Episode 291: The Power Of Your Mindset
with Craig Blanchette
Additional Information:
Crave Optimal Health – connect with Craig Blanchette!
HCF's Live it to Lead it event – Newport Beach – November 14-17, 2019
Pre-order Dr. Pompa's Beyond Fasting book!
You are going to love today's guest. Sharing his story today is adaptive athlete Craig Blanchette – he’s a 21 time world record holder in wheelchair racing, 9 time world champion, and Olympic Medalist. Did I mention he's also in the Nike walk of fame? Craig will be be talking about life transformations and how to place true value in your health. What makes his story so special is that his incredible mindset is proof that our physical attributes are only a very small piece of the puzzle.
More about Craig Blanchette:
Craig Blanchette is the owner of Crave Optimal Health. He's a 21 time world record holder, 8 time world champion,1988 Olympic Medalist, Nike Walk of Fame recipient, and most importantly, he's the father of 2, and married 27 years.
Transcript:
Dr. Pompa:
Mindset makes or breaks us; I don’t care if it’s getting your health back, success in business, life, relationships, whatever it is. I believe we choose our mindset and functioning from the true identity that God gave us is really a life of happiness and success; it really is. I’ll tell you; this interview on Cell TV will get you to truly understand that. Also, this gentleman gave us some hints to true success in breakthrough whether it’s you trying to gain your health back, or again, just in life in general.
This man doesn’t have legs; most of us listening to this do. You would never know it based on his mindset. Wait until you hear him. Get a pen and pencil ready because he gives so many gems that will change the way you think and therefore change your life. Stay tuned.
Ashley:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I’m Ashley Smith. You are going to love today’s story. We have adaptive athlete Craig Blanchette. He’s a 21-time world record holder in wheelchair racing. He’s a nine-time world champion and Olympic Medalist. Did I mention he’s also in the Nike walk of fame?
Craig will be talking all about life transformations and how to place true value in your health. What makes this story so special is that he’s one of the most positive people on the planet. He’s mindset coaching is incredible; something I know I cannot wait to learn from.
Dr. Pompa, overcoming obstacles and growing from your pain is something you know all too well. I cannot wait to let you two take over and have this amazing conversation. I’d love to welcome Craig Blanchette and Dr. Pompa; welcome.
Craig:
Hello; yeah, thanks for having me.
Dr. Pompa:
You and I tried to do this show a few times I think, right?
Craig:
Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
I feel like a year ago we were about to do this show because I was so excited to interview you. I’ve heard so many amazing things. Finally, here we are.
Craig:
Yeah, finally, we made it happen; the tenacity right.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no, absolutely. I’m really excited. One of the things I had told you about my viewers and listeners is that so many of them are health seekers. They’re looking for how to get a certain aspect of their health better. One of the things I talk about, but I don’t bring enough of is the mindset around that. I even said to you, look, I’ve gotten so good a being able to tell who’s going to be able to get better, who’s not just by the things they say and how they look at themselves whether it’s themselves, their illness, their situation, their whole life in general. You’ve been a master at that.
Folks, listen up because this applies to every one of us going to the next level in life whether it’s your health, whether it’s just life, being happy. Isn’t that our goal? I’d put you at the expert category here. Alright, well, tell about your story, though. You were no doubt born with some people would say a disadvantage, but you’ve made it an advantage.
Craig:
Yeah, I was born with a condition called PFFD, which it doesn’t really matter even what it stands for. I’m basically missing my femur bones, so I have really short legs. My feet look different than the typical persons. Basically, it looks like I’m an above the knee amputee essentially, which makes me pretty light and agile. I’m 3-foot-9, so I’m a pretty short guy, but I’m pretty strong as well. It’s funny when I look at all the BMI charts, it still shows me as overweight because I’m 3-foot-9. At 135 pounds, I’m still overweight. That’s alright; I’m working it out.
What I find is—I don’t know who said this quote, but “whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re probably right.” Actually, I have found that is actually rings absolutely true. As I go through my life, there’s—most of the time, I always think that I can. Even if I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to do it, I just assume that I can do it. Then I reverse engineer it to figure it out.
Dr. Pompa:
Stop there because I would say most people would think what we’re talking about, I know I can go to the bathroom. As far as something more challenging in their life maybe where there’s a fear, most people would think I can’t. I guess that came out of you because growing up in a wheelchair from birth even as a baby, you realize you have to.
Craig:
Yeah, well, think about this. I got my first wheelchair technically when I was in the eighth grade. I was thinking about what you say, you were born in a wheelchair or with a wheelchair. I was thinking that would be very traumatic on my mother.
Dr. Pompa:
There’s a lot of walking on your hands, I’m sure.
Craig:
Yeah, the wheelchair comes out. Think about it when you’re a kid and if even as a normal—a child with normal legs, when you want to get—let’s say you want to get a bowl of cereal. The bowls are usually on the top cupboard, not down below. You’ve got to figure out a way to navigate because cereal is the goal and a bowl is necessary. You pull a chair over and you—and I did the same things. I would just go from the chair to the counter to the cupboard.
The goal was is I was going to do it; I just had to figure out how to do it. I think that example of figuring things out so that I was able to accomplish the stuff that I wanted to do, it started at a young age. I wasn’t told you can’t do this or you can’t do that. Actually, I was told that a lot, but it was like even from something as getting a bowl of cereal, you just figure it out. What was the alternative, no cereal? As a kid, that was not acceptable, so you figure it out.
I think the other thing too as a young adolescent, in the summer times, you get together with the kids on the block. Then you play football, and you play tag, and you play hide and go seek, all the whatever kind of games. There was a level I think that we all have of am I good enough? Can I measure up? When I’m standing at the start line and I look to the left and to the right, I wonder what they’ve got and I wonder what I’ve got.
Dr. Pompa:
Everyone does.
Craig:
I don’t know if everybody has that; I know I did. I was always trying to perform and keep up. It was more of an identity thing: can I measure up?
Dr. Pompa:
Absolutely.
Craig:
For me, that while initially, that maybe not have been super healthy. It was more of a survival mode that wired my brain in such a way that was very conducive to competition. That you step up to the line and now it’s not seeing who can play tag the best; it was at the Boston Marathon and we’re about to throw down 26 miles or at the Olympics and we’re about to go 1500 meters as fast as we can. Always having the courage to step up to the line and measure yourself and say, what do I got today, am I good enough, am I better than them? Those kind of things.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, which no doubt gave you an identity of someone who’s willing to figure it out, typically figures it out. That gives you a confidence. It’s funny; I just recently taught a Mastermind to the doctors that I coach. It was basically always an understanding of who we are, our life whether we like it or not. A lot of that is around how we see ourselves, our identity, and basically trying to break them through to their true identity. Oftentimes, life, traumas, people, teachers, friends, whatever it is, events give us a false identity or at least we function around a false identity instead of really who God designed us to be.
My point to them was you don’t truly break free—or I should say break through in success, happiness, fulfillment in your job, whatever it is until you’re functioning fully from your identity. I have this question. I want to get a day in the life of what your life looks like for people because I’m curious; I’m sure they are. Do you think that it would be harder—I just went through a thing with my son as I told you before we started that he jumped off a cliff, didn’t make it, and hit 50 feet down on a rock. He should have been died or paralyzed; he’s neither.
We had a strong reality of life, the rest of his life in a wheelchair paralyzed. It makes you stop and think; it really does. Changing bed pans and that, it’s made him stop and think, made me stop and think. Do you think it would be worse happening later or being born that way? What are the differences because you’re hanging around these guys? You’re racing against a lot of these guys. What’s the difference?
Craig:
Yeah, I heard a guy, he’s one of my mentors. His name is Dan Valentine. He said, life doesn’t happen—or “Bad things don’t happen to you; they happen for you.” The reality of that statement is hard things are necessary for the feeling of satisfaction in life. That a lot of times, we equate hard to bad and easy equals good. I actually in my experience, that’s actually not true. Easy things aren’t deeply satisfying; only hard things are deeply satisfying.
To answer your question, because I was born this way hasn’t—all our life is a hardness factor of whatever it is. I don’t know; it’s as hard as it is. In the process of working through the hard things, do you—what do you learn? Are you learning to be better? Are you learning to overcome challenges? I don’t know about you, but driving 26 miles versus running 26 miles, one of those is going to feel like a big accomplishment.
Dr. Pompa:
I tell you that driving is tough, man.
Craig:
No, in certain types of LA traffic or something, driving 26 miles might be a pretty big accomplishment
Dr. Pompa:
That’s true. In LA, it might be the driving.
Craig:
It might be. In reality, I think—I don’t know what’s easier or harder. What I would say is there’s probably a benefit to each one of them. Being born this way, I had to learn how to do life, things in life one time. If you were born with normal sized legs in a traditional body and then you were in an accident, now you’re going to relearn some stuff, but there’s great value in that relearning process. I know certain people that would never be professional athletes except for the fact that they are paralyzed now. They are some phenomenal athletes.
This is a great story. This guy played for the Phoenix wheelchair basketball team. This is probably 20 years ago. His name was Neal Walk, believe it or not, so fun name, easy to remember. He’s this 6-foot-7 guy and he used a wheelchair.
I was talking to him a little bit about his experience. He said, “I’ve had the privilege of living two lives: one from a 6-foot-7 and one from a 4-foot-5.” He said both of them have been an—I’ve met amazing people and have had amazing experiences. That stuck with me. I was pretty young when I heard that. I thought that’s his reality. That could be true for all of that you take what life gives you and you learn whatever you can. You enjoy the experience.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, gosh, that’s so true. It’s like okay, life took a shift. He was blessed—immediately his mindset was I’m blessed to have two different lives from two different completely perspectives, which is unique. I do want to see what does your day life look like? It’s obviously more challenging at least from the outside looking in. I’d say that’s more challenging; to you, it’s not more challenging.
Craig:
I look at your life and I’d say, man, you have to deal with shoes. You have to deal with socks, and all those pants that are so long, and oh my goodness. Think of it; there’s so many things that are pretty simple for me to do.
Here’s my saying about difficulty level. What if we said we didn’t worry about the difficult? We used a different—we used a word called different. Things are only hard temporarily because the more we do it—and it’s because it’s different or it’s new. Tying your shoes for the first time is hard. You do it 25 times, it’s not hard anymore. It’s only hard because it’s different or because it’s new.
Anything you practice over and over again actually that’s the definition of a habit. You can have good habits and bad habits. It’s just whatever you practice. You can have habits that serve you by doing things that are healthy over and over again and they become a habit. A lot of times, we do things that aren’t good for us over and over again, and they become a habit, too.
In the end really, what I think it comes down to in the mindset piece that I’ve been really spending a lot of time with right now, it’s the term authorship. The reality is that we’re going to go through our lives and we’re going to biologically age; every year we’re a year older. It doesn’t mean we’re emotionally better. What you’re going to do is you’re going to be a passive participant as your life story is written, or if you have the perspective or the awareness, you can develop authorship. The quote that I love is, “Your life story will be written. Who will be holding the pen?” Will it be your circumstances and a passive approach, or will you establish authorship where you actually decide, here’s what I would like next month to look like.
Dr. Pompa:
I think people watching this need to pause it right now. You need to write that down. Because honestly, someone will be writing your life story. Why not it be you?
Jon Butcher is a friend of mine. I took his Lifebook some years ago. That’s really what the premise is. We have an opportunity to design our life. He would carry this little black book around.
My friend Patrick was always like, he goes, “What is that? You always have that thing?” He’s like, “Oh, it’s called my life book.” “What do you mean?” It’s like, “Oh, you know, I’m just not a believer in just letting your life just—circumstances define your life. I’m choosing mine. I’m choosing the life that I want to live.”
They kept saying, hey man, you’ve got to teach that. It’s a life book. It’s the life that we choose.
Craig:
I was thinking about this because sometimes that’s too big. For the people that are watching this, what if from the day you were born until today was one chapter of a book. The book title is you. All of those experiences and everything that’s happened to you was Chapter One.
Then what if from this point forward, each year was a chapter? What is going to be the plot lines of Chapter Two? Is there going to be adventure? Is there going to be drama? Is there going to be strength building? Is there going to be deeper relationships? What kind of upgrades are you going for in Chapter Two?
Then Chapter Three, what’s that going to look like? Maybe something as big as I want to live in Italy or in the Mediterranean. That might be Chapter Ten. That might be a little ways down the road for you to organize things to be able to get there. Things like maybe upgrading your car or maybe running a marathon, that might be in the next two chapters.
You may not know all the details, but there are some things. You start with an outline when you’re writing a story. You talk about some of the things that you want in that story. What if your life is like that where you just started literally just pen some preferences down on a piece of paper and then watch those things start to become reality?
Dr. Pompa:
You’re obviously doing that, have done that in your life.
Craig:
Yes, doing.
Dr. Pompa:
I’m thinking of my viewer right now. All of us, we have a desire where we want to be whether it’s be healthy, or maybe it’s a different job, a new job, financial better. You’ve written your life. Tell us what that looked like. In other words, you have chapters that you wrote out or said I want this to look like that. Give us some views on that.
Craig:
Yeah, well, I’m still developing that. One thing that was always important to me, I wanted—being married to one wife for life personally was a high value.
Dr. Pompa:
Me, too.
Craig:
We’re 27 years married. We were just discussing literally last night at how it’s a ten relationally, emotionally, physically, communication wise, financially. We are deeply fulfilled in our marriage. I wanted that. That was something that was really important to me. It was an obvious thing.
Then we had kids. I wanted to be like—it was very important to me to be a father that I never had, a father that—my mom and dad got divorced early on and so I didn’t have a lot of role modeling in that. A lot of the things that I did with my kids, I remember some people asking me, who taught you how to do that? I said, “I just figured it out.” I’ve got YouTube right. You can learn just about anything.
It was some of the things that it’s just, well, it just made sense. This was something that just seemed like it made sense, so I did it. I would take my kids out on dates. I have two boys. Now, they’re 26 and 24. I’ve got a two-year-old granddaughter and two more grandchildren coming. They live close and it’s great. Those are some things that are important to me.
Recently, I had a long athletic career starting in 1986 that spanned up until about 2014. In 2014, I was on a comeback trial. I had lost 50 pounds in 2011. I was starting my health coach practice, starting to develop my health coach practice. That was going really well. I simultaneously started racing again, and training again, and getting back into form.
In 2014, I was in a marathon down in San Diego. There was an automobile on the course that wasn’t supposed to be there—or it was supposed to be there, but they didn’t let us know there would be cars coming around a blind corner at speed. I hit a car, broke my shoulder, and ended my wheelchair racing career. Then I had to figure, so now what?
It turned out I could still ride a handcycle. One of the things that I wanted to do was get back to handcycling, so I did that. I got back to a pretty high level with wheelchair racing. Then earlier this year, there was an opportunity to partner up with a company called Lasher Sport. They build off-road, full-suspension handcycles.
Dr. Pompa:
Oh, man; that sounds good to me. I was on my mountain bike this morning.
Craig:
Yeah, exactly, yeah. Where you live, there’s that stuff happening right now. There was this idea to build this partnership. One thing turned into another and I started developing other sponsorships and started working with some new strength coaching. I wanted to compete. They have the world championships which was in Crested Butte, Colorado literally Saturday and Sunday just a few days ago. Came back with First Place Adaptive.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s awesome. I have to freight you out here. We have some of the 500 miles of trail here in Park City. You stay with me and we’ll hit the trails. Wouldn’t that be—
Craig:
No, I plan it. That was some things that it’s some things just start to be like, well, this makes sense. What’s next? It’s not like I planned in November of last year when I meet Bill Lasher. I didn’t plan on going and winning the world championships. I didn’t really know much about off road handcycling.
Some of things just make sense as you go down the road. Some of the things you have a preference. That preference starts to be realized. You have to have an idea of what I wanted to do first was to be in shape, always be getting stronger, always be growing. That was something for sure. I knew that I loved adventure. Off-road mountain biking is a lot of adventure. Things just came together.
Right now, as far as what we’re looking at in the next two to three years is we’re looking at buying some property. We’re looking at developing a homestead or an estate. I don’t know; just a nice place there and potentially having our kids move out there and just having some land to do some legacy stuff. Financially, I have the dream of doing it, but financially, I don’t see the means yet.
Dr. Pompa:
A future challenge.
Craig:
Because I’ve started with the end in mind, I’m reverse engineering how to make those other things happen.
Dr. Pompa:
I think that’s the key, isn’t it? We have to reverse engineer it. We start with the end in mind. Like you said, you’re going to value up. You start with your core values and then we can go from there. I always tell my docs that even with a business, what are your core values?
I think at some point in my life, I was into goal setting. Now, it’s like I just want to stick to my core values. If life takes on a different path, does this evolve my core values? If it does, then maybe I’m interested.
Craig:
No, I think that’s really great. When you said something earlier about happiness and the idea of happiness, the reality of happiness is that happiness is a byproduct; it’s not a destination. When you don’t shear away from the challenges in your life, when you push through the difficult things in your life, your life develops meaning and you have satisfaction. I think after that, that’s where happiness actually shows up.
Dr. Pompa:
I agree. Yeah, no, it’s a symptom for sure. It’s something we all want. It’s the one symptom that we all want. You’re right; it’s a byproduct. I believe a big byproduct of functioning even in your identity, and your true identity, and what you’re created for. When you find that, man, magic happens. We have an opportunity to write that book a chapter at a time.
Right now, in your life, are there any difficult things? Meaning that okay, it might not be a habit yet. You’re still in the hard stage. That changes. When my son broke his back, there was a lot of hard things all of a sudden that again, as time went on, even those daily things that were really hard in the beginning got easier to your point. What’s going on right now in your life that’s really hard?
Craig:
Right now, leading up until this last weekend, there was a subconscious focus around this world championships. It started to become real little by little by little. Sponsorships came together. Then we had to have the equipment come together. We were testing out brand new things.
Then jerseys had to be made. There was a lot of wireless technology around shocks, and shifting, and all this fun gear. Oddly enough, it all crescendoed together perfectly up at 10,000 feet in Crested Butte on the mountain. Things were just fantastic.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, basically though, you defined it just like any other athlete would of what was going on in that moment: okay, that’s done.
Craig:
Yeah, and oddly enough, when it was over with, I had been subconsciously and consciously so connected to this reality that Monday, when Monday rolled around, I had suffered a little depression.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly, because all that focus.
Craig:
Yeah, well, all that focus for months, and eating right, and the sleep, and the drinks, and the creatine, and the branch-chain amino acids, and the—all the different things, making sure I’m getting my seven hours minimum of sleep, all of these little details, just simple daily hydration. Just a side note, two of the things that you can do. They’re free, but they come at a price. It’s sleep and water. Those two things, 64 to 80 ounces a water a day and no less than seven hours. If you get less than seven hours, you are accelerating your biological aging process.
Dr. Pompa:
Oh, I agree. Then what’s going on in those seven hours? Because I wear my Oura Ring and I realized that there’s things that I do that affect my deep sleep, and therefore my recovery, and my heart rate, and my heart rate variability which is recovery. Then you take it a step further because believe me, I’ve slept eight-hour nights. It was like okay, that was a disaster.
Craig:
Yep, but so all those things came together. Then I get done, and thankfully, and earning the first-place trophy there, and the world champion. It was awesome. It’s like okay, everything—any type of variable that came along, I was able to answer every question that came at me during the six competitions that we had over those two days and walk away from there or roll away from there technically. Then I’m like, well, what’s next? I don’t have another big competition on the calendar for this year, so what’s next?
The challenge right now is, oddly enough, is settling back in, getting back reconnected with my team and my coaching practice. Then quite honestly, being the amount of emotional energy that was being invested in the racing came out of my marriage tank. My wife is an incredible woman. Right as I was leaving for the race, she says, she sends me a text, and she says, “Remember racing is not your vocation any longer; it’s a really amazing hobby. Stay grounded.” It’s just beautiful. I did that.
Now, when I went there and I raced, I threw down and left nothing else, nothing on the table. Oddly enough, going into Day Two, they had some of the bikes that were e-assist bikes. I raced in the manual category. I was leading by 45 seconds over all the e-bikes, over everybody after the end of the first day, which was—it was crazy. Everybody keep coming over to my bike going, where’s your e-Assist? I’m like, it’s right here.
The second day, there was a big, long, two-mile uphill. A thousand watts of e-assist power is hard to compete against. All that to say is coming away from the actual event, now that energy that was taken towards racing is now back connected into my relationship and the different things that I love to do.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, and you have your own coaching business I’m sure. Tell us a little bit about that.
Craig:
Yeah, my coaching practice, it’s Crave Optimal Health. It’s this idea where we’re all craving to feel great. One of the things that we all share in common as human beings is we all live in a physical body. We live in here. Every one of us has a desire for this place that we live to work, to work well, to move, and walk, and duck, and be strong, and have energy. Just when we say—when we ask our body a simple question, can I do this, we want the answer to be absolutely. That’s not the case for many people.
Then not only physically, but what about financially? We have an opportunity to go on an adventure. We ask our checkbook, can we do this? It’s going to say yes or no.
Then we think about our calendar, our schedule. Do we have to have a vocation that’s flexible to allow us to go and have adventures? I call that whole thing more yes days. I’m looking for more yes days that when I wake up and ask myself a question, physical, financial, relational, schedule-wise, and I want to have more yes days in the future.
Dr. Pompa:
Me, too. Do you do any mindset coaching as well? If your mindset’s right, man, you’ll get well. If your mindset’s right, you’ll be happy.
Craig:
Oddly enough, Dan, is that with the way that I approach my coaching practice is we start with the felt need. Then when the felt need is starting to be remedied, the found needs arise. I don’t know; in the Bible when Jesus fed the 5,000, he didn’t give them spiritual food first because they were physically hungry. He met their physical need first, and then, now, he establishes a trust, and an ability, or an opportunity to speak into their minds and their hearts. When I’m working with my clients, I don’t start with the thinking, and the mindset, and the relationships, and the whatever else.
Dr. Pompa:
It’s evolve.
Craig:
I start with what’s presenting itself. It’s usually the part of their experience, their humanity that they’re closestly connected to. That’s their physical bodies, so if they don’t sleep good, they don’t have energy, they’re overweight. Probably eight out of ten people have extra weight that they want to get rid of. We’re like okay, let’s talk about that.
Let’s just fast-forward. Now, you’re at a healthy weight; what’s better? Tell me about that. We start with the end in mind assuming we’re going to get there.
Then once we undercover through conversation, we uncover vacancies in their life: areas that aren’t as good as they want them to be. Because I’ve earned the right to speak into their hearts because we’ve—we’re starting to have some wins on the board physically, then these other vacancies as they arise, we can start speaking into those areas, too. Usually, that comes to mindset.
Dr. Pompa:
Do you have any—does your condition bring on any physical challenges? Hey, I’m in my 50s. When I turned 50, all of a sudden, it was like, yeah, I hurt this low back years ago, a herniated disc. Now, all of a sudden, it’s bothering me. That happens to all of us, but does your—what you have going on, does it—is it creating any problems?
Craig:
I’ve ran a lot of marathons and my knees don’t hurt.
Dr. Pompa:
One of the benefits.
Craig:
Yeah, what a benefit; I don’t have knees, so they can’t hurt. Yeah, I have to—rotator cuff and shoulder, shoulders are not designed at the socket, the way that the structure works. It’s all held together by muscles, not like a hip joint is held together differently. My arms and my shoulders are my arms and my legs. Having a shoulder injury is traumatic for me.
Because when I broke my shoulder and tore my rotator cuff and all that in the accident, I already had two legs that essentially weren’t super useful. Now, it was missing an arm. It became very challenging, the recovery process. For me, right now, I’m working on keeping my shoulders healthy.
I do a specific type of strength training, Doctor McGuff. It’s called Super Slow Motion High Intensity Strength Training. There’s a book called, Body by Science that explains all the details. It’s been around for a year. Essentially, it’s one day a week, very intense 20 minutes where you take all your muscles to complete failure. Then you ask for 5% more. Your muscles say I don’t got it. Then you give them—then you say okay—
Dr. Pompa:
I was introduced to that some years ago. I still to some degree follow that. I do very little, but I go to complete failure.
Craig:
Yep, the idea there is it’s six reps.
Dr. Pompa:
It’s slow, right?
Craig:
It’s 20 seconds per rep. It’s about six reps. The weight’s heavy enough so that you can do about six reps in about a minute and 30 to two minutes. Every week, I get—it’s either more time, more reps, or it’s more weight. Every week I grow stronger. I’ve been doing this for about a week.
One of the things that I noticed is that I don’t want to spend a ton of time in the gym getting strong; I want to get strong and then I want to go utilize that as a lifestyle. The hashtag essentially is strong for life. One of the things that I’ve never ever heard, I’ve never heard somebody say, you know, I’m just too strong for that. Who ever says that?
When your body is strong, and your core is strong, and your muscles are dense, when life shows up and asks a question, that helps. It helps everything. It helps at the grocery store. It helps with your grandkids. It helps with so many things.
Dr. Pompa:
On the 20 minutes, you’re doing each body part. Are you doing a warmup set, then one set to failure for each body part?
Craig:
You don’t even warm up. It’s just a straight—
Dr. Pompa:
One set.
Craig:
Yeah, and it’s—
Dr. Pompa:
You’re going slow, so it’s not like you’re going to get injured.
Craig:
Right, there’s no inertia. It’s very slow. The weights aren’t that heavy too because think about it; doing 20 seconds per rep. If you do fast and you’ve got all these things going on, then the weight can be a lot higher.
Dr. Pompa:
You’re doing the [00:38:08] set. Maybe it’s a dumbbell press, whatever. Next week, then maybe it’s an incline dumbbell press.
Craig:
Yep, and everything’s actually Nautilus machines. They’re all very structured and very controlled motions so that they’re—what we’ve found and what I’m finding is that there’s certain exercise, exercise routines that are very productive. There’s productivity level and then there’s the danger level, the potential to injure yourself. Personally, what I’m looking for is the effectiveness is high and the safety is high.
Here’s an example. I hope I don’t offend anybody. One of the things about CrossFit is CrossFit is very productive. It is a community-based thing. It is fun. People are jacked. It is also the most dangerous that I’ve ever seen.
Dr. Pompa:
Absolutely; injury very high with it I could see. That’s why I like this type of workout because it really—I take it a step further; I use restrictive bands where it restricts the blood flow. The body thinks—it goes into a panic. It throws growth hormone, norepinephrine out. It takes down inflammation and upregulates everything for healing.
It creates that intensity with even less weight. You can take the most minor weight. It’s the same principles. You do the exact same principle, but the bands take it to a whole other level. You should try it.
Craig:
Yeah, and he talks about that in the book there. One of the neatest thing is that 20 minutes one day a week, nobody—for my lifestyle coaching practice, I have a lot of people. One of first things to go when life gets busy, and our lives get busy and stressful, is one of the first things to go is anything that is complex.
Dr. Pompa:
Absolutely.
Craig:
If your life gets busy—let’s say you have a regular workout routine and your family comes to stay. You’re not working out probably.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Craig:
Or depending on what kind of a nutrition program you’re using, if you’re doing a lot of whole foods and cooking all of the things for yourself and it’s not convenient, after about 30 days, the whole 30 only lasts 30 days because people can’t—they pull their hair out whether to have it or not. Convenience to me is king if it’s a lifelong change. For me, when I tell my clients about super slow mo, and I tell them it’s 20 minutes, one day a week, I’ve never heard them say I just don’t have time for that. I’ve never heard that once.
Dr. Pompa:
I hear in here, was that enough?
Craig:
Yeah, that’s what they say, and then I go, why don’t you go try it. They give you two of the first sessions for free. Go ahead and try it and they become lifelong—just like I did. I took the first two and that was a year ago.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, that’s great. That was one of my questions is what you do workout. You have to keep your endurance up too at least for your racing.
Craig:
Yeah. I do that for my strength stuff, but then I go out on my bike and I do road riding. I do off road riding and I can do lots of different things, but usually there’s some adventure and some entertainment involved in those things whereas lifting weights isn’t a big entertainment for me.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, that’s it. For me, I lift weights to stay in shape so I’m able to go out.
Craig:
Exactly, that’s it. Get strong so you can hike. Get strong so you can water ski. Get strong so you can run or bike or whatever it is.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, and it makes me enjoy it more when I’m able and you feel good. You don’t have to worry about I’m dying here.
Craig:
A simple fun story. My wife got me into this super slow motion stuff and my wife does not like—opposites attract. I’m a [00:41:58] guy, she’s not. She started working out, and I started seeing the results, and so I started doing the same thing. One of the fun anecdotal stories about her and my son, my oldest son, he’s 26 now, and he’s always liked her to chase him from just a little kid. She would always chase him around the kitchen or whatever.
Now he’s an adult. Oddly enough, he still likes to be chased. I think it was Thanksgiving or something, maybe it was Valentine’s Day, I don’t know. It was recent. She’s been lifting weights for about a year. She chased him and she grabs on to him and he’s thinking, I’ll make her let go by jumping over the couch. He launches himself over the couch, and she doesn’t let go. She traps him on the ground and he says, “Why are you so strong? Let go of me.”
It’s just the thing. That hasn’t been a common thing for her, but she—she hates working out, but again, 20 minutes, one day a week, she does it. Now it’s showing up with our granddaughter. She’s a 30-pound little granddaughter and moving her around, it takes some strength. That’s just a testament to being strong for life. I think that at the core of every human being if you’re strong. If you’re stronger and if you have strong muscles—I’m not saying big, I’m saying strong.
Dr. Pompa:
No, there’s a difference. I don’t care if you’re big.
Craig:
I don’t care what size they are.
Dr. Pompa:
Strong to me is one of my values because strong is—it allows me to do the things I love without injury. Again, just at a higher level. Okay. What about for your mindset because I agree with you. I’m very busy and people are, how do you do it all? I tend to keep things very prioritized, but very simple and those are the things I can do. What are you doing for your mindset daily?
Craig:
Yeah. One of the things for my mindset is I utilize lists a lot to get things done, little checkboxes. Every time I have a to-do item, I put a checkbox next to it so I can check that off and get that dopamine burst. Oh, I’ve done that. I’ve done that.
Dr. Pompa:
At the end of the day, I like to go, okay, I did all [00:44:13].
Craig:
Yeah. Even if there’s something I did that wasn’t on the list, I’ll write it on then I’ll put a checkbox there. The biggest thing for me is I do a lot of journaling. I have a special pen for journaling. It’s a little quill. I like writing, actually, physically writing on paper. The research that I’ve done and the reasons why I like it so much, it’s one of the—there’s a couple of things about—I use the J word, journaling, but it’s really just processing your thoughts through a pen. It’s downloading on to a pen and paper.
One of the things that I’ve seen that it does for me is it allows my creative side of my mind and my structure [00:44:57] side of my mind, they have to handshake and do a dance together. While I’m writing, I have to have my sentences make sense. There’s sentence structure. You have to read it. All of that is—when you’re writing something down, it’s the artistic side, but you’re also formulating your thoughts, and then you have to slow down enough so you can write them out. It’s one of the unique ways that I found that you can be an observer of your thoughts by journaling. I’ve got a journal that I journal with regularly.
I’ve been asking myself some questions. One of the things is, a simple question. What no longer belongs in my future as a leader? You just ask the question and wait for answers. Another one is I’m thinking about this concept of leaving from the future and acting in the now. This is this destination mindset with the reverse engineering process. You can say a statement like now that I’m so—I’m so happy and grateful now that blank has happened, whatever it is because it blah, blah, blah. I’m so happy and grateful now that I’m a world champion hand cyclist because it gives me a platform. I’m so happy and grateful now that I’ve achieved a healthy body weight because I will feel good about myself and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You ask yourself these sentences that are fill in the blanks. You phrase the question as if it’s already happened.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, that’s cool.
Craig:
Get your mind thinking about it. It starts to reverse engineer and to see a way to get it. There’s a lot of other journaling exercises.
Dr. Pompa:
You’re recording some things in your subconscious actually and then your subconscious really drives the ship. That’s a big deal. Have you ever felt sorry for yourself through this process?
Craig:
I can’t say no because I think it’s a human condition that I have.
Dr. Pompa:
I felt sorry for myself so many times I want to slap myself.
Craig:
Yeah. I wouldn’t say I’ve spent a lot of time there.
Dr. Pompa:
Let me be more specific. Have you ever felt sorry for yourself specifically that life is in a wheelchair?
Craig:
Oh, no. No. Here’s a funny thing. I love kids. Just up there on the mountain these kids came up to me and I’m pulling off on this gnarly rad bike and they’re like, “Man, what happened to your legs.” I said, “I was born with short ones.” They say, “You were?’ I said, “Yeah.” I said, “What were you born with?” They’re like, “What?” They look down and I go, “Looks like you got the long ones.” He goes, “Yeah, I guess so.” I go, “How about your brother?” He got a little bit longer ones. We’re having this little conversation. I said, “You know, when I was about to be born, I guess I stood on the wrong line. I stood in the line with the short legs and you stand along with the line with…”
Dr. Pompa:
I make that joke about my calves. I see this guy with these huge calves and I’m like, “You know it’s guys like that that were most likely was in line twice or he took too much, and I didn’t get any.”
Craig:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. He went back for seconds before you got there.
Dr. Pompa:
He’s a proper example. My little calves, that’s inner legs. Hey, I set the high school pull-up record. It’s still there today.
Craig:
Exactly, exactly.
Dr. Pompa:
It would get [00:48:47] pull-up. Hey, if I had too much calf, I wasn’t doing that.
Craig:
Yeah, that would be extra weight, and it’s not needed for pull-ups, yeah. It’s just those things. I guess if I were—the things that I’ve missed, that I feel like I’ve missed out on is riding a motorcycle with no adaptive equipment. That would be pretty fun. I’ve ridden them but stopping is where I come to a problem. Just different kinds of things like walking on the sandy beach and not getting sand everywhere, in your bearings and all that. My wife and I were just talking last night. We were watching, So You Think You Can Dance, and she said, “If you had legs, what dance style would you pick?” I said, “Ballroom.” She said, “Me too.” She goes, “We’re so compatible.” Really, this just happened last night. That would be fantastic to twirl and to do some of those things, but there’s so many things—if I focus on the few things that I can’t do, I’d miss out on the things I can do and there’s just too many of those.
Dr. Pompa:
You answered one of my questions. Is there anything you’ve missed? You said something that was right. The sand, the ballroom dancing, but again, all of us can [00:49:58] and say things.
Craig:
Whatever you’re going to complain about is what you’re going to complain about. Sometimes people have curly hair and they want straight hair, and some people have straight—it doesn’t really matter what the actual thing is, it’s the process that you are developing as you’re working through it. That’s the thing that counts. I knew people that are quads.
Dr. Pompa:
More specific on that.
Craig:
Yeah. People could look at me and say I don’t have legs and say, wow, that would be really hard. What does hard have to do with it actually is the answer to that. One of the things with quadriplegics and paraplegics—quads have impairment on all four limbs, either up to 100% or some degree. Paraplegics have impairment in just two of their limbs. One of the things that I was saying is that, paraplegics wish they had use of their legs back. Quadriplegics just wish they had full use of their hands. It’s just all your perspective as to, are you going to always wish the grass was greener? Are you going to just accept what you have and make it better?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, and when you do, life can get a whole lot better pretty quick.
Craig:
Oh, yeah. I’m telling you, it’s fantastic. When you realize that life will be hard because new things are different, but if you want it bad enough, you’ll do it so it’s not hard anymore because it’s familiar. It might be hard, but it’s not hard because it’s new. It might just be hard. I don’t know, I just haven’t been—I’m not a big complainer actually at all. I’ve talked with groups of people. I remember being in this class with a bunch of people that were—it was a depression class. First of all, I think about the idea of being in a class that’s called a depression class. That’s depressing all in itself, but that’s a side story.
I’m telling my story about, it doesn’t matter whether you think you can or you think you can’t, what do you want? Then put a plan together and go get it, or you can be passive in your life and just allow it to happen. These ladies start talking and they’re complaining about all the reasons why they can’t do this and they can’t do that. At one point, I’m sitting in front of them, fairly athletic with no legs and talking about all the adventure I have that is physical. At one point, she just stopped talking and just said, “I’m done,” and moved on to the next person because the irony was so palpable in that room that I was there with perceivably less and celebrating it, and she had all her body parts and was complaining.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. No doubt about it, man. We just have to shift our perspective. Our world becomes how we view it, man.
Craig:
Absolutely.
Dr. Pompa:
Influence that. Here’s an off-the-wall question I have to finish with is, have you ever dreamt in a dream and saw yourself actually walking?
Craig:
Interesting.
Dr. Pompa:
Or [00:53:20] you never have legs because that never happened?
Craig:
I fly once in a while. That’s fun. I’ve ridden motorcycles once in a while, but haven’t seen myself walking. I used to wear artificial legs so I have experienced walking and some of those things. No, I don’t know. It’s not a common thing if it ever has happened for sure.
Dr. Pompa:
Okay. Yeah, it would have stood out. What would you say is the greatest gift you’ve been given? What is that?
Craig:
I would say the biggest gift I’ve been given—it’s a strange thing, but it’s the ability to inspire somebody to—they see me and because they have a filter or they set the—they assess other people and they set a bar. For me, a lot of people set the bar pretty low because they see the wheelchair and they don’t know me. Then they see me get out of my car which is a fairly trivial thing. How often do you get out of your car every time you get in it? It’s not a big deal. They’re like, “Oh, just saw you get out of there and you just flew out of there.” I’m like, “What was I supposed to do?”
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, yeah.
Craig:
Some of those things oddly enough can be utilized to inspire people, and I just have to be patient with folks and not take it personally. If you’re inspired by my life, fine. If me getting out of a car inspires you, awesome. I’m inspired by a lot of things too. The reality is, is that we have an opportunity to live our lives and to be kind to one another. I feel like I try to be a kind person and I try to leave people better than I found them. I just really like people and it’s important. I think that’s my biggest thing is just be encouraging, being inspiring, and being just kind.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, yeah. Do you think that your situation really has been the crown for you to be the way you are? Meaning that yeah, you are so positive. You are changing the world, individuals. Do you think it’s…
Craig:
It gives me access, yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
You said that, it’s the difficult things that really are the most fulfilling and then the biggest blessings.
Craig:
I think people will find that rings through in their life. Think of the things that they really had to work for.
Dr. Pompa:
Oh, no. Totally, yeah. Again, I don’t even know what to call it because I can’t call it handicap for you. [00:56:15] I would answer the question. Is it the crowning joy your wife? Is it the thing that has just made you you?
Craig:
I think it could have been my biggest nemesis or my biggest asset. I’m going to play the cards I was dealt, and I’m going to build my skills and play them better and better.
Dr. Pompa:
By the way, going back, this is something I ask people because there’s something—it’s true. It’s called three-percenters. Three-percenters are literally the people who overcome cancer.
Craig:
Yeah, right.
Dr. Pompa:
They do. When asked the question about how did you do that or whatever, they go back in a certain place. Was there a certain place where you said what you just said, I’m going to choose it to be this way not that way because you said it could have been either way. It could have been your downfall, but now it’s your greatest gift. Is there a conscious choice at what age, at what time, or is it something that you looked back on?
Craig:
I don’t know how much you’re…
Dr. Pompa:
The choice was made. You made a choice at some point.
Craig:
Yeah. I think part of it is you have a personality type and you have predisposition for things. On the Enneagram—are you familiar with the Enneagram stuff?
Dr. Pompa:
Maybe.
Craig:
Just personality types and there’s eight different ones.
Dr. Pompa:
Oh, yeah, probably I’ve seen the…
Craig:
Yeah. Anyway, there’s a number of different ones out there and this is one that we’ve been studying a lot, but my personality type—there’s other people with my personality type, but my personality type and my lifestyle are very compatible. I’m not one to be a cloudy mindset person. I’m a pretty sunny disposition. My personality type likes to be in the spotlight and have fun and have adventure. Whether I had legs or not, that’s probably who I would be. I think it looks differently because I was born this way so it has its own flavor of how that looks.
I know when I was a kid I would say—the only thing that comes to mind is when I was a kid and I would be riding my skateboard or just cruising around the neighborhood, when there was a number of times when people would come up to me and they would just give me this piece of information that there was a reason—there was not a reason why, but a reason for. There was going to be something that this was going to make me into that would be great. It’s like your scars tell stories and those stories can be amazing. It was like that. That there was just going to be a purpose for it.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, but [00:59:17] the opposite.
Craig:
Yeah, it could be.
Dr. Pompa:
[00:59:20] I’m sure.
Craig:
Kids made fun.
Dr. Pompa:
People told you what you wouldn’t be able to do. That your brain is choosing to even remember the positive things, but I promise you probably more things were said to you negative that could have been your identity. I can’t do that because you’ve been told. Identity is formed. Something made you choose that hey, I’m not—this is going to be positive for you. I’m going to do it. I’m not going to let it slow me down. Those choices were made and that’s—for whatever reason I always say, look you can choose to be a three-percenter. Choosing that hey, this isn’t stop me. I’m going to do it. You’re a three-percenter, man. You chose not to be defined by the negative identities.
Craig:
I remember one of the things early on, they said I couldn’t drive a stick shift, and I was like—there were some things that people told me I couldn’t do, and I didn’t even want to do them until they told me I couldn’t do them, and then I did them just to prove them wrong. I think that just—for whatever reason I don’t know, but it’s just the way things worked out for me. I choose not to dwell on the things that I can’t do or that are too difficult to do. I choose to work on the things that I can accomplish.
Dr. Pompa:
I don’t know if you know who Joni Eareckson Tada is. Yeah, she—in a wheelchair and…
Craig:
[01:00:50], yeah. When you come to a sports camp—I run a wheelchair sports camp in Minnesota then she’s been to that same camp.
Dr. Pompa:
She’s a powerful woman. She’s changed the world. Just unbelievable to hear her speak and then [01:01:05]—she’s like you, very positive. She says, how many people come up to her through her life and say, I’m praying for you to walk again. She’s so gracious. She says, “Honey, I have a lot of things you could pray for me in my life, but that’s not one of them, please. My wheelchair is my crown. It is my crown. Don’t pray me out of my wheelchair because I would be not doing this.”
Craig:
Think of that. That is amazing.
Dr. Pompa:
You see that perspective. It’s like, please if I walk again, God only knows what my life would look like.
Craig:
Yeah. It might be boring.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. It’s funny, but yeah, I think your wheelchair is your crown, man. I mean, it is just…
Craig:
I’ve utilized that. I’ve been in sales. I’ve been in different types of situations. Immediately, when a person in a wheelchair, that’s comfortable being in a wheelchair, comes up to another person, it’s disarming because you have a certain perception of what they’re going to be like. When they are more than that or different than that, then you’re curious or you’re intrigued or something happens. I have access into people’s life and to speak in people’s lives that traditional stand-up people don’t have access to, and so why wouldn’t I use every card I was dealt. That being one of them.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, absolutely. Just one of the most powerful things you said is that, things are difficult or hard only in the beginning until we make them habits. Then we figure out a way around—that goes to every one of our listeners. It’s like yeah, dietary changes. Yeah, it’s hard in the beginning, but there’s nothing good that…
Craig:
Think about this. What if you had the perspective of what does hard have to do with it or what if you changed it and you said, I do hard things.
Dr. Pompa:
Yes, because hard things are the rewarding things. I do hard things because they are the most rewarding. Dang it. That’s my best…
Craig:
Easy stuff is boring.
Dr. Pompa:
I’m going away with that right there, Craig. Honestly, you know what, I do hard things because I love it, because those are the most rewarding. If it’s taking whatever out to the next level, I love doing hard things, Craig. You taught us that today. That’s for sure. Listen, thank you so much for finally coming on Cell TV.
Craig:
Sure.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, absolutely. Listen, I mean it. I want to have you out here and you stay with us. I want to hit the mountain bike trails with you. We’ll have a blast.
Craig:
Absolutely. We’ll plan for that. Thank you for the opportunity just to tell my story and to give a platform. Hopefully, through this interview, somebody will say…
Dr. Pompa:
Give your website. We’ll put it up a few times during the show.
Craig:
Yeah, craveoptimalhealth.com, but in the end, hopefully, somebody will see this and they’ll say, if he can do it, I can do it. Or they’ll say, why not me or they’ll say what does hard have to do with it. There’s a number of little sayings. I’m going to be an author in my life. The other thing too is, I work with people all the time and if you—I have an open-door policy where people can have a chat. We get to know each other and we find out what’s going on. If we uncover a vacancy that wants to be occupied, then we figure that out. It’s an absolutely blast to do that.
Dr. Pompa:
Connect with Craig. Listen, if you’re going, gosh, I’m struggling. I need more of what he’s saying, hire a coach. That’s what I always say. Hire Craig. That’s darn what I would do because it’s hard to get there ourselves. I always say, you become who you hang around. Dang it. I want his positivity. Hire the man. All right, Craig. Thanks for being on Cell TV. I appreciate you.
Craig:
Thanks.
Ashley:
That’s it for this week. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode which was brought to you by Fastonic Molecular Hydrogen. Please check it out at getfastonic.com. We’ll be back next week and every Friday at 10:00 AM Eastern. We truly appreciate your support. You can always find us at cellularhealing.tv, and please remember to spread the love by liking, subscribing, giving an iTunes review, or sharing the show with anyone who may benefit from the information heard here. As always, thanks for listening.
