No Matter How Broken You Are, He Explains How to Get Whole | Nick Santonastasso on Impact Theory

you know Nelson Mandela has this quote in life I don't lose only win or learn so many people think like they've lost but like if you just pull one piece of one one piece of information that's good whether it's a different perspective extracting knowledge a different way to go about life a different way to not fall in your face like that's winning I just want people to realize like they have everything inside of them to do whatever they need to do you know over the 23 years of my life I've realized that it's not this it's not this physical body you know people can see me on the street and be like wow look how disabled that guy is an oblate board have you seen your mindset like have you seen the way you operate like have you have you seen the way that you react to situations that you're pissed off in traffic that you think the world is happening to you like I'm not disabled like you're handicapped the biggest and baddest people are handicapped and crippled by the limiting beliefs the things that they tell themselves and that's why I say the biggest disability is a bad mindset it's not this body and so that that's how I want to shift people's perspective is realizing like man this guy's got no legs in one arm but he's doing all these amazing things and letting people know like you have everything inside of you to do whatever you need but you need to you need to get this right [Music] thanks for tuning in to this episode of impact theory sponsored by our friends at Skillshare enjoy the episode everyone welcome to impact theory today's guest is a multi-hyphenate in the extreme he's an entrepreneur author athlete competitive bodybuilder model and internationally sought-after speaker he has racked up an extraordinary list of accomplishments including building a seven-figure social following all before his 25th birthday this guy has inspired so many people that when the rock bumped into him at the gym the rock asked him if they could take a photo together true story he shared the stage with Deepak Chopra Steve Forbes and Suzy Welch and was even invited to speak at the Tony Robbins Global Youth Leadership Summit this is a string of accomplishments that anyone would be proud of but what makes him so damn captivating is that he did all of this while being one of only four living people with a rare genetic disorder known as Han heart syndrome which caused him to be born with no legs only one arm and only one finger on that one arm and knowing that replay his list of accomplishments in your mind he owns his own company published a book about his life was a varsity wrestler in high school and he competed in a bodybuilding competition placing higher than able-bodied competitors and he's a model and speaker who's traveled around the world inspiring countless people this guy could tap out today and his resume would still stand among the greats but if you ask him he's just getting started so please help me in welcoming the man who realized very early on you can either find a way or find an excuse the author of victim to victor the indomitable Nick Santo Nastasia mazing what you've done is it's bananas man I'm excited and I want to talk about the whole notion of no excuses like yeah when did you I love the way that your parents treated you growing up yeah tell us about that is that where the whole idea of I just gotta figure this [ __ ] out came from or yes so it's funny cuz itself reflecting back asked my parents I said you know how did you intro me to the family you know because I'm the baby and so I have I have three other siblings I have two sisters and one brother and so they were like you know when you were born we kind of just didn't talk about it we kind of just brought you home and like they just started loving on you and didn't see anything different and so my parents like that they always talk about like they had three kids so they they were kind of getting used to being a parent and kind of figuring out the system how to be a parent and so with me they sat me down an early age and we're just like here Nick like they're gonna put things in front of me and so that you know they put my clothes in front of me and would give me suggestions and kind of help me out a little bit or you know they put me in my high chair with food in front of me and I got it make like let's just figure it out and I think like I always talk about like that was my biggest advantage a lot of parents did do too much for their kids or they or they kind of coddled them which is basically handicapping your child right and so like my parents helped me exercise that muscle of literally falling on my face and getting back up and so like everything that I viewed I just knew it was gonna be hard or I knew it was gonna take a little bit more time and that was the kind of the phrase like it's not camp but how the more empowering like how am I gonna get through this and so like the challenges as a kid they were just like the little games for me and I just wanted to figure out you know how I can push myself or I wouldn't want to ask for help I always tried to be independent mmm have you come up with a process for figuring stuff out one of my favorite stories about you is licking your finger to pick up Cheerios fast yeah yeah yeah that was really smart but when I think about so you've talked about opening a gym for people that you have a phrase for it what do you people that need different types of accessibility yeah so when I think about you trying to figure out how to balance your musculature that seems like nyam possible that's hard for me and I have the symmetry naturally how the hell do you figure stuff out like that so obviously you start with it's possible but then how do you break that down and actually get to a solution yeah so basically like what Fitness and so I needed to figure out ways that I can lift symmetrically and I also needed to figure out more knowledge on nutrition because I didn't know what I was doing when I started and I actually when I moved to Tampa two years ago I've met one of my best friends Cody who like dedicated when I did that preparation for bodybuilding was a 12-week show he trained me every single day and basically when I started like when I moved there he sat me down like dude listen like your form is all messed up like you're not lifting right and it's and it's it's not pissing me off and I need you to have a base like I need you to figure out that you need to isolate yourself and you need to move your body certain ways and micro movements so basically having that vision but then like reverse-engineering and saying like what what are these little steps because I think if we just have a vision and we're just focused on that like if we don't have those little steps like we get overwhelmed because it's like from A to Z right and so we need to figure out what we do in the beginning and so for fitness he like sat me down I was like all right like the the importance of rolling your shoulders back and like only moving this to contract your you know your chest muscles and with your back like just basically like super strict on form because when I first started lifting for the first like a year I was only lifting my left side so like I totally just gave up on the sides like yeah and I would so like I used to bench press and I remember my buddy used to like slam my right side down I would just bench this way and I fell in love with not only the physical aspect of lifting but the therapeutic like how it made me feel and I was like I want to do more of this and I realize like looking into bodybuilding is like oh you need the symmetry if you want to compete and so basically just sitting sitting me there and figuring out these little micro movements because he's like dude like you may think you can't contract all your muscles but I promise you view isolating you have the right posture and you really just contract and and are focusing on working through the muscle then I promise you you can build that and it's and it's funny because I actually had a prosthetic made probably like two years ago that would give me some sort of an extension so I get more contraction but after lifting with Cody and just really figuring out my body like I don't use the prosthetic anymore like I can get like full full contraction from my chest my back like I'm still trying to clean things up but like just isolation and being super hard unlike my form and not like lifting not correctly like not lifting in the wrong way because you know a lot of people go into the gym and it's just like they think it's just one movement real fast and they don't know that like isolating things is really how you work through the muscle and so I was just like yo give me a game plan that's what I need like I need some steps and then I'll just go from there and improvise myself I love what you're talking about about being really strict with your form and having a training partner that's holding you to a standard that was something I found really interesting and your approach to wrestling in high school yeah tell people about that I think that's super powerful yeah so when I got into middle school in high school I was like full victim people may have not known it because I knew energy was contagious and so like my parents never knew about my suicidal thoughts my sister's my brother never knew about that because I knew like I don't want to bring that energy and put it on other people and so I do know where that face fake you know fake smile fake mask and just go on with my life and my older brother was a wrestler and I'm from Jersey so wrestling's like a big deal and so like like I said my parents and my siblings never treated me any different so I was beat up just like everyone else like you know practicing suplex is on and like just I was I was super normal and when I got into high school I was at in this point where I was like I need something you know like I need to be with my friends more that makes me feel good I need what sport can I do with them what extracurricular activity could I do with them and it's funny because my best friend Dan were still best friends to this day his whole entire life he wrestled and his freshman year he decided to bowl which was a little bit different and he you know he came up to me he's like Nick like you can Bowl you just rolled the ball down the lane you get to eat cheese fries when you come back and I'm Italian so anything that's got to do it food like I'm in and so I was like man because I needed something that was going to instill confidence in me because I was also a kid that thought like confidence was something he was born with and I was like man I don't I don't got it got legs don't get it or man don't got confidence like I don't have anything and so I was looking for a way out that was my right we have drivers in life and we talked about you know pain and pleasure mine was like I didn't want to feel this pain anymore I didn't want to feel uncomfortable my skin I was in a - shaped chubby kid and so I was looking for a way out so I bowled my freshman year actually that's how I first started getting into sports and I remember our JV and our varsity team our varsity team was pretty good and our JV team was undefeated and then I joined and gave the JV team their first loss they were probably upset with me but they never expressed it and I didn't feel like I was a part either because everyone had these new like bowling jerseys and I had this old one like that just they didn't have room for me but I was on the team basically and so after freshman year I realized like I need something more all my best friends they were wrestling Dan went back to wrestling and you know after school they go to practice and so that was that time where I was either alone thinking about things or you know I was I was in the house with my family but I wanted to be around my friends more because that made me feel good and I had I had like an amazing set of friends and so I was like I want to be a wrestler and at that time this arm was actually five inches longer than it is now and my bone was going faster than my skin so like the majority of my life my I've had problems with it so when I was in first grade I had the music teacher come up to me and was like Nick do you want to try to play the drums I'm like yeah you know I would love to I don't know how you think I'm gonna play the drums but I'd love to and so we go into the music room and what they did was they ace bandages stick on this arm and this arm was a little bit longer the ace bandages stick on this arm and they gave me a snare and he was just giving me rhythms to practice and I actually picked up drumming so well that the school bought me an electric drum set and they moved me to the middle school band because I was too advanced so basically I would play this electric drum set and what I would do is I would sit on the pedals cuz they were they were Wireless and so I can sit on the hi-hat pedal with this quad and sit on the bass pedal with this quad and I play a full set of drums but with wrapping the stick around my arm like so what it was was the bone was going faster than the skin so it was super sensitive like I couldn't really touch it on things and so would get infected from lack of circulation whatever maybe and so like there would be points where my armor get affected and I need to drain it and I would always tuck my arm in because I didn't want to hit it hard enough because if I did the bone when it came through out of my skin and so when I wanted to become a wrestler you know my parents were like no way you know and the one thing that I thought my head was like my arm you know so when the guys asked like Nick get out of your comfort zone like let's go roll I'm like guys you know about my arm like I want to want this to bust through that won't be very good and you know when when someone tells you an idea and you maybe blow that the idea off you're like yeah and then like you're on the bus swinging your car right and you're driving home we all know like we start marinating on things and that's when the how kicked in I was like well how can I become a wrestler you know I know this would instill confidence in me I'll be labeled an athlete you know people told me I couldn't be an athlete right like people told me I couldn't be all these things I was like if I could be labeled as an athlete and and run out on the mat with my team that would just make me feel good it would uplift me and so I came home one day and I waited for both my parents to get home cuz they work you know different jobs and I sat them down I said hey guys I said what do you think I want to become a wrestler like what do you what are you thoughts my moms like Nick no like oh no you know wrestling's the most physical sport like what are you gonna do like if you hit your arm and your bone comes through your skin you know you're gonna hit your arm like wrestling's one of the most physical sports and you know me as a 16 year old kid I looked at my parents I said can we can we cut it off and they were like well Nick's like what do you mean cut it off I'm like yeah you know like my arms stopping me can we just like trim it you know cut it off can we do something about it and they were like make the right words amputate you're so aggressive with your words like you really want to amputate your arm I was like yeah like this is holding me back I want to wrestle and like I said Tom they didn't know about how low I was they just this was just something that I wanted to do and even as a baby you know my I actually did an interview with my parents and I got to like ask them questions that I always wanted to ask them and when I was born the medical industry I'm jumping around all over here but the medical industry wanted wanted to cut my finger off or this this bone is this fingers actually two fingers and one so they wanted to split it or they wanted to put you know pins in my legs and bone lengthening and my parents always told these doctors he said you know I'm not in the position to make that decision for my child like it's not my life like Who am I to say yes and then put my child in a bed and have him in the bed six months you know lengthening his bones that's not for me to make that decision and so they were kind of almost happy that I brought to them that that solution that you know they knew my arm was hurting they knew was growing it wasn't gonna stop growing and so for for me to go to them and bring that decision and have it as my choice they were cool with it and so that was pretty cool so my parents accepted like dude this is what you want to do it's only gonna better the quality of your life we're in and so my sophomore year my parents scheduled the appointment for me to amputate my arm and I didn't tell any of my friends I was doing it and Antonio and my teachers I was just like hey like this is what I'm gonna do and so I'd go back to school and I got like 17 stitches on my arm and I always say I was the happiest kid that just cut his arm off you know I go into school and like people like Nick what you do I'm like a cub arm off they're like why and I'm like I'm gonna I'm gonna become a wrestler you know I told everyone was like I cut my arm off because I'm gonna become a wrestler and people like what you know they didn't they didn't understand it you know my friends supported that I dude its coolest thing ever like I can't wait till you're on the team and people are like dude let's be real you know how you gonna become an athlete let alone a wrestler and Tom my whole life there was always that that the other people putting limiting beliefs on me or putting their limits on me like from the moment I was the doctors handed over a list of my parents are like mr. and mrs. Santana Stasi so your son survived the super crazy thing but here's all the things he won't be able to do and you know my parents threw that list out and they weren't gonna let other people put limitations on me and so they always just we're firm believers like Nicky can do whatever you want you know your mindset is the biggest superpower and they always engrave that into me and so you know I told these people I said you're right I'm not gonna become a wrestler I'm gonna be I'm gonna be a varsity wrestler and and you're kind of gonna watch and I'm gonna try my best and that was always my thing as like as long as I try my best as long as I attempt it then you know I'm that's not failing because there's a lot of people in life whether it's in their personal life or in their business life and they sit on the sidelines I'm like man I don't have the resources I can't build a business or I'm not old enough I don't have the knowledge or I'm too old that I can't build a business and I always tell people I much rather be in the trenches I much rather be on the field than sitting on the sidelines wasting time and thinking man I can't do that so my whole view of life is like I try everything my things like why not you know I'm just gonna try everything and so that was like the the turn for me of starting wrestling the cool part for me in that story those that you ask your friends to beat you up to not take it easy on you to smash you into the mat to do whatever they needed to do to actually make you a good wrestler yeah why do you have that mentality yeah I knew I knew from an early age I was they actually put me on The Today Show when I was 13 and I told Ann Curry and I was like in my squeaky voice I was like you know failure is your best friend and you know you learn by falling on your face and getting back up and I I've learned that just through life in itself like I said whether it was getting on a chair or whether was trying to put my clothes on or feed myself everything was challenging at first like I'm not gonna sit here and say I was perfect at everything like I just figured out my way no like things were hard you know and so that was always my mindset of like things are gonna be hard but like I'm going to learn from me falling on my face like I'm gonna pick up and say what can I do differently so I don't fall in my face next and so with going into wrestling I'm very competitive like I'm a competitive person and I don't want people to hold back on me and ever wanted two people to hold back in me if I was gonna lose I was gonna lose like like a champion right and so you know I told my and it was easier because it was my best friends but I was like guys like please don't hold back I mean I don't want you to feel bad like my arms all good like we can beat everything like just do what you need to do and there was moments you know my junior year was a JV wrestler and my only win was my coach putting me out for a varsity forfeit so I get my varsity Jack and I was like I don't want it I didn't earn it because we can agree that you know things feel better when we earn them and so my senior year I remember there's exercises where basically was called shark and so what it was was I weighed about I weighed 85 pounds that was the least weight you had to be to qualify to be varsity and so all the wrestlers were cutting weight and here's Nick stuffing his face trying to gain weight I'm chugging Gatorades before weigh-ins just so I can be eligible for varsity my senior year and so I wrestled 106 106 pounds so that means that the everyone that I was wrestling was 20 pounds heavier than me because I was 85 pounds and so the exercise would be basically there'd be four wrestlers in a circle and there would be one guy in the middle and that guy had to get five takedowns or else he just kept beating up for the whole practice well guess he sucks at getting taken out the guy with no legs in one arm right so you know they put me in this exercise and already in my head I know like dude like I never wrestled like I never did it like I've only watched my brother and so there was moments where I'd be in that circle for 30 minutes just straight getting my butt kicked by all these guys slammed down picked up and there was one point where you know I one of the mat crying like I broke down mentally and I remember my coach came up to me and he was super jacked and intimidating he got down on my level he's like you think I don't cry son and in my head I'm like dude you don't cry like look at you but he's like dude like I just want to let you know that like you going out there and playing full-out it's it's it's motivating all the guys regardless and that's what I realized that you know even in those low moments of getting my butt kicked and I'm pouring sweat I'm laying in other people's sweat but if I can look over to my friends and crack a smile that that will just motivate them and drive them so it was kind of like you know the accountability group but if someone was down we'd lift them up and if I was down people would lift me up and that's how I got through wrestling because super hard and my senior year I was able to be the 106 pound varsity wrestler for my high school which was like at the time the app vine came out so I was making vine videos and I went from like you know unconfident kid to like a million followers on vine in a varsity wrestler out of like nowhere and and I was just like God like look what I look what I accomplished but the wrestling just showed me how much I could push myself physically and mentally and when I was on the mat that it was just one-on-one and I want you know I if I lost I lost like I went out what I would a battle like I didn't lose easily like there was in wrestling after the the season you either go into districts and then regions if you win districts you go in the region if you win regions you go in the states it's all like independent it's not team and so I wrestled I remember I wrestled a region placer and in wrestling you either get pinned or you lose by a decision or a tech fall tech fall means that they maxed out on points so they took you down so many times well this kid had to beat me in a tech fall because he couldn't pin me and so like focusing on our strengths like the one thing I was really good at was my neck bridge so like I would practice like I would sit and practice and I'd have my coaches mole on my head and I continuously pick my head up because I wanted to figure out a way where I don't give up the max amount of points like how am I gonna bring the most value to the team while I'm gonna stay off my back because I see these other guys going through their back and giving up full six points if I can just stay off my back I'm pretty valuable like and so I would I would strengthen my neck and so in this match I'm versing this region qualifier and I hear his coach on the line like pin and stick on stick what are you doing and he just couldn't do it and he was so pissed off and he had to beat me with points and that just made me feel good like regardless that I lost I gave my best and I didn't give up the full amount of points and so just focusing on my strengths because if I always focus on like no I don't have legs and I'll have an arm and I wouldn't I wouldn't be where I was if I always just focus on that mm-hm and I think there's something else in there that's powerful which is that you developed strengths so knowing that okay there are certain things I'm not gonna be able to do maybe I'm never gonna be the takedown champion but I can actually strengthen my neck yeah and so finding ways to be extraordinary I think is something that a lot of people don't focus on they and it's weird it's like if you have this I talk about it with the inner city so I worked with a lot of inner city kids and the inner city breaks most of the people that it touches but every now and then you get a jay-z who has made far more extraordinary because of the hardship Richard Branson talked about how he thinks part of what made him successful was that he had dyslexia and so he was like I was just trying to compensate for that and maybe I overshot the mark and I thought that's actually really interesting these disadvantages they diminish most of the people that encounter them but some people who have the mindset like you have they find ways to turn that into the strength to find ways that ok I can do something that other people can't do they put all their energy into getting extraordinary at that thing yeah and then that's what you know gives them that confidence it lifts them up I think it's a really extraordinary way to look at life now taking this notion of I don't want to play at being a wrestler I actually want to be a wrestler so I want my friends to go hard on me and I don't want out of the center of the shark game until I earn my way out how does that play out in life for you now like we said before like I know everything's gonna be hard and I feel like when like even now kids or some people if they quit because things are hard they just haven't done uncomfortable things enough they haven't got out of the comfort zone enough and experience you know what that discomfort is and so now for me it's it's just I know everything's gonna be challenging and like the camp but how thing like people say you know may-maybe mindset mumbo-jumbo but like the majority of not only entrepreneurs but human beings like we start off with can't like the majority of people are like oh you can't do this because this this is this and this and it's like humans are very disempowering creatures like if we don't catch your thoughts if we don't catch your patterns if you don't catch the things that come out of our mouth if they're negative like we need to switch that and so now me like my guys everything is how like how are we gonna do this how how are we gonna you know get to this problem and let's let's reverse engineer everything that's how I do it now is just figuring out you know what is our strengths that's the one thing I realize like I'm 23 years old and you know starting a company I didn't go to college so I'm learning as I go and that that's the whole thing is like I'm a student of the game and I realized that I only know what I know and I'm only 23 and there's so much to learn and I'm just going to learn by throwing myself in the waters and like figuring out how to swim and so especially in business the one thing I realized is like a good leader puts people where they excel you know they put people where they prosper and so it's like figuring out like what are your strengths and what are you good at and let's put people there and then like delegate or outsource your weaknesses and I think it's funny because in the school systems it's total opposite it's actually like what are your weaknesses let's go work on this and then like entrepreneur ship is like let's double down on her strengths and like outsource our weaknesses and so I think that's a crazy concept because I wasn't very good at school and I know you weren't very good at school until you applied with that with that passion behind it but like I I always just had limiting beliefs that I wasn't smart and wasn't good enough but now like I'm RIA taching a better meaning to like learning and like self education and so like reading more books and realizing like all the knowledge is here and I just need to apply myself and actually apply myself into something that I enjoy or something that we're focusing on and so I've kind of like you know got it got over that like the old me of I suck at school too like I'm just gonna read books and like write notes and I'm gonna learn that way and that's how I'm gonna ride like I'm not gonna have like a pain behind learning also realizing like communication wise through through your people like the behavioral assessments and how you operate because you know communication is key that's the one of the core values in our company is like transparent communication like the only way we're gonna work through something is if we openly communicate about how you feel I don't care if you're pissed off at me I don't care if you hate me in the moment like I need a know so we can work through this yeah that dad to me is I think the most interesting thing about your personality is the search for truth and I'll say that it's the same thing that I find interesting about your approach to wrestling it's a search for truth I actually want to be good I don't want to yeah go out on the mat against a real competitor only to find out you guys have been taking it easy on me that's it's not fun first of all and two it's not a way to actually grow and improve yeah like realizing like you know you know the saying the world the world's happening for you and not to you but like my whole thing is like the victim mentality like I went from victim to victor realizing like we can play off of every situation like right now we're floating through plane energy and like someone comes up to you and calls you a name like it's up to you whether you act in a negative way or a positive way and like people are pissed off that they're in traffic but you realize that you woke up today and you're breathing like I want people to be like woah because it's like the Charlie Brown effect you know like your mom tells you to do your homework you like yeah your dad tells you to do your homework look and then uncle Nick comes over I'm let's do your homework and like yeah like ho doing homeworks the coolest thing it takes a different person from a different walk of life with a different perspective or really break through that barrier especially through all the priming right no matter how long you've been priming and programming your brain like it takes someone to come in and just boom just throw some perspective and totally break through that wall get you to look at the world differently so I want people to realize like you know Nelson Mandela has this quote in life I don't lose only win or learn like if people can realize like so many people think like they've lost but like if you just pull one piece of one one piece of information that's good weather is a different perspective extracting knowledge a different way to go about life a different way to not fall in your face like that's winning and so if I just want people to realize like they have everything inside of them to do whatever they need to do you know over the 23 years of my life I've realized that it's not this it's not this physical body you know people can see me on the street and be like wow look how disabled that guy is an oblate boy have you seen your mindset like have you seen the way you operate like have you have you seen the way that you react to situations that you're pissed off in traffic that you think the world is happening to you like I'm not disabled like you're handicapped and the let people know that like the biggest and baddest people are handicapped and crippled by the limiting beliefs the things that they tell themselves and that's why I say the biggest disability is a bad mindset it's not this body and so that that's how I want to shift people's perspective is realizing like man this guy's got no legs in one arm but he's doing all these amazing things and letting people know like you have everything inside of you to do whatever you need but you need to you need to get this right your operating system your computer system through the simulation that we live in whatever it may be yeah one thing you talk about which I find really interesting and I don't hear a lot of people talk about this it is my particular obsession which is values that your value system is gonna guide your behavior it's gonna be the thing that you chase how do you think about that what are the values that you hold are there universal values that you think people should hold if they want to have an empowering mindset what does that look like yeah so my values actually changed shout out to the og when I went to one of Tony's seminars so you know when I met my guys and we created the company they've they've went to Tony Robbins seminars they volunteered and I'm like dude you need to go see this guy and so the one thing that I've realized is like the the core value or the the things people need is like significance like people that are significant driven and uncertainty and certainty and and what I've realized is that I replace you know maybe significance with my number one core value is contribution the majority of people immediately think like money like Oh giving money but like there are so many ways that you can contribute whether that's you know nice shoes are you talking about this I was like I may not have legs but those are great shoes you know there's so many ways we can contribute and I realized that you know you talk about success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure right like being successful but not being fulfilled I mean you know you know I know that we've been around so many people with mass amounts of money and there's still something missing because their core values aren't aligned they're not aligned with their purpose and so I move contribution to my top core value and so now any way it can help I've realized that I'm just like my dad and I like to I get fulfilled through giving people experiences that I don't think they could ever have before another core value mine is longevity I'm not here for quick fixes you know a lot of people in the Entrepreneurship world they're you know you're you're growing up the day and age that we live in everyone's looking for quick fixes what can I get out of this person what's the value you know and and for me I'm here for the long game you know how can we continuously help each other build because like winners don't hate on other winners you know we just want to see other people win and so how can I just provide longevity relationships and nurture those relationships I think that you know in business relationships are like key right like just like everything and so how can i nurture those relationships so contribution and longevity where my big switches and also being being a student of the game is like a core value and personally and professionally and being a student of the game what that means is like you are always in the mode of like I can learn something from every situation whether that person's like the janitor the CEO right but that requires you to drop your ego and so I also learned about ego and how that take control and so like stood in the game mentality is like you dropping your ego realizing like I only know what I know and I'm here to learn from every experience whether I don't like it whether I do like it like I used to hate constructive criticism but then I realize it's like one of the most powerful things and like that's my ego getting getting in the way and saying like oh I'm too good for someone to say that like no you're not like dude you're only 20 to 23 years old like what do you know like kind of just putting myself back down to earth and being like dude just be a sponge what are you like when you're trying to get your ego out of the way how do you conceptualize that versus confidence you've talked a lot about confidence I think very powerfully but how do you balance those two because I think if I'm honest I think people need an ego but I violently agree that if you don't know how to set it aside if you don't know how to be open you're in real trouble so how do you find the confidence the sense of self the you know the almost like the gravitas to be able to walk into a big situation and feel up to the task and at the same time be the sponge who listens to everybody it's a perfect example so when I had the opportunity to speak for Toni's leadership for the kids I went into the green room this is a perfect example it's crazy I went to the green room and the emcee I never met him before I don't know if he's ever met me I don't act like him anyone ever known me like I don't care right and so I go in there and you know I'm confident in my ability to go out and crush the stage like I was already peak state like I'm ready like I'm ready to pump this up right and so I go into the green room they have a trampoline and I'm like jumping on it like doing my thing and the emcee comes in and I looked at him and I said you know we meet each other and I said hey man I said do you do you have any advice and I just want to hear his thoughts like what you know what can you tell me from your experience of being in front of the kids already from today I'm see like I just want to learn and like that's the thing like I was I was already confident my ability but my ego like I dropped my ego and realized like there's still some something you can learn from this guy like I would never just check him off and so you know he got down in my love was like yeah like he was so happy to like that's the other thing like people are always scared to ask questions or ask for knowledge like people love that like people want to feel like they're needed and they want to give their knowledge to you that makes people feel good and so I was like hey man you know you have any advice for me and he's like a lot of energy and great storytelling and in my head like I got you know I got that's my confidence but my ego was that was the balance of like I know I have great storytelling and I know I have great energy I'm gonna burn this down but Who am I to say that I can't learn from that guy and that was kind of that was does that make sense like that was my balance of like I'm confident my ability like I'm good like I didn't have to ask that guy for help but like Steven on the game baby like I got it I gotta ask everyone whether whether he said something to me and I was didn't even resonate and I was like thank you so much for your timing and your knowledge like that's how I balance it was just like realizing that yeah I do have confidence but there's always room to improve and learn so what is that path to confidence that's interesting to you so I'm a huge believer in what I call physiological hooks I believe any mental state maybe not any mental state there are many profound and foundational mental states that you can learn to achieve by addressing your physicality you're alluding to one right now what is the path that you walk people through if they really don't have confidence how do you help them get it yeah so when I was that kid in high school who didn't have confidence you know I was setting I was setting these little goals so I want to become a wrestler well first I wanted amputate my arm so I amputate my arm and I did it and I was like dude you did it like you got past this hurdle boom and then you know you're not only physically appalled yourself but you mentally applauded yourself like good job you know you kept that promise and then I want to become a wrestler and I did that and I was like well let's see if we can push it to you know varsity wrestler and I became a varsity wrestler and this is just like you know ed talks about it too is that keeping that relationship you have within yourself and like so many people are trying to seek validation from other people they're trying to be working on relationships with girls or trying to you know seek validation from other things and Instagram and materialistic things and when the biggest relationship that they should be working on is the one within themselves that's what everybody needs to be working on like once really fast so I want to push you there so how how does one work on the relationship with themselves yeah start little so for for someone who se is not in shape I say you know fitness was a huge thing for me now it's a staple of my life it's something that has instilled so much incompetence in me because I wasn't I wasn't comfortable my skin the one thing I realized is like I can't change no legs in one arm but I can't get a six-pack you know I can feel a little bit more comfortable my body well if I get if I get in shredded and people are looking at my muscles maybe they're not looking at my finger in my weird arm or whatever I thought at that time and so I say start little you know say that is I'm gonna wake up 15 minutes earlier this whole week and you do it boom like great job or I'm gonna I'm gonna do yoga I'm gonna go to the gym you know this amount of time so I'm gonna eat healthy whatever those little goals are for you start little and then workers work your way up because like humans love the feeling of progress and I've realized looking back at my days like my lowest days my most like darkest days are the days where like I'm sitting around too long and I'm not doing much I'm not moving the needle forward in any of my life I'm kind of being like a bum and so I always tell people it's a good thing I have one finger the one finger technique and that is doing one thing today that you was gonna evolve you into a better human being and that could be a big thing but it could be a small thing too like knowledge like it could be I've read 10 pages of a book today and I'm volved you know I learned a little bit more than I did today or I asked that question I learned something like people need to start small whatever area you're at in your life would just start small so I I would tell people to set these little micro goals set these little micro goals and just commit and then like every time you don't every time you commit and you don't follow through you're diminishing yourself and like your self integrity the value like how do you value yourself like how do you want to show up like do you want to like if I told you I was gonna show up here and I didn't show up here like that's terrible like I just diminished not only my self integrity with myself with you as well my word and so like if we're viewing ourselves it's the most important thing we're like our body our temple like don't diminish your self value if you say you're gonna commit to something follow through and I promise you to feel so much better on the other side because you followed through like wow I actually did what I said it was gonna do like oh my god it's amazing what do you do maybe the right word when you don't follow through with the way you said you were gonna do it's kind of like recalibrate you know like okay well what did I do wrong and and maybe that goal was too big do you punish yourself at all I think there there is a point where you can set consequences you know if I don't do this and I got to write a check to someone I don't like or you know there there could be consequences and if you find yourself the person that always committing and do railing then add consequences you know you know like and and add rewards like for for the things that you do accomplish like say you're gonna go to the gym thirty days straight and you do it for thirty days straight go to the spa let go do something go go treat yourself but I think if you're the person that you know commit to something and you continues to derail add like a time limit on it and add a consequence maybe manipulate yourself and say well this is a consequence I'm gonna have to read 30 book 30 pages of a book but really it's benefitting you you know and so like do it like if you need the guardrails and add consequences but if you if you're continuously just ripping through it I would say just you know add those rewards but it's also okay to say like wow maybe that goal was massive like let's sit let's set leave this little stepping-stone so I can get to that goal don't like totally beat yourself up if you don't do it but like realize like maybe you need to set little smaller smaller intentions or smaller steps random question for you what are your thoughts on statics I saw some video footage of you learning to use legs and you started using prosthetic legs when you were very young yeah but I don't see you use them often yeah it's a great question so when I was a baby they actually put me in fake legs butt legs that didn't move on me back then I don't know if they had the technology but basically the prosthetics the legs would help me sit sit sit upright in a car seat or in the grocery store and it's funny just just the tail end my my siblings used to pay a prank and so my full name is Nicholas and so they would call me Nick and my legs Aliss and so like in the grocery store they would like pick me up I was like no I want Nick no I want Nick and then they'd rip me apart my legs in front of people and people I got you know just ripped his legs off and so they would always do like you know funny stuff like that and they also and my parents also gave me an arm and I would always fling the arm off I didn't like it and so I never liked it and there got to a point where I was probably 12 13 14 where you know I would be on the bus and I'd see kids riding their bike and I go whoa why can't I ride a bike and I go home to my parents and I'm like dad like I want to ride a bike and you know what do you do like when you like don't really have an answer for your son and they eventually got me like a three wheel bike that I could ride but I was like you know I would I would have those little hissy fits some time to go home like why can't I run around and why can't I ride a bike and why am i short like what is going on you know and so after you know years years of like the the progression of technology and a lot of prosthesis play pit places were turning me down I finally finally found a place when I was like 13 or 14 and with prosthetics like so for my legs I don't have much quad probably only have a couple inches of quad and so the least amount of leg you have the heart of the prosthetic is and so we finally found people that were able to fit me and so they fit me and at first they fitted me they were called stubbies and so basically they were just like stilts and so probably like a couple couple inches long no knees and I would just I would stand up in him and I finally was standing up in him and I could walk around and I would strengthen like my lower back and I that's also the thing I realized is like all the muscles that go into play of you guys simply standing up like your obliques your abs your lower back your your quads your but like all these stuff that I didn't know goes in and of you guys standing up and you guys may not know it because just natural right and so finally it came to the point where I had my had full legs like they fitted me with full legs and they had knees in him and it's super expensive technology and they sat me up and I'm like oh my God look out tolling and that was the first thing I realized it's like how cool how tall can you make me like we can make it as tall as you want I was like no I want to stay pretty low to the ground I don't even know how to fall how do you guys fall with legs like I just didn't know anything right and I can like I could like stand up in the legs and like walk with like a walker and like my lower back board fire and like all these muscles and I was a chubby kid like I wasn't in shape then and it was the first thing like physically where I kind of told myself like dude like you're not strong enough the legs were seven and a half pounds each and I don't have much quad and back then it was it wasn't inch you know shape and so like trying to move these legs were just like so hard and so you know me I wanted to get in the legs of run like you know you just run right away and Here I am I'm walking with a walker I'm like I don't like this you know and so was the one thing I realized like physically like you need to be you need to be stronger for this and so it's I love that you asked me this question is because now so I stopped using legs I told my parents like just slow me down like I you see when we run around like I'm run around flip tires like this has slowed me down like let's just put them aside they'll be really expensive flower vases for now and like if if I happen to get back into them and that you know I have to thank my parents for being like super easy and not being so upset with like what do you mean we just bought these super expensive legs and you don't want to wear them so shout out to my parents for that but the cool thing now is getting into fitness and being the body builder I am now like I haven't really talked about this much but low-key like I'm always strength I'm strengthening everything and one day like I'm gonna get back into my legs and shock the world I'm gonna totally agree where can people find you yeah people can find me my long my last name is pretty long mix Antonis tasso but on instagram facebook youtube linkedin if you type in Nick Santo I'm the guy with no legs one arm there's not many people that like me but I got the really long last name and you like I said you can find me on all those platforms and my books on Amazon victim to Victoire wherever they can find me I'm the unicorn guy that doesn't really look like everyone else I love it what is the impact that you want to have on the world the impact I want to have in the world right the echo like some people have you know echoes that last couple weeks and months like I want you know when I when I die I just want people to be like man you know that guy gave everything he could for other people like he just laid it out all laid it out all on the line like just gave everything he could and you know showed people that you know he was right that the biggest disability is a bad mindset and that when I when I passed like I just want people to continuously be the victors of their life and realized that life is all about perspective the the lens the lens we look through you know like you can have that victim you can look at things and be the victim or you can look at things and see all the positive in the world and the fact that we're we're literally spinning on a rock in in in the universe what we call the universe we don't really know what it is but we're literally spinning on a rock right now and we have the ability to be conscious and and experience the human experience which we is wild like we're actually live and like right now as we're talking like we can't feel the blood that's rushing through our left ear right now because that's just life like life is absolutely wild and when people you know I always say if people can just reflect like at least once once a day on the fact that like we're on this rock and it's spinning around and we don't really know what's going on but we're here like you'd be you'd be a little less you know you'd be hesitant to complain about traffic or the fact that your leg hurts because something else in the grand scheme of the universe is going on it's way worse than what you have going on even me a man with no legs I'm going on I ain't got no problems I'm gonna play saying thank you so much being on the show was incredible guys check this man out and if you haven't already be sure to subscribe until next time my friends be legendary take care dope dude that was wicked man of course what's up impactive is if you want to acquire new skills or improve the ones you already have then you're going to love this as you know a huge part of my life is about acquiring skills that have utility and exist in service of something greater than myself and that is why I highly recommend Skillshare Skillshare is an online learning community with over 25,000 classes across more Skills than you can imagine at impact theory we view skills share for things like project management marketing analytics and even for our comic book and today skill share is giving the first 500 people who click on the link in the description to three months to their entire library of courses that's 60 des is access to literally thousands of courses on whatever topics you choose for no money at all you just have to click on the link in the description below and join the classes that work for you and you will be in very good company as one of the seven million people on Skillshare and should you decide to stick around beyond your free trial an annual subscription to Skillshare is less than ten dollars a month that's nothing for a skill that can very well change your life so go ahead and click on the link in the description below to start acquiring those skills today and until next time my friends be legendary to take care it's a pattern I keep of me I always do a little extra I always go the extra inch and the quickest and easiest place to do it is the gym because I can always grab one more way in one more set and it is what it does it shifts your identity

Channel: Tom Bilyeu

Views: 317,360

Keywords: Tom Bilyeu, Impact Theory, ImpactTheory, TomBilyeu, Inside Quest, InsideQuest, Tom Bilyou, Theory Impact, motivation, inspiration, talk show, interview, motivational speech, Nick Santonastasso, Nick Santonastasso & Tom Bilyeu

Id: rc8offk7Mho

Length: 44min 22sec (2662 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 20 2019