things. And and just, you know, being a good person and don't let those setbacks, those unexpected failures stop you from where you want to go. And so the book is called overcoming insurmountable odds, how I rewired my brain to do the impossible by Scott MacWrite. So Scott, if someone wants to take the next step here and reach out to you and contact you, what's the website? What's the contact details? Where do they go?

Unknown Speaker 48:17 Okay, the website hasn't been created yet. I do add the domain name, the, in the book, when you when you get the book, my contact information is on the back flap, or the the front flap of my contact. And I'm freely I'm on Facebook and Instagram. And the best way to do is is email for right now, as as time goes on, and the challenge is of getting this website up and running. There's some legal legal ramifications right now preventing me because of a couple of stories within the book. But once we get those worked out, or the websites ready to go, it's just we can't launch it yet. But my contact is in there. I fully recommend, you know, getting the book, obviously, or listening to this wonderful guy named Robert, narrate the book for me. Contact me, and let's see what the next steps are. Because, as I said, for the parents out there with folks who have cerebral palsy, or stroke, you know, this isn't, this shouldn't be a scary time. This should be a wonderful time because now people like me, that can show you what it feels like having cerebral palsy. So how does my kid process all this? Or how do I know that but if you're somebody with cerebral palsy, you know or stroke, how do I go through it? And all the way up to that elite athlete that wants that extra little oomph to get you to the At that competition level that you want to be at and beyond. So it's the whole gamut. And again, these techniques are not limited to just folks with neural neural plastic challenges, but the stories and all that are meant to inspire others. I mean, one of the things that I love hearing tea thanks, people sending me photos of their of my book, them doing some crazy overcoming their insurmountable odds, or whatever, but also telling me their story about you know, how, you know, they didn't let know stop them, or they didn't like can't stop them and, and stuff like that. And that that's what this is all about. It's never been about me. Look at me, look at me, look what I can do. Haha, it's more of No, I can do this. I'm the the catalyst to get you out there to do more than what you think you can't because, you know, as I said, if all if all went well, is that wall, there would be three times bigger. And it may be you know, it's this, you know, focus on what you want to go for next and and all that and, and don't let no stop. Yeah,

Robert Plank 51:15 one day at a time. Well, very motivating. And that is overcoming insurmountable odds by Scott MacWrite. And to look him up on those social networks, Facebook and Instagram, that last name is spelled MC, c r e, i, G, H, T. And what a wonderful just the whole library of lessons we discussed here today. And so as we completely wrap things up here, Scott, and these last few seconds, you heard me say I'm all about that soundbite so do you have a favorite quote, moral or lesson that you want to share with us to really just put a bang at the end of our conversation?

Unknown Speaker 51:49 Yes, hang on for one second. Actually, we'll quote this directly from the book

Unknown Speaker 52:02 we'll take it here

Unknown Speaker 52:28 so, the my book is dedicated to all that had been told no, you cannot do that. Do not let complacency stop you for achieving unexpected games. Something like that. We're gonna have to add.

Robert Plank 52:50 Okay, do not like complacently stop you and it's still a message.

Unknown Speaker 52:55 Oh, definitely try that again. This book is dedicated to all who have been told no, you cannot do that for you too, can overcome your insurmountable odds.

Robert Plank 53:09 Perfect. Well, that now it is time to go and claim that book so that way you too can overcome those insurmountable odds. The book is overcoming insurmountable odds on Amazon. Go ahead, get it right now and follow Scott with all of his future endeavors like that community of Leo's in the sequel book and so much more. Overcoming insurmountable odds. Very wonderful. speaking with you today, Scott.

Unknown Speaker 53:31 Thank you for having me, Robert.