Finding Your Summit

Latest Episodes:

Mark Allen: 6-time Ironman World Champion with an incredible mindset! Feb 14, 2020

Show notes

138: Mark Allen: 6x Ironman Triathlon World Champion, and Author of The Art of Competition, Fit Soul, Fit Body, and Total Triathlete talks about never giving up on the rough road to greatness.

Mark Allen

The Ironman World Championship is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile cycle, to be followed by 26+ miles to run after that. How did Mark Allen begin his journey into becoming this world-class athlete that succeeded multiple times in their rigorous competition? "Two years after college I saw the Ironman on Wide World of Sports, you know, back in the day when everybody would stop on Saturday to see what Jim McKay had to say about something incredible. They were showing the Ironman Triathlon, something that I had never heard of before. I didn't know what a triathlon was. I didn't know what the Ironman was. He runs through what the distances were that they were going to be covering that day and I was like, 'Are you serious?'"

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Mark Allen, 6x Ironman Triathlon World Champion, and Author of The Art of Competition, Fit Soul, Fit Body, and Total Triathlete.

Two weeks after Mark Allen first saw the Ironman on television the idea grew in his mind to see if he could become an Ironman. "About 9-10 months after I saw that Ironman on TV, 1982 as a 24-year-old, I was on the starting line of the Ironman. My journey to becoming an Ironman champion was certainly not automatic. The first six years that I raced in Kailua-Kona I had decent races. I was third once. I was fifth twice. I was second twice. I could be in the lead, halfway through the bike ride at the end of the bike ride, halfway through the marathon, with just a mile to go on the marathon. But I always kept falling apart at the end."

What You Will Learn:

Mark Allen doesn't shy away from discussing his losses and the wisdom he was rewarded from them. "My wins, they are great stories, you know. But I think, for me anyway, the most empowering part of that journey that I had is that I didn't give up. Six years I went there. Six years I didn't achieve what I ultimately wanted to do, which was to become the Ironman champion when I saw that I had some talent in the sport. After each year after devoting an entire season to this one singular goal and falling short. I had to come back home, you know? Tail between my legs. Somehow just pick up the pieces and ask myself, ok, am I going to go back again next year? If I am, what am I going to do different so that the result is not the same?"

Mark Allen discusses NBA superstar Kobe Bryant's death and why he believes that tragedy had such a strong impact on so many people. "Because it was such a shock, you know? And I think it just, for me personally, it really just brought home the fact that you just don't know how much time you are going to have here. One moment to the next, something can happen. We all have our life plan. We have our vision, our goals, our strategy, the things that we want to do between now and whenever then is for us. But it really brought it home, like, don't waste a moment, because I don't know about tomorrow."

What is it about challenging himself that motivates Mark Allen, and pushes his limitations to their fullest potential? "I love things that are challenging and not predictable, and certainly the Ironman is one of those. All of us line up on the starting line. There are all these guys from all over the world who have put every bit of effort that they have. They are getting ready because they want to be the champion. We all have the same singular goal. But none of us know how it is going to evolve, how it is going to unfold through the day because there are so many unpredictable things. The wind, the heat, the humidity how one guy's move disrupts the entire pack of cyclists."

How does Mark view the DNA of a champion? "For me what defines a champion's mindset is when somebody is truly just there to give the absolute best that they can and they are not exactly concerned about what the outcome of the day is going to be like. But more, making each and every moment in that game, in that match, in that race count. When you do that you are just chipping away at possibility and you are putting little bits and pieces into this thing that at the end of the day might be this incredible success."

Mark Allen talked about one of the biggest Ironman setbacks that he experienced during his career, during his 6th Ironman win, and how he overcame the initial issues. "Silence. That is a champion's mindset because when you are quiet you are tuned in to everything going on. You stop judging what is happening. You stop looking at things as impossible and you re-engage. I realised, wait a minute, maybe I can't win this. But I'm just going to give everything I have. I'm going to cross the finish line. I knew this was going to be my final Ironman and I thought, I at least have to cross that line with my head held high, knowing that I gave everything that I could. It just slowly evolved. Slowly I made up time. Actually I did catch Thomas Hellriegel at mile 23 of the marathon"

The 3 Principles of Ironman Success

Mark Allen defines the three principles of Ironman success, or any success for that matter, as being: clarify, adjust, and complete. He defines all three, and with clarify he says, "Clarifying the work that your goals are asking you to do to achieve the success that you are after. That will change you from being busy to effective, and certainly in the world of business being effective is very key. If you want to double your production you aren't going to work twice as many hours. You have to become more potent at what you are doing each and every moment."

Athletes that Inspire

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, Mark Allen also talks about what was the most amazing example he saw of someone who broke barriers. "It was at this past year's Ironman where I saw what was the most inspiring human being story ever at the race and it was an athlete named Rodrick. He was born with legs that eventually they cut the legs off above the knees. So, he is a double above the knee amputee."

Links to Additional Resources:

Mark Allen's Website: markallencoaching.com
Fit Soul Fit Body: FitSoulFitBody.com
Mark Allen's Email: mark@markallencoaching.com
Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com
Books by Mark Pattison: markallencoaching.com/resources

Jack Kavanagh: Jack suffered a spinal cord injury but has overcome to have a fearless attitude by breaking personal boundries in every way. Feb 07, 2020

Show notes

137: Jack Kavanagh: Performance & Wellbeing Coach & Speaker and Pharmacist, talks about how he never let his spinal injury prevent him from traveling the world, becoming a public speaker, and maintaining a steadfast thrust towards his goals.

Jack Kavanagh

Jack Kavanagh shares how he acquired his spinal record injury at age 19, the summer that he'd finished his first year in college. "I was studying pharmacy in Trinity. I had always been interested in the intersection between health and people and how do you allow people to thrive. Just before I went back into my second year of college, I was finishing up a season having worked as a windsurfing instructor in the west of Ireland and I went away on holidays with some of my best mates. On the first day, as I had done some many times that summer, on that day as well I ran down the beach. I dived into the water over a wave, not anticipating how shallow it was, unfortunately I hit my head off the sand and in that moment I broke my neck."

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Jack Kavanagh, Performance & Wellbeing Coach & Speaker and Pharmacist in Dublin, Ireland. Jack provides insight into his mindset adjustments that have empowered him to overcome obstacles. "As I gradually became aware of my surroundings I do still remember one of my best friends Garrett walking around the bottom of the bed and he had obviously pulled the short straw to be the first one to come and see me. I couldn't speak but I mouthed the words, 'It's going to be OK.' That was kind of my first decision because I did know that this was going to be a tough challenge. But I suppose I was very lucky that I had a strong sense of tenacity from before my injury."

What You Will Learn:

What was growing up like for Jack Kavanagh? "I was a very athletic guy. I played a lot of rugby. I did a lot of running. I was incredibly passionate about water sports and adventure sports. And it was a period where you push out against the limits of your own comfort zone and your family and your teachers and coaches and as I did that I started to come up with a good sense of who I was."

What does the phrase 'Victory is forever' mean to Jack Kavanagh? "I'm still trying to fully understand what that meant in that moment. But for me it was in that moment and ever since, it's really encapsulated that the little wins that you have day in and day out, whether that is in your mindset, whether it is a physical win, whether it is some sort of a business win, whatever it is, those little victories that you have along the way are things that can never be taken away."

Jack Kavanagh discusses what he was up against while in rehab therapy. "In the months afterward, I found myself in rehab and really at that point my first job was, like a child having the umbilical cord removed, it was to learn to breathe unaided. Then I had to go on to relearn to use about 15% muscle function that was remaining. So, my shoulders, my biceps, and wrists. Physically that was very demanding. But psychologically, and you pointed out mindset a few times, it was even more demanding."

How did Jack Kavanagh propel himself forward towards his travel goals while making a documentary called Breaking Boundaries in spite of the obstacles that his injury presented? "Confidence came from doing. Those small actions day in and day out of actually showing up and failing in small ways repeatedly. But that builds momentum and that gave me confidence over time to try some of these bigger things."

Jack ran a GoFundMe campaign to raise the initial seed money to start the documentary. But he had to get other investors involved in Ireland as well to finish it properly with a friend who edited it and who has gone on to producing in Toronto. How did Amazon Prime get involved in Jack Kavanagh's documentary Breaking Boundaries? "We had an agent at the time and he recommended the documentary to Prime and that is how it came about in the end."

The Other Self

How does Jack Kavanagh define his mindset shift? "I realised that I was the same Jack as I ever was before. But that I had also unlocked a mental toolkit. Look, adversity and challenge is all relative and I called this toolkit "the other self" and everybody has it. You will have it as you face the mountains you climb and Everest will absolutely bring this out in you and your training for it will. But no more than a single mother trying to raise a couple of kids or whatever challenge you can imagine. The Other Self is that part of ourselves that only gets discovered or uncovered when we talk on a big challenge."

Sharing His Story

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, Jack Kavanagh also discusses becoming a pharmacist and his speaking engagements, including a TED Talk: "I do a lot of speaking now, everything from big corporate events and seminars to running workshops and everything down to schools, inspiring future leaders."

Links to Additional Resources:

Jack Kavanagh: jack-kavanagh.com
Jack Kavanagh: Linkedin | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Jack Kavanagh Email: hello@jack-kavanagh.com
Breaking Boundaries Documentary: Amazon
Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com

Unstoppable Tracy: Unstoppable Tracy is amazing in every way. Physical limitations have never slowed her down to do inspiring things and inspire millions. Jan 31, 2020

Show notes

138: Unstoppable Tracy: Public Speaking, TV Show Host of 'Unstoppable You,' Business Transformation Consultant, and Best-Selling Author, talks about how she overcame the physical obstacles that came with being born missing both legs above the knee, missing her left arm above the elbow and missing her right hand.

Unstoppable Tracy

Unstoppable Tracy may have been born missing both legs above the knee, missing her left arm above the elbow and missing her right hand. But when it came to achieving her dreams, nothing would stand in her way. "I believe I'm unstoppable and that you are unstoppable for reasons much bigger than being a four-way amputee. There is like this big secret. I was born 'limb,' l-i-m-b, 'limitless. And the bonus is I was born limitless. But the bigger secret is you were born limitless. We were all born limitless."

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Unstoppable Tracy, Public Speaking, TV Show Host of 'Unstoppable You,' Business Transformation Consultant, and Best-Selling Author. Unstoppable Tracy let's it be known where she gets the fierceness from to never back down or give up. "I had a mom that was born in Liverpool and a German dad and there was a lot of tough love in my house. At five-years-old I had to make my bed."

What You Will Learn:

Unstoppable Tracy talks about figuring things out that she didn't know how to accomplish right in the moment without entertaining any limitations. "That's kind of what happened when I skiied, and when I sailed, and when I climbed the Himalayas, and when I bused and Ubered into Canada, and when I helped the airlines with pilot strikes and bankruptcies, growing from young to old, through sports and through business or humanitarian in 20 countries."

How did it all work for Unstoppable Tracy in school to write without physically having hands? "Maybe we are talking about kindergarten where I am learning about how to read and write. But what are some of the new skills your learning, which is like being back in grade one where you are learning new skills? And to listen that way and just to say, I was born this way. I just expected like they're eating with a fork so I got to figure out how to eat with a fork. They have a cookie so I just want to eat a cookie. So in some ways, I was blessed just to be born this way because I just looked at it as, well, of course I can do it."

Unstoppable Tracy talks about how she acquired tools to pick things up. "Doctors, they glued steel circles on a fork on a pencil, on a knife, on a toothbrush, on a hair brush and it was kind of like, why don't we just make one device with the circle and I wear that all the time? And so all I needed was an opposition device for that one longer arm with a bit of a digit there so I can hold my pen, my pencil, my tooth brush, and my glass of water."

How did she get to the point of putting herself out there on the worldwide stage with her ambitious accomplishments? "I cannot begin to judge some of the horrible, painful things, and illnesses and community circumstances and what is going on in your worlds. I don't mean to judge what it means to have something where you say it is not realistic right now to spend that money. It is not realistic right now to take on that health regime. It is not realistic for me. But, I know that because I live a life of no excuses, even if I'm allowed. Even if there is every reason in the world that no one would judge me. If I live a life of no excuses, then I get to live a life of no limits. No excuses...no limits."

Unstoppable Tracy shares the upward progressions she made, how acquiring certain skills would lead to opportunities to acquire others. "Because I could swim I could fall out of a boat and because I could fall out of a boat I could spend a whole summer figuring out how to get back in that boat. It wasn't the first try. Because I could sail I could teach sailing as a teenager and because I could teach sailing I could get my teaching degree. I could demonstrate teaching competency so I got into teacher's college. Because I got into teacher's college, I graduated with a degree from Queens, a well-recognized university in Canada, and I ended up teaching in Nepal, in Uganda, in Mexico in Jamaica. I tought all around the world as this humanitarian."

From Unstoppable Tracy to Unstoppable You

What was the transition that expanded Tracy's outlook on her work? "I realised, this isn't about me. It is not about 'I can do it.' It's about 'We can do it,' you know? It's about if I can do it you can do it, no excuses. We can all do it. No, limits, right? But it took me to like, 40 to figure that out that it isn't about unstoppable me. It was like an extended teenaged headspace I think somehow."

Canadian Hall of Fame

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, Unstoppable Tracy also discusses how her work caught the attention of major celebrities such as highlights of Oprah Winfrey, Jane Fonda, Dr. Phil, Michael Douglas, JohnTravolta, Mark Waulberg, and Mel Gibson. "Canada just industed me into the Hall of Fame two weeks ago. The Canadian Hall of Fame, it's a specialty around the difference I made in the world of people with disabilities. Wayne Gretsky is on that wall."

Links to Additional Resources:

UnstoppableTracy.com: unstoppabletracy.com
Unstoppable Tracy: Linkedin

Scott Kujak: Host of the Underdog Podcast who has gone through his own share of adversity including his best friend dying of cancer at 25 years old. The grace he learned from tough times. Jan 24, 2020

Show notes

135: Scott Kujak: Author of Underdog: True Stories of Overcoming Adversity, Podcast Host of Underdog, and Territory Sales Executive at Beckman Coulter, talks about how he overcame the low points of his life, from his wife leaving him to losing his friend and inspiration Phil Taylor to cancer.

Scott Kujak

Scott Kujak is an ex-college football player who has gone on to live a life of lifting up those that have faced adversities head on. Hear how the obstacles that prevented him from attending his first choice for college, Texas Christian University, where he had a partial academic scholarship and a preferred walk-on position on the football team waiting for him. "I actually grew up in an impoverished area in Florida and just with my own financial circumstances and my family dynamics I was not able to attend TCU and cover the rest of the tuition. So, I went to Eastern Illinois University where I had a full ride offer and went there and played quarterback. I was actually backup for Jimmy Garoppolo, who is the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers right now."

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Scott Kujak, Author of Underdog: True Stories of Overcoming Adversity, Podcast Host of Underdog, and Territory Sales Executive at Beckman Coulter about his football experiences, and how his friend Phil Taylor, who died at age 25, was a huge inspiration when Scott was overcoming what he defined as the worst time of his life in 2016, when his ex-wife left him abruptly for good. "With Phil, he was also going through the worst time of his life. He was undergoing tremendous stomach pain and he didn't understand why. A couple of months later, he went to the doctor and they told him he had a large tumor blocking his large intestine. Although we were going through two separate scenarios, we experienced a lot of the same emotions of doubt and anger and 'what the heck is going on?' Yet, his reaction to those emotions was often much different than mine. He often looked at it in a way of positivity and optimism."

What You Will Learn:

Scott Kujak talks about what he learned in terms of how to cope with adversity. "You can always make something good out of it. It doesn't matter what you are going through. Cancer, someone dies in a car accident, you get walked out on, you have a devastating sports injury. No matter what the pain is that you face, whether it is physical, emotional, spiritual, you can respond in a way that makes a positive impact on the world."

What did Scott's friend Phil Taylor mean to him? "Phil is a perfect example of someone who touches your life and just had a profound impact that he knew during the last couple of years of his life. But he won't know the huge impact because he passed away."

Scott Kujak talks about how Phil Taylor helped inspire his podcast Underdog. "I thought, man, he has had such an immediate impact on his circle of friends and family. What if I got his message out there to the broader public. How do I do that? I thought of podcasts because I listen to a lot of podcasts, especially when I drive and I thought, I'm not just going to interview Phil and be done with it. Why don't I interview people who have overcome many different types of adversity?"

What was it like having Chris Norton, who has also been a guest on Finding Your Summit Podcast, as a podcast guest on Scott's show Underdog? "One of his PR people reached out to me and when I read about his story, I was like, 'Oh my gosh. Yeah. He has got to come on the show.' Chris was playing football in college, just like you and I. He was at a D3 school in Iowa, and he was on a kickoff team and went to make a tackle and everything changed for him in a second. Bad tackle gone wrong. He was paralysized from the neck down, never to really walk or live on his own again."

What about Scott Kujak's podcast is therapeutic for him? "Common ground. I think it lays a nice foundation of common ground between us and whoever we interview across the world because we realise no matter how big or how small the name is, the person that we are interviewing, there are very common emotions that we all go through that no matter what the situation is, we can empathize with them. We realise, hey, what I went through, maybe compares or doesn't compare at all to what another person went through. Like they had it way worse and yet they responded in a much more positive way and I can try to emulate that."

Scott's Fiancé

Scott Kujak went from heartbreak with the end of his prior marriage to having his heart reunited with love thanks to his new fiancé. "She has been nothing short of amazing and just filled with grace and patience and love for me and for many, many others. She is without a doubt a Godsend and an angel to me. She has lifted me up at times when I felt down and she supports me and is confident in the person that I am today and the man that I will continue to become in the future. We are getting married in April 2020. We are really, really, pumped about it. I would do anything in the world for her"

The Power of Faith

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, Scott Kujak also highlights other amazing people that he has interviewed, many of the gems of advice that he has received from his podcast guests, and the power of his faith in God. "I love being in nature. It's a huge reminder to me about how small I am here on planet Earth and how much I need God. How much I need my faith to carry on in life and do the things that God has put on my heart that He has only given me unique abilities to do, whether it is serving others or saying the right thing at the right time."

Links to Additional Resources:

Scott's website: scottkujak.com
Scott's Linkedin

Mike Ramos: Former Olympic Decathlete who went through addiction to overcome and find his way running a pancake house in Montana... Jan 17, 2020

Show notes

134: Mike Ramos: Retired Olympic Decathlete who competed on the USA team for many years, overcame depression and the negative impact of alcohol on his life and has advanced as a businessman and an inspiration for others.

Mike Ramos

Mike Ramos was able to transcend the sport of track and field in a major way that very few ambitious athletes ever get to do...playing for his country of the United States of America in the world-renowned global Olympics competition. Mike discusses his early achievements: "In high school I was a three-sport athlete. My first love was football and it just kind of turned out that I was just really good at track. So that was pretty much my avenue. I did five events in high school and did well there. State champion in pretty much everything I did. It was kind of a natural progression for me to get into the Decathlon."

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Mike Ramos, Retired Olympic Decathlete who competed on the USA team. How did Mike move from high school sports to NCAA-level college track? "People from the North West go to this camp and it was headed by a guy named Dr. Peterson, who was out of Seattle and he had a place in Montana and he thought it would be a great idea to have this track camp in Seeley Lake. Anyway, long story short, Ken Shannon is at the same camp I'm at. I'm headed to UCLA and he goes, 'No, no, no, no. You are coming to the UW.' So I just really hit it off with Ken, broke off my engagement with UCLA, ended up at the UW with Ken Shannon, and the rest is history."

What You Will Learn:

How did it get to the point that Mike Ramos saw that he could have a path to the Olympics? "There are not that many scholarships in track and field. So, I come in to the University of Washington on a half-ride. Ken Shannon tells me before the national meet that I have to place in the top 5 at Nationals to get a full-ride. So, he wasn't expecting it. I think I was the only one that was expecting it. As a freshman, I ended up getting 3rd at the NCAAs, which was a big deal and really kind of catapulted me forward. Physically, I still had a long way to go. But for me that was a really big mental thing for me, knowing that I could compete with anybody at any school as a freshman."

Mike Ramos shares his impressive achievements from not only the University of Washington, but also during the Olympics: "As a freshman, I ended up 3rd in the NCAAs. Next year I was 2nd in the NCAAs. Won the NCAAs my third year and I set the NCAA record, which stood for 14 years. My senior year was Olympic year, so, I took the NCAAs off so I didn't actually go. I was first alternate in 1984. I was first in the US in 1985, 1986, and 1987 in the Decathlon. In 1988 I was ranked going first. I was ranked first going into that meet. Also, in 1987 I was ranked 5th in the world."

What was the turning point that brought Mike Ramos' Olympic career to an end? "My story as far as what happened to me was in 1988 the trials were in Indianapolis. Everything was going great. I was leading the trials. It ended up raining in Indy and we moved the high-jump indoors and I struggled with the high-jump."

How was Mike Ramos' life affected by his exit from his Olympic year? "I'm telling you, through disappointment, through heartache, there's growth, and I didn't realise the growth for many, many, many years. I didn't realise why that happened. But I'm a believer in the universe hands you things and you deal with them and you grow from them and that is exactly what I did."

What led to Mike Ramos' celebration of his one year of sobriety and not gambling, that he calls the best year of his life? "I had a lot of depression with the drinking. I was questioning everything. I would have a hangover and I would be questioning everything about my life. Was I a good father? All these things that I shouldn't have been questioning. I went on a fishing trip and I ended up drinking too much, gambling that night and I was driving home the next day and I was hungover and I was depressed and I just looked in the mirror and I said, 'Never again. I'm never going to feel like this again.'"

Being Transparent About Pain

How has sharing pain with an online post been a positive uplifting experience in Mike's life? "It's an awesome place to be where you can just lay your stuff out there and be ok with it. The rewards you get from that are absolutely incredible. They are incredible. When I made that post, I get Mark Pattison to call me 30 years later and say, 'What's up?' You start to connect with people on a different level."

Paul's Pancake Parlor

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, Mike Ramos also discusses owning Paul's Pancake Parlor in Montana, offering 17 different types of pancakes, as well as all three meals of the day that are homemade. "It's a little mom and pop. It's 120 seats. It's been there since 1963. This guy named Paul Gjording started it. My mom was his right-hand woman I guess, starting in '63. She ran the place for him I would until 1980 or so. Then he retired, sold it to her. She had it for 19 years. Then in 1998 she sold it to me. So this is my 21st, almost 22nd year doing it."

Links to Additional Resources:

Paul's Pancake Parlor: becausepancakes.com

Daddy Saturday: Learning how to be intentional with our kids and end abandonment to raise our children to be better adults. The author and Ted X speaker of Daddy Saturday, Justin Batt is leading the charge. Jan 10, 2020

Show notes

133: Justin Batt: Founder and Chief Daddy Officer at Daddy Saturday, Father of Four, Best-Selling Author, TEDx Speaker, Managing Partner at Hayden Olivia Bridal, and President Growth and Revenue at Kameleon Partners, learned how to become more attentive in both his family and work life, and turned that skillset into a business.

Justin Batt

When you have a career, a spouse and four kids, ages 11, 9, 7, and 5 that rightfully require your time, balancing your calendar can be a tricky proposition. Justin Batt in Charleston, South Carolina designed a strategy that worked for him and he called it Daddy Saturday. How did he arrive at this concept? "I found myself at home on Saturdays with four kids and I had them all to myself the entire day to support my wife, but also to engage with my kids. I just found like most dads, I was working in corporate America, traveling a lot. Stressed out, tired, overwhelmed, often times burning the candle at both ends and the end of the week was often the toughest time. I'd come in on a Friday night, and Saturday morning waking up knowing I'm with my kids for 8-10 hours, having to interact with them and engage them and I just wanted more."

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with an extremely busy man, Justin Batt, Founder and Chief Daddy Officer at Daddy Saturday, Father of Four, Best-Selling Author, TEDx Speaker, Managing Partner at Hayden Olivia Bridal, and President Growth and Revenue at Kameleon Partners. Being intentional about his activities with his kids on those Saturdays was vastly improving his engagement and connection with them, while improving his relationship with his wife. "Two years ago I was honored to give a TEDxon the topic of fatherlessness, and I learned a whole lot more about the huge epidemic in our country, Mark, with the biological father not being in the home. But also the physically-present, emotionally-absent dad, which is what I was for a period of time. I wanted to create something to inspire them, encourage them and equip them with tools to be that intentional and engaged dad and have the results that I had."

What You Will Learn:

Justin Batt talks about working with his wife to start a business called Hayden Olivia Bridal: "We named it after our daughter who was born right at the same time the store was opened. This was at the beginning of the recession in 2008. So we leveraged everything we had. We opened the store. I was in corporate America at the time and we had our little daughter Hayden Olivia. So I would stay at home with her on Saturdays as Heather would work the bridal store, wearing all the hats as an entrepreneur."

Justin discusses the little-known fact that 24 million kids in America are without a father at home and roughly 49 million dads are at home, but are not present. "If we looked at any other epidemic in our country, diabetes, or opioid abuse, or anything else. If you put those numbers up against it and also the societal ills that come from it. It would be a national epidemic by catastrophic proportions. But no one views it that way."

What can we all learn about balance from Justin Batt? "Balance is something that I don't know if you ever achieve. I think that balance is something that you manage. You don't ever eliminate the obstacle of balance. One of the biggest challenges that I had early on as a dad was I was trying too hard to find balance and the work/life tension was tearing me up because I would either pour too much into work then I would feel the tension that I should be at home when I'm working or vice-versa."

Being intentional about how he wants to progress as a family man involves unifying his work calendar and his personal calendar all into one to make his life feel less divided and to add priority to everything on his schedule. "I established what I like to call, work-life purpose.' And I created that purpose for a game plan and a long-term mission for how I wanted to see myself as father of my kids, not only tomorrow, but also in the future, 20-30 years from now and then backed it up and said, what does it take for me to get there and to achieve that?"

How does a typical day start for Justin Batt in order to include himself into the demands of his daily regimen before spending time with his four kids, his wife, as well as his dog? "I wake up normally between 4:40-5:00am. I will typically do prayer and devotional first thing. I meditate and then I will grab a quick smoothie or something real fast and then I'm out the door and I work out for an hour and then come back in. Often times I will be listening to a podcast or I will read an article or two or a quick book or something right there at the end of that and then the kids are up and they are awake and now I've got my time in and I've stimulated myself physically, mentally, and spiritually."

Child Heroes

Instead of trying to be the central hero in his children's lives, he allows them to be that by getting the assistance they need that may be beyond his own personal abilities. "I've allowed other men to come into my kids' lives who have expertise in areas that I don't and serve as additional guides to my children and it is all because I am not the hero. It doesn't matter to me and in fact it is a win-win-win when you do that and so, serving the guide is a critical role in making your kids the hero of their own story."

Creating Excitement with His Kids

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast with Justin Batt, he also shares the ways in which he keeps the excitement alive with his kids by making a point to celebrate the first moment that he sees them each day. "I'm almost always up before my kids. So when they come up in the mornings, I greet them like they are running through the tunnel of a locker room coming into the big game. My arms are up in the air. My arms are out. I'm excited. I got a smile on my face. I'm screaming their names. We're fist-bumping. We're chest-bumping."

Links to Additional Resources:

Justin Batt: Linkedin Twitter
Book: Daddy Saturday: How to Be an Intentional Dad to Raise Good Kids Who Become Great Adults
Justin Batt's Website: justinbatt.com
Daddy Saturday: daddysaturday.com

Leon Logothetis: Author, TV Host, Cause Adventurer, Motivational Speaker & Philanthropist overcame depression and became an advocate for kindness through his books and his television work on The Kindness Diaries. Jan 03, 2020

Show notes

132: Leon Logothetis: Author, TV Host, Cause Adventurer, Motivational Speaker & Philanthropist overcame depression and became an advocate for kindness through his books and his television work on The Kindness Diaries.

Leon Logothetis

Leon Logothetis talks about how he managed to change his life by putting kindness front and center and thinking with his heart, writing books, and television show The Kindness Diaries. "I did the first season of the show, which was also on Netflix. I took a vintage yellow motorbike from Los Angeles and I went all the way around the world all the way back to Los Angeles, relying on the kindness of strangers. People can now watch it on Amazon Prime. But the way it started, you have to go back to 2004, when I was working as a broker in London. On the outside, I pretty much had everything that you could want. But on the inside I was pretty much broken, and no one really knew except me.

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Leon Logothetis, Author, TV Host, Cause Adventurer, Motivational Speaker and Philanthropist. Leon talks about how he overcame feeling lost, depressed, isolated, resistant to share his pain with others, until he came across the movie The Motorcycle Diaries. "When I watched it I realized that there was another way to live. It was about a guy traveling around from his heart and not living from his mind, and it just showed me there was another way to live. It showed me that I didn't have to sit behind that desk. I didn't have to follow someone else's dream. I didn't have to live another person's life."

What You Will Learn:

Leon Logothetis discusses what is is like looking for people to provide random acts of kindness in his television show. "Once you come from your heart they also more often than not come from their heart too. Yes, there are people who don't and that's fine. Whatever. But, the people that you see on the screen, it's like you are bypassing the mind and you are going directly to the heart. You are connecting with them on a level that can't be seen. It can only be felt, and if you mirror it to them, they will feel it."

Leon shares his take on living mentally and living emotionally. "We are emotional creatures. Yet we live in a society that tells us you have to live from your mind. You have to live from your brain. You have to be clever. You have to be cunning. You have to be all of these things. But they forget that are super power is to be in touch with your feelings, and if you are in touch with your feelings, you are living in a totally different world. It doesn't mean that you let people walk all over you."

How great was Leon's fear of the unknown when he made the life transition away from the comfort of being a successful broker? "It is not an easy thing to follow your heart. But I would say, if you can find the courage to do that, everything will change. And what I am going to say now is, what truly pushed me to do what I do, what I did, was pain. I was in so much pain emotionally that I couldn't sit behind that desk any longer and the pain pushed me to do something different. So, you know how many of us try to stay away from pain. I get that. But the pain is actually a gift. If you face the pain and you walk through the pain, at the end is a pot of gold."

How have the people that showed Leon Logothetis kindness in the show affected him? "I started chatting with this guy, and I say, 'Can I stay at your house tonight?' And he goes, 'Look, I'm really sorry. I'm homeless.' So I'm like, 'OK I just asked a homeless guy to stay in his house.' I feel a little ashamed. But, I walk off and he turns around as says, 'You know what, if you want, you can stay with me tonight. I will feed you. I will protect you. And I will give you some clothes.' And that is exactly what happened. I ended up sleeping on the streets of Pittsburg with a homeless man for one night. The next morning I was able to set him up with an apartment and send him back to school."

Why has kindness become the core message of Leon's work and his life? "Kindness is freeing. It doesn't matter how much money you have. It doesn't matter how much money you don't have. What matters is that it flows through all of us. We get to choose...True wealth is not in our wallets. But it is in our hearts."

Experience the World

Having traveled all over the globe in the pursuit of happiness from the heart, Leon Logothetis gives his golden wisdom on how this quest has shaped his life. "One thing that I learned is, travel is the school of life. When you go out into the world you become better. You become wiser. You become kinder. You turn off the blinkers. If you just grow up in one little small place, and that is all you see. You turn on the channel and all you watch is one TV station, whether it is left-leaning or right-leaning, you are living in a little bubble. Go out into the world."

Go Be Kind

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, Leon Logothetis also gets into the work that he has done as an author. He shares the backstory and inspiration behind his book Go Be Kind: 28 ½ Adventured Guaranteed to Make You Happier. "I created the book, it is really a journal for kids and adults to go and have a kindness diary adventure themselves. So they would go out and do these adventures in kindness to kind of just feel what it is like to live from the heart. And 'the half,' I mean, to be honest with you, it just sounds better.'

Links to Additional Resources:

Leon Logothetis: Linkedin Instagram Twitter Facebook
Leon Logothetis' Website: leonlogothetis.com
Book: Go Be Kind: 28 ½ Adventures Guaranteed to Make You Happier by Leon Logothetis

Gary Vitti: Former Head Trainer of the Los Angeles Lakers from 1984-2016, Author of the book "32 Years of Titles and Tears From the Best Seat in the House", shares stories of Shaq, Kobe, Magic, Kareem & others while experiencing the highs and lows while w Dec 27, 2019

Show notes

131: Gary Vitti: Former Head Trainer of the Los Angeles Lakers from 1984-2016, Author of the book "32 Years of Titles and Tears From the Best Seat in the House", shares stories of Shaq, Kobe, Magic, Kareem & others while experiencing the highs and lows while winning multiple championships. What a life!

Gary Vitti

Imagine becoming a head trainer in an era where there wasn't a clear path to this position. Gary Vitti shares what it was like to navigate the world of sports during the 1970s and the 1980s. "I graduated from college in 1976, which means I went in '72 and although there has been athletic trainers around since the gladiators, a real major in athletic training at the college level, evidence-based practices of sports medicine really didn't exist. There weren't that many athletic training programs in the 70s. In terms of myself at that age at 18 years old I didn't even know what an athletic trainer was."

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Gary Vitti, Head Trainer of the Los Angeles Lakers, working with 13 different coaches and achieving eight championships. Gary Vitti discusses working toward wanting to work in academia for a Division I university to transitioning into the upper echelon of sports, training superstar NBA players like Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabar, Kobe Bryant, and James Worthy for one of the biggest franchises in sports history. "If Shaq decided he wanted to win every game, we would have won every game. That is how great he was. But he had a different thing in life. He didn't care about being the best."

What You Will Learn:

Gary Vitti talks about how the Lakers rolled out the red carpet for him to get the head athletic trainer position, including interviewing for six hours. "They sent me a first-class ticket. I'd never flown first class before. So that was pretty cool. Believe it or not, Jerry West picked me up at the airport in a navy blue Mercedes with tan interior. I had never been in a Mercedes before and Jerry West is driving. My childhood idol Jerry West picks me up at the airport, drives me to the fabulous Forum and it just happens to be that that day is the day that USA basketball was playing Spain for the gold medal in the 1984 Olympics."

Gary Vitti discusses writing his book 32 Years of Titles and Tears From the Best Seat in the House that covers his experiences with the Los Angeles Lakers and sports science. "The book is a series of chapters about what I learned about happiness, greatness, and leadership. What Kobe taught me was that you can never have enough talent. But talent is the most overrated thing in life. What if I told you, are you ready for this? Kobe wasn't that talented...Nobody worked harder than Kobe. But a lot of players work hard. In addition to working hard, Kobe worked intelligently. He was really smart about how he expended his energy."

Gary's talks about Bill Sharman. "The Lakers played the Celtics and the Knicks I think seven times and could not win a championship until Bill Sharman showed up. So people that don't know Bill Sharman, Bill Sharman is one of three people in the Hall of Fame, Nesmith Hall of Fame, that are in there as both a player and a coach. There are only three people that are in that way. He is also one of the only people that ever played professional baseball at the major league level and professional basketball. He played for the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Celtics."

Was it Pat Riley's intensity or was it Earvin 'Magic' Johnson's intensity that created that dynamic that the Lakers had? "West took Riley out of the broadcast booth and made him an assistant coach. After West had actually won the championship in '80. So, they drafted Magic in '79, won the championship that same year 79-80, because it crosses the new year. Then going into the next year, they fire West and make Pat Riley the head coach. Then he brings in Bill Bertka. Then they go on to have basically the rest of the decade, for the most part, being on top. Winning 5 championships from 79'-89."

Gary Vitti explains his major respect for Karrem Abdul Jabar's athletic prowess and success. "I make a very strong argument in the book that Kareem Abdul Jabar may not only be the greatest basketball player that has ever played the game. But he may be the most successful athlete to ever walk the planet. If you look at what he has accomplished in sports from the time that he was a child, he has won everything. Everything that you could possibly win and he has done it multiple times. He was in the playoffs 18 times out of 20 years. He has six championships with two teams. When he retired, we never won again, until the Kobe/Shaq era. So, even though Magic was still playing, he didn't win without Kareem."

Pieces of the Puzzle

Gary Vitti compares being on a team to a puzzle. "Being on a team like like being part of a puzzle. There are no extra pieces. If you are short a piece, then the puzzle is not complete, and you know there are no extra pieces. So you have to find your place in the puzzle and fit into that place. Many times, that means you have to sacrifice a piece of yourself to fit in the puzzle."

The Test of One's Character

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast with Gary Vitti, he also opens up about the troubling time when Magic Johnson came out publicly as being HIV positive. "The true test of one's character is when things are going badly. Not when everything is going good. And the second thing was, as I said before, I bought into the American sports creed of there is winning and there is misery. I never considered that happiness really relies on not achieving what you are chasing, but being grateful for what you already have. And that begins with your health and that of your loved ones."

Links to Additional Resources:

Gary Vitti: Linkedin
Book: The Vitti Report: 32 Years of Titles and Tears From the Best Seat in the House

Anthony Trucks: Retired NFL Player for the Buccaneers, Redskins, and Steelers, President & CEO of Anthony Trucks Industries, Author, Speaker, Coach, and Current American Ninja Warrior on NBC Dec 20, 2019

Show notes

Anthony Trucks

Anthony Trucks talks about overcoming foster care and then coping with having to transition after having a short professional NFL football career. "I came out of the NFL and I toured shorter. So it ended before I wanted it to, which is even worse, because I didn't go out of my own doing. And then I tried to find myself again and unfortunately in doing so, I found that I lost a lot. Because for me it's like I knew what I had to put in. I earned my keep in football, right? Then all of a sudden I'm in this realm where it's like...the real world."

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Anthony Trucks, Retired NFL Player for the Buccaneers, Redskins, and Steelers, President & CEO of Anthony Trucks Industries, Author, Speaker, Coach, and Current American Ninja Warrior on NBC. Anthony Trucks started his own businesses and become a motivational speaker for others to benefit from. "I think a lot of people think it has to be sports or military. It could be a mom. All of a sudden your kids go to college. Who are you without driving people around all day? Maybe if you are a dad and all of a sudden you retire. Or you are a dad and your kid doesn't need you to coach anymore. We always have these shifts and people attribute them to just the sports world. But its humanity."

What You Will Learn:

Anthony Trucks shares the physical, mental, and emotional hardships of his early life in foster care. "It was just a level of not feeling secure, not feeling stable, not feeling loved. I bounced around from house to house for three years, six different homes I was in. A lot of them were just bad people. Be starved, torchered me, like weird stuff as a kid. At six years old I got put in my family, which is my family to this day. I was not adopted until I was 14 though. So everyday you have no idea. 'Am I going to go back to foster care, in a different house?'"

Why did it take eight years for Anthony Trucks to get fully adopted by his current foster family? "For eight years I was in that house but my real mom had what's called parental rights. Which means that she can control what I can and can't do. Couldn't play sports. Couldn't take trips. Couldn't get adopted. And so at 14, I finally let the family love me. Because for a lot of years I always wanted to go back to my real mom and I think we don't realise that sometimes the thing you want so bad is not the greatest for you."

Anthony Trucks talks about getting arrested as a kid after hanging out with the wrong crowd and breaking into cars, which he still regrets to this day. He shares how his mindstate at that time shifted between the feeling that being a foster kid set up his life for failure and having doubt that he deserved the chance to have a good life. "'You're a foster kid Ant and what do foster kids do?' You look at any prison in American, 75% of the inmates are former foster kids. Like 50% of the homeless population...foster kids. Less than 1% of us ever graduate college. So I'm not numerically set up to do anything well."

How does Anthony define real love? "I think real love has to be tough because everybody can give you false love which makes you feel good all the time. But love is like, 'I want you to be better,' and usually it means breaking you from the direction you feel comfortable going because that is not taking you where you want to go."

Anthony Trucks shares an touching story about the impact that his potential suicide attempt had on one of his close friends who told Anthony, "'When I found out what was going on, I legitimately threw up. I was sick and it scared the crap out of me.' I'm like, I'm sorry man. And he is like, 'No, I don't think you grasp.' He says, 'There is a reason, because I thought I lost a hero.' It was really weird to hear like a friend of yours say something like that. Because I'm just like a guy, I know. He says, 'At the end of the day you don't know this but, everybody in your community, we know what you went through, from a kid on up. To see what you accomplished, dude, you are an inspiration to everybody.'"

'Shift Happens'

Anthony talks in depth about the work he does in helping others go through their own identify shifts in their lives. "Identity Shift, the way I look at it, the idea is to have success on autopilot. There are certain parts of who we are that people just have the midas touch. Like, why does that guy always win? Like, what's so great about him? It is just who that person is. So when they run into problems, they have what's called a 'slow or go identity.' Difficulty slows me. I procrastinate. I find ways to avoid it and distance myself or I go full board and figure it out."

See. Sacrifice. Sustain.

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast with Anthony Trucks, he also talks about the three stages you have to go through to make a change, which is to see, to sacrifice, and to sustain. These include seeing things that have got to be changed that you don't want to see right now, making the sacrifices to make these changes your new normal, and to sustain these changes so that you don't revert back to old habits. "When you can get to an effortless effort level for what you put into your life, but the outcome is higher because it is who you are? You are golden, man."

Links to Additional Resources:

Anthony Trucks: Linkedin Instagram YouTube Twitter
Anthony Trucks' Website: anthonytrucks.com
Slow or Go Identity Test: SlowOrGo.co

Gus Frerotte: Retired NFL Quarterback for the Broncos, Dolphins, Vikings, Redskins, Bengals, Lions, and Rams who overcame high school injuries and has moved forward with his own podcast, Partner at ProDayExperience.com, and President of Business Developme Dec 13, 2019

Show notes

Gus Frerotte

Gus Frerotte, who grew up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, talks about what it was like for him growing up with athletic aspirations, which led to eventually having a 15-year career in the National Football League. "My childhood was different than most. I fought through a lot of adversity. In 9th grade I broke my neck playing football and I didn't play for my 9th or 10th grade year. I never played quarterback until I was a junior in highschool and then we ran the Wing T, so we never really threw it. I was just lucky enough to be 6'4" and 210 lbs."

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Gus Frerotte, Retired NFL Quarterback for the Broncos, Dolphins, Vikings, Redskins, Bengals, Lions, and Rams, Podcast Host, Partner at ProDayExperience.com, and President of Business Development for the startup RC21X who developed a tool for brain performance monitoring. Gus Frerotte shares his career in athletics, overcoming adversity and the idea behind coming up with his podcast Huddle Up with Gus with his co-host Dave Hager. "We started finding some traction with people. We found a local media company that wanted to help us called Tribune Review, and they helped us for a little bit. But then we moved on from them and now we are with Radio.com and we are really excited because we've been building this thing over the last nine months."

What You Will Learn:

Gus Frerotte discusses his experience at the University of Tulsa. "College was great. I got to compete every day with guys from all over the country and you wanted to go prove that, hey, they are going to bring in 10 quarterbacks and I'm going to be the best one out here. We had a quarterback by the name of T.J. Rubley who was older than me. He got hurt in a game against Arkansas and my second year I was red-shirted. Then my second year in college I was not supposed to play, I was punting, and I ended up starting eight games that year."

What does Gus attribute as the driving force to his success in hindsight that might not have been so obvious to him when he was younger? "Tulsa, we didn't win a lot of games. But you just had to fight. You had to fight through adversity. You had to be tough. You had to take hits and get up off the ground and prove to your teammates that, 'Hey, just because I got hit doesn't mean I'm going to play here and be soft.' Being from Western Pennsylvania one of the things is you've got to be tough. And that's kind of what my mantra was going through my early and mid football career."

Gus Frerotte talks about his dad being a tough military guy from a big family with 14 siblings. Was Gus' relationship with his dad a contentious relationship or was it just a matter that his dad was pushing him hard in a healthy way? "There was some contentious times, you know? In eighth grade when I was playing football I came home after the first practice and I said, 'Dad, my foot is killing me.' My mom says, 'I think he broke his foot,' and my dad said, 'No, I just bought him those new cleats. He's playing. Just tie your shoes tighter.' I played the whole season. My foot is still hurting. The doctor says, 'How long has it been like this?' I said, 'Since the first day of practice.' He said, 'Well, you've been playing on a broken foot for nine weeks.'"

Guy's tough father taught him some lessons about expressing emotions that he chose to do differently with his own family. "My dad never told me he loved me. You know what I mean? It just didn't happen until he was super sick and he's older, I'm older. I don't care what he thinks now. I'm going to say it. And I don't go a day without telling my wife or telling my kids, if I get to talk to them, and they are not busy, that I love them."

What was it like for Gus Frerotte to play for the Washington Redskins? "It's just a great NFC East team. Back when I was drafted, the fans, there was a 10,000 person waiting list to get tickets. It's not the Washington Redskins that you know today. And it was such a big thing. I didn't care. I was going to go there. I was going to do everything I could. I didn't want to leave at any time. I practiced everyday, longer than I was supposed to."

Seven Different Teams

Gus Frerotte describes what it was like to bounce around the NFL to seven different teams, comparing it to moving around as a military family would. Washington DC was clearly a highlight. "My wife and I were married after my first year in the NFL and we had all three of our kids in Washington. I get cut by the Redskins after five years there and waiting to be picked up by somebody, end up going to Detroit. While I was at Washington, I'm also the talk of the town. I've been in the Washington Post all the time and through the quarterback of the Redskins, you are almost in the paper as much as the president."

If Gus Did it All Over

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast with Gus Frerotte, not only does he share his successes, but he opens up about difficult moments and areas of life that he views differently now. "The one thing I regret over all of it is I wish I just some how some way written down more people's numbers. Because there are so many people that I got to meet that I don't remember and I wish that I just somehow solidified that a little bit better."

Links to Additional Resources:

Gus Frerotte: Linkedin Twitter
Huddle Up with Gus podcast: huddleupwithgus.com/podcast

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