From Paralysis to Purpose with Robert Paylor

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Welcome back to your daily chocolate. I will freely admit that I am not the type to usually highlight sayings in books, because to be perfectly honest, I don't usually read a book. twice when i'm done i give it away to somebody else to read but my guest today robert paler who wrote a book called paralyzed to powerful

made me actually learn how to highlight in my Kindle. He's got so many great sayings and missives and perspectives on life. Not to... minimize the challenges that you might be going through, make things look rosy, but to really help you push through it. He is a former collegiate rugby player who was paralyzed during a national championship game back in 2017. The doctors told him he would never walk again.

But through relentless determination and an unbreakable spirit that you're going to hear all about, he defied those odds and he now walks and inspires millions with this story. As I mentioned, he's the author of Paralyzed to Powerful. He also does a lot of speaking, and he's a powerful advocate for resilience and possibility. I think you're really going to enjoy this episode, so please welcome Robert Paylor.

Robert, welcome to your daily chocolate. Oh my gosh, you have got a story to tell and I'm so excited to kind of dig into it. Oh my goodness, I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me, Patty. You are welcome. So I've read your book, Paralyzed to Powerful, and I would recommend it highly to anyone who thinks they're having a bad day and wants to be inspired. Tell us briefly what happened in May of 2017.

Yeah, so it's funny how everybody's got their days, right? You know, we got our birthdays, our anniversaries. Well, May 6th is a really big day for me. So I'm playing over at UC Berkeley on their men's rugby team. for context this is an extremely successful program we're fighting for our 31st national championship on that day and since then the programs had 34 total national championships so you can look at any team or any sport

in the entire world. And I think the only team that has more success than us is the Harlem Globetrotters. Their games are rigged. We're not playing the Washington Generals every week. So here I am competing. on this team and not only that but starting on this team in the national championship things are just going my way and it's a good time to be me and we're playing arkansas state

It's very early on in this game that I'm competing in a mall, which is when the big guys group up in a single unit, we start pushing to advance the ball. And I was a big guy, 6'5", 245 pounds. Like, this is my moment. and it was during this that their number eight binds me in a headlock so he's got my chin kind of pinned down to my chest yeah totally illegal in rugby automatic yellow or red card you do that you're gone but the ref doesn't call it

And I think I'm just going to keep moving forward. We're going to score. Like we're a minute and a half into this game, national championship. Let's go, Robert. Give it everything. And as I do that, another player chomps me down by my legs. so i start falling down and this guy is just twerking me down by the neck i can't get my head up i remember i just close my eyes i grip my teeth i feel the snap in my neck my forehead slams to my chest it gets pinned there literally nose in my sternum

And I opened my eyes. I didn't lose consciousness for a second, but I am completely paralyzed, completely disconnected from my body about the collarbone down. And my thoughts ran wild. Oh, yeah.

I knew immediately this was bad. This was really bad. And it's hard to even describe the feeling like when your life changes that much. One way I've tried to explain it. is if we just closed our eyes, open them right now, and we found ourselves on the other side of the world. It's just like my life is unrecognizable right now. There's no way that this can be happening. In a split second. Split second.

But essentially the rest of my life just kind of played out in my head where I'm thinking, here I am, 20 years old, got my whole life ahead of me. You know, my physicality.

my body is so rooted in my purpose and where i derive real like happiness and meaning in my life now it's gone and i just saw a reality where i'm gonna be in a chair and i'll probably get pointed out the window just to look outside and then my mom's gonna spoon feed me oh gosh and then one day she's gonna die and then i'll just have some caretaker essentially keeping me alive until i just die alone and without any meaning you went right there in that split second or you didn't think

I can't feel things, but maybe I'll get better or it's temporary. Yeah, I went right there. You went deep. Right there. Okay. Yeah, because I had seen stories like this before, and I went in my mind to the story of Eric Legrand. who played football at Rutgers. And he was in special teams on a kickoff play. He missed time to tackle and he broke his neck. And he has the heart of a warrior. Just like incredible.

positivity and perseverance he's amazing but he deals with significant paralysis he's a quadriplegic and i'm thinking that's gonna be me maybe worse yeah i i'm i'm just everything all my dreams and my goals in my life they're gone and you know i was kind of it's kind of funny what sort of gave me a little bit of relief after that

was when i was in the ambulance so the med staff ran out they didn't even stop the play by the way like they're continuing they kept playing yeah yeah they're playing around my body i'm like a corpse on the field i'm yelling as loud as i can

but the ref allowed us to continue competing that's rugby for you oh my goodness but like horrible enactment or lack thereof of the rules i mean if someone would have landed on me in those moments I definitely would have had a more severe injury. I probably would have died to be honest. So thank goodness, you know, medical staff comes out, they're doing their tests. Can you feel this? Can you move this? Everything's a no, I can't do anything.

my parents out there on the field oh my goodness saddest moment of my life right looking up at your mom probably in tears oh yeah i the only thing i could say is i love you more than anything in the world So then I get into the ambulance and they're giving me the rundown. We're going to bring you to the hospital. We're going to do our tests and see what's going on here. Do you have any questions? And I say, am I going to walk again?

This is my question. And he said, I don't know. And honestly, that was a little bit of a relief for me. I was like, it's like that dumb and dumber question. So you're saying there's a chance. Right. It wasn't a no. No, it wasn't a no. Like, I'm holding out some hope here, which eventually gets crushed. I do a CT scan, X-ray, MRI. Doctor comes back. Bad look on his face. Very matter-of-factly, he says, Robert, you will never walk again.

You will never move your hands and we're going to do our best so that one day you can do something like pick up a piece of pizza and bring it to your face. And if you can just feed yourself, you made it. You beat all the odds. And then he doesn't stop there. He recommends surgery.

to me the spinal fusion surgery so he explains that the disc in between my c5 and c6 vertebrae ruptured into my spinal cord I'm fracturing at my C5 and my C6 vertebrae so that damage that was done to my spinal cord will only continue to increase unless we perform this emergency spinal fusion surgery which essentially casts your vertebrae together permanently.

So he says my best chance at stability recovery, but I'm like, there's always some kind of, but he says it's a potentially life-threatening surgery. And I have about 30 minutes to an hour to make this decision of whether or not. I want to go in.

And my faith is really important to me. And in this moment, like I'm like, I need to really connect with that. I need God here. I'm Catholic. So I wanted to ask the priest go over and I received the sacrament of anointing the sick, which is essentially like receiving your.

last rites yeah and i call my spiritual director at the time to tell him about what happened and see if he can get a priest there he says yes but he gives me this piece of advice before he hangs up the phone that just changed everything for me and it gave me so much power in what should have been a really powerless situation and he said robert throughout this journey there's gonna be so many things that you can't control but the one thing you'll always have control over is your mindset right so

your positivity your ambition your willingness to wake up every day and take this challenge on is up to you and this injury can't take that away from you so i go back to that moment i think i didn't have a lot I did not have some doctors saying that everything was going to be okay. I didn't have these signs of promise showing up or I certainly didn't have statistics on my side.

But I had that internal decision to keep moving forward. I didn't have to allow these circumstances and these emotions to determine my responses. I alone was and am in control. of my mindset so i really leaned on that and they gave me some clarity to go into this surgery so my brother came in he held the phone in front of me i called my best friends i told them i might not see them again i love them

We wrote out a message to a religious retreat group I did in high school and to my rugby teammates. The priest came, received the sacrament, said my prayers, rolled into the operating room. I closed my eyes. They put that gas mask on me. I'm counting down from 100. I think I got to 97. Right. Yeah, and that concluded that day, May 6th of 2017. And you did almost die.

I did. So the surgery was extremely successful. They did a great job. And I'm honestly hoping I'm going to wake up from this thing. Everything's going to be okay. They're going to be like, hey, Robert, we just noticed this like kink in the cord. You're all good. Don't forget to leave a tip on the way out. We hit reset.

yeah right yeah you have to turn it off and then turn it back on again that's over it's like computer no so i wake up and it was not a dream this is very real and it was very early on that i contracted pneumonia like two or three days in which is dangerous for anybody right but was really dangerous for me because i couldn't cough my diaphragm was mostly paralyzed so

If something got stuck in my windpipe, there was nothing I could do. All my might, I would try to fill up my lungs and push out a firm cough. It didn't do anything. It was just like a soft breath. Wow.

It became a real problem. And every three hours, a respiratory therapist would come in. I would breathe in these fumes that would help loosen the mucus off the walls of my lungs. And then we would start to do what was kind of like chest compressions really they'd put their hands right below my sternum on my diaphragm and just and push down and i'd time it out like with me trying to cough to generate some force but i mean it was like i would fill up

like a cup of phlegm in some of these sessions i mean it was really ominous just how sick i was getting so quickly and then beyond that i couldn't swallow so i couldn't eat And I broke my nose so many times playing rugby that it's all jagged in there, but we needed to put a tube up my nose and into my stomach.

It took three days getting it in there. I don't know if you ever did one of those COVID tests where it's like tickling your brain. Yeah. I'm like that times a million. That's not tickling though. I mean, you were in a lot of pain. It's the most excruciating thing I ever went through. I mean, it felt like being a prisoner of war, just like torture, essentially. But it was one of those things where it's, if I don't eat, I'm going to die.

So there is no question. Like I just have to sit here and take it. And eventually it got in there, but. It really felt like death was with me in that room just waiting for me to quit. And I had multiple people say, Robert, this is really bad. Some people say, I don't know if you're going to make it. Yeah.

But I did get through it. And it was that control your mindset thing that just kept coming back to me. If it's 3am or 3pm, if I have a breathing treatment, I have to do it. There is no choice. and i'm able to do that all i have to do is just say yes and get through it and then just kind of lived for that next moment and eventually i beat it so i was in that hospital for about a month then i get transferred over to denver colorado place called craig hospital

incredible facility. They specialize in spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury. and they just had such a different outlook like i show up and these patients like they all have smiles on their faces and here they are like paraplegic quadriplegics people who just had like half of their head caved in just filled with optimism and energy and they're like robert you're gonna love it here and you're like

want to grab him by the shoulders and be like are they drugging you yeah blink twice if you need me to help you get out of here it was just crazy but this sounds like one of these cult retreats right exactly exactly yeah you drink this kool-aid oh my god

it's so funny but the staff they lived with this energy you could tell they showed up every day and they knew that they had the ability to make a difference in someone's life right now yeah and it was so infectious i had my conversation with my doctor

that I have an inpatient and he's Robert yeah what happened to you is terrible but we don't know where you're going to progress from here I don't have a magic crystal ball under my desk I can't predict the future you might walk out of these doors one day and you very well might not but we're going to give you everything that modern science and medicine has to optimize your recovery. You have the full strength and support of this team. And it was like that perfect approach that he had there.

And you already had the mindset. Yes. And you were young and athletic and physically fit. So, I mean, you had all of that going for you. Yeah. And they leaned into that. They're like, use that, Robert. You've got these positives going for you. You're young. Your nervous system is still developing. That's a really positive sign. Your body's healthy, so you can handle the treatments that are going to come your way. they will be difficult and then beyond that it's like that mental component

Yeah, this is going to be the challenge of your life. You didn't come out here for a vacation to go look at the Rockies. We're going to put you to work. And we did. I mean, it was eight to nine hours of really intense rehab a day. But you're also used to that because the workout that you. did for your rugby was daily and intense. I didn't want it any other way. More the same.

Yeah. And you know, it's funny, like I wanted to empty that tank as a rugby player. If I went to the gym and I worked out and the next day I wasn't sore. I was like pissed off. I was upset. Like I wasted a workout, you know, why am I not sore? So I'm like taking that into this new approach where it's like every day, every workout matters. I'm going to give it everything I've got. And it paid off. I mean, I went from no motion at all and eventually I could twitch a finger and twitch a toe.

I spent about a year in that hospital. And when I left, it was April 13th of 2018. I walked out of the hospital doors in that walkroom. Oh my gosh. I did the impossible. And then I went back to Cal two, two more years there in the house school of business. I graduated. I walked across their stage, 15,000 people in Berkeley's Greek theater, just screaming their butts off.

incredible moment and i've continued at my rehab to where i've made almost a full return in my upper body and i know folks can't see Me moving my hands over here, but I'm talking like Italian with my hands. I can walk 500 yards in my walker now. It is just, it's a miracle. It's amazing. It is a miracle. It is. I mean, like we were talking before this, like if I walked one yard, it would have been a miracle. And to go 500 with just all this purpose and optimism is just amazing. And now...

i've made it my life's mission to share this story and help people overcome and what's paralyzing them because we all have something that paralyzes us and that mental emotional level and boy do i as well but it's funny like this injury took a lot away from me

But it gave me this story and this ability to reach people and help people in a way that I wouldn't have had if I didn't break my neck. What a crazy journey, but one that I'm very grateful for. And I just love being able to share it now. So you mentioned miracles. You actually experienced a miracle on your one-year anniversary. And I think in their book, you said it wasn't what you wanted. But it was what you needed. Tell us more about that. Yeah, so I hit this one-year anniversary.

May 6, 2018, I'm in Lourdes, France. So for those who aren't familiar with Lourdes, it is one of the most visited religious sites in the world. And it's a place that's known of miraculous healing.

there's been i believe it's at 71 recognized miracles now by the catholic church of really just completely unexplicable things like people come in stage four cancer tumors and they go back they do their scans they're gone things like that is amazing and i get invited by the order of malta to go on this pilgrimage with about 25 000 people from all over the world all different countries

coming together with their own ailments, their own injuries in search and seeking healing. And for me, I'm really like, I'm hoping for this miracle to be completely honest. Like I'm putting my full faith in this thing that. I'm going to go over here. I'm going to bathe in these waters, which is kind of like where the healing happens. And I'm going to walk out of it. And it was about, I think it was like 13 hours in the air from LA to Lords. I didn't sleep a second.

I mean, I'm sitting there like I got tears going down my face, praying just, I mean, desperate. It's hard to really fathom just how badly you want to be able to move your body when you lose that ability. Right. i'm praying really hard and eventually i get to this moment where i'm going in the baths i'm saying my prayers and i get lowered in and they're brushing this water on me it's freezing it's like it's snow melt so it's super cool

And I'm like, I got these like spasms going and my legs are like shaking. And it was crazy. I get up and... i'm not physically healed like nothing changed in that perspective but there's this real internal work that was going on that you couldn't see on the surface and some of it was in perspective the first component so

I'm here looking around, talking to people who are like, Robert, I have stage four cancer tumors everywhere. I'm measuring my time in months, weeks. Yeah. I've got a beautiful family. What I would give to just have time with that. I'm talking to another person who has ALS, somewhat advanced. He can still walk, but is pretty strained, and his speech is strained as well.

And he says, Robert, I can move less and less every day into an eventual reality where I won't be able to move anything. I won't be able to speak, breathe. I might not be able to open my eyes, but I'll be totally clear and conscious.

in my mind of what's going on same thing is i got a beautiful family i love so much what i would give to just have time and i'm thinking i have gone and i still go through a lot But my life's guaranteed to the same extent as any of us. I don't worry if I'm going to wake up the next day. These guys would give anything to be in my situation. Right. And I was talking about this.

perspective that was really growing in me through witnessing these people's struggles i was talking with a priest we were having a beer over at a bar there in france and we started talking about this phrase compared to what so they like man I'm tired, but compare to what? Or I go through a lot, but compare to what?

There's so much that I can do and there's so much that I do have. And that is like my favorite saying, favorite chapter, like this good old nugget that you can take from that book is that phrase compared to what? Let's not use it to dismiss our challenges.

I think that's really unhealthy. It'll just ignore the challenge and the challenge will never go away if we do that. But it's just meant to put our challenges into perspective and really have that sincere empathy that acts as a bridge that connects you to the struggles. of others i think in a lot of ways people view comparison in a very negative light what is the saying it's like comparison is the thief of all joy well i think it's just being used wrong i think that's when we're looking up

at the people who seemingly have more than us. It seems like they have everything going on, but we need to spend some more time looking down at the people who would give anything to be in our situation. I think it's a very empowering tool that we can use to help us through adversity. That's the first part. And then the second is we're getting ready. It's the one year anniversary of my injury. It's May 6, 2018.

it's a big day very emotional day for me and we're having breakfast and there's a group of people who are like let's go on the stations of the cross path I had heard earlier that it was extremely inaccessible. It kind of corkscrews up a steep hill. It's gravel roads. It just doesn't work. And they asked, would you want to go?

I'm like, yeah, but look at this. Yeah, exactly. How are we going to do this? And they're like, don't worry about it. We'll make it happen. So there's a group of some volunteers, my mom, the bishop from Sacramento. And then this one other, they call him a lodge, the sick or injured people. And he had just finished a round of chemotherapy. He had cancer and he had a tumor on a nerve.

that controls like the diaphragm so he only had one functioning lung and this guy's super upbeat just loves to joke around but

You could tell he was fighting for his life. You know, he usually had a big bushy unibrow and here he is hairless. He just went through some really rough treatments. And he is in this group pushing me up this hill.

so i have these just incredible people giving me this amazing experience in this beautiful place with also like reflecting on jesus's passion which is you know this very like sacrificial love that we're seeing And at the end of it, there's this kind of cage structure that didn't look accessible at all, but...

my mom and edgar the malade's wife decided they want to go in and see what it is my mom comes out she's got tears coming down her face you have to find a way to get in here and luckily there was another path that was pretty accessible so we were able to make it happen and in there it's beautiful the water is like running along the top of the cave it's dripping down and the focal point is this statue it's a replica of the pieta which is a michelangelo statue it's of mary

holding crucified Jesus in her arms, weeping one arm around Jesus and one arm held up. My mom's there with me crying. I'm doing everything I can to keep it together. Really seeing this.

connection between a mother's love to her son through mary and jesus and everything that my mom has been through with me i mean she spent goodness eight months out with me through that rehab journey she slept on a chair for two months just sleeping in a chair there every second for me and she's just given her whole life to me right and it was everything i could do to keep it together

And then eventually we have kind of like a group meeting with all the malades to talk about our experience. And it gets to me. And for the first time with sincerity, I say, I might never walk again. Like I actually meant it. And I had said it before then, but it was really just to get like PTs off my back and they'll say, vote for the best, but prepare for the worst. I didn't want that. I didn't want that. I was like, I'm not even entertaining that right now.

But in this moment, I really came to terms with that, that I might never walk again. I start crying. I say, but I'm going to live a damn good life and I'm going to be a damn good man because I have these living. angels here around me who will keep me going and just help me experience the fullness of life i have nothing to worry about because i have people who love me yeah and that was my miracle

that regardless of what happens from that physical standpoint, I'm not just going to be okay. I'm going to be more than okay. I'm going to live a very fulfilling life, wheelchair or not. And that was a pretty amazing experience. It was another miracle.

Well, yeah, not many people get to experience that and come away with it. You know, I mean, having not gotten what you thought you were going there for. Yeah. But coming away with more. Yes. More. Yeah. But you, I mean, I don't want to diminish that at all, but you have also had some very inspiring people along your journey. Tell me about Talon. Talon is the most inspiring person that I've ever met. And he's a kid. And so when we first met,

It was at a youth rugby camp over at Jesuit High School in Sacramento where I learned to play rugby. I was playing rugby at Cal at the time and I'd come back to my coach in the summers. Age range is like 10 to 14 years old. And there's Talon. And he played with heart. Everyone loved him, but he was really small. He was definitely the smallest guy out there. And I would give him the ball and pick him up.

so we could go score and have his moments. Imagine me, this D1 athlete, just putting juke moves on 10-year-olds and putting a stiff arm on little Jimmy so Tal can have his moments. We shared a real bond. And fast forward, a little while later, some months later, about a year later when I have my injury. It's five days after my injury and my high school Jesuit is hosting a prayer service for me to pray for my healing and my strength.

And then it's on this day that my father showed me a picture on his phone of someone who I don't recognize, but he is obviously fighting for his life. He's probably about 15 years old. Hair is very white and thin. His body skin and bones. His skin is very pale. And my dad tells me that this kid is Talon. Wow. Talon had stage four cancer. And this picture was accompanied by a caption that his mom wrote. And it read along the lines of...

Tell him what is so badly to be at this prayer service today to pray for Robert But he has to be here in the hospital undergoing chemotherapy And he's wearing his Jesuit rugby shirt that the team gifted him in his first round of chemo. And it's his goal that when he beats his cancer, he wants to play rugby. And Robert inspired him to do that. And she shares this experience that we had, excuse me, together at the camp.

But it closes with this line that's just seared into my soul. And it said, stay strong and keep smiling, Robert. Your strength helps Talon stay strong too. I heard those words. And I wept. I cried like a baby because I realized in that moment that overcoming this injury isn't about me. It's about him. It's about all those people who are inspired when I choose to fight.

another day and when i think about that selfless commitment and who embodies it best it's talon because here he is you know about 15 years old should be in school should be building a foundation that's going to take him into a long life. And he's not thinking about himself. He's not praying for himself. He's praying for me while he's battling stage four cancer. He's thinking of me.

And I just think, what an amazing individual. And this kid fought like heck. So he eventually beats this cancer. He's in remission. He makes it. And he's going back to school. He's doing his thing. And then he has another tumor pop up. It's on his spine this time. Paralyzes him. He can't walk. Doctor tells him he'll never walk again. What does he do? He walks again.

He regains his ability to walk. And he's watching my rehab videos. Well, that's it. He had a great role model on Netflix, didn't he? And a fighter's spirit. I mean, he just would not quit. walks again and then it was probably about four years after his initial diagnosis that he did unfortunately end up passing away

And it wasn't the cancer that got him. It was his lungs collapsed under that radiation treatment to try and get through the lungs to the tumor on his spine. You know, Talon, he died a winner and he died a fighter. and his spirit lives on in me and so many others that will try to live like he did so selflessly and taking what everyone would think is just this horrible curse

and turning into this gift that he can share with others i will spend the rest of my life sharing his story because he has inspired me to be able to walk again and i mean there's not a day that goes by that i don't think about him and what he did with his life. It's amazing. That is amazing. Yeah. And I know one of the lessons that you talked about learning throughout all of this.

is not to delay happiness, waiting for that great achievement that you think is going to change your life. So, I mean, obviously, Talon went after it. even though he had not played high school rugby yet. Tell me a little bit more about how that has manifested in your life.

yeah that that principle of not needing for an achievement to allow yourself to be happy happy yeah yeah because so for me my big achievement that was going to make me happy was walking sure and not like permanently full-time just like taking those first steps no harness just in my walker and walk forward like i just imagined like this adrenaline dump like all that dopamine just pouring on my brain it's gonna be like it's gonna be amazing this is gonna be a high that will just last a lifetime

And I eventually get to this point where it's going to happen. I think it was about eight months after my injury, around October of the next year after my injury.

and i'm like this is the day so i have my team and i have my best buddy in front of me my mom's there too i get up into my walker and then it's like all right rob take that step you know kind of like i'm cautiously lifting that foot i put it forward i plant it and it's like all right the next one and the next one like i went all the way down the basketball court and back and i'm like

I did it. I mean, I did it. This was not supposed to happen. And I'm high fiving my physical therapist, my buddy and my mom are hugging and it's okay. On to your next workout. And I'm like, wait, what? This is it. You know, this is it. This is this moment that I thought was going to give me everything. It just, it was kind of fleeting. And it went. And as amazing as it is to go from that paralysis to being able to walk, things get normalized. And you get used to it and you don't have that.

incredible joy that you have when you first get it. Is that because you're changing the goalpost? Yeah. I mean, you're changing the goalpost and then, you know, like it, yeah, it just gets normalized. It just starts to become like what you do. And so here I am thinking like, wow, there's a lesson there that. If I'm to spend the rest of my life being like, I won't be happy till I'll be wheelchair independent. I could spend my entire life just letting these wonderful things pass me by.

I think that's it's a danger for all of us to avoid. I'll be happy when I'll be happy if this happens. i think we really ought to give ourselves that ability to be happy with the things that we have right now now it's a balance i think goals and ambition are very important we must have that in our lives but not at the expense of having that internal peace and happiness with each day because this injury showed me that life can change very quickly

Life is very fragile. And that's not reason to go put our bubble wrap on before we decide to go drive our car and go to work. It's really a cause for gratitude and to realize how lucky we are. Don't ever let a normal day just pass you by. A normal day is such a wonderful thing. So I think there's a strong lesson there that we all need to really keep track of the things that we have in the current moment and allow ourselves to have that satisfaction because every day. day is a gift.

I love that. And what a great place to kind of end. Not that this story has ended. I truly encourage everybody to go read Paralyzed to Powerful. We'll put the link in the show notes. But, you know, spoiler alert, you're walking. Yeah. And walking a lot. I mean, obviously not totally assistance free, but from the doctor who said, sorry, you'll never walk again to where you are today. More power to you.

to god who's given you strength to all these people who like you said you're living angels yeah it's just what a great story robert thank you it's it's so amazing and what an honor to share it i'm so grateful to you for having me on You are welcome. I always try to end with some rapid fire questions. Yeah, let's do it. Okay. There's a saying, you know, being grateful for everything entitled to nothing. What are you grateful for today?

Oh man, what am I grateful for today? I'm grateful for my wife. I love her so much. She's so amazing. And yeah, she's just, she's always there for me. I'm so grateful for my wife. Well, she's listening to this. I'm sure she'll be happy with that answer. Okay. What or who makes you laugh? Oh, my friends. I want to all shout out my buddy, Tyler Douglas. We have so much fun. We went to an A's game yesterday. We just had a hoot of a time. I love being with my friends.

Awesome. I know you're a fan of Forrest Gump. Do you have a favorite quote? Yes, I do. I do. It's my senior quote. It's in the end of the movie. He's talking to Jenny's grave. and he says i don't know if we're all floating around accidental like on a breeze or if we like if we have purpose in life but i think maybe it's both like maybe it's both having it at the same time do we have that destiny or are we floating around accidentally like on a breeze i love that one

That is perfect. Okay, what is your next audacious goal? Stand up from my couch. That's my big bull. Yep. Yep. I mean, once I can do that, I really just opens up me, me being able to functionally walk in my house. And it's funny, those things are built to just suck you in and keep you better. So I'm working on it, but stand up for my couch. Awesome. And because this is called your daily chocolate, what's your favorite chocolate? Oh my gosh. Can it be like a candy bar? Does that count? Sure.

My workhorse chocolate bar is Snickers. I just love it. I'll sometimes call it a protein bar. I'd call that a protein bar. I love it. So good.

Well, Robert, thank you so much for joining me. I would say I wish you the best, but you don't need it. You've got such great motivation and you're so inspired and inspiring that I have no doubt that you're going to achieve whatever you set your mind to. Thank you. Thank you so much. This made my day. This made my day. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, good. You're welcome. Take care. You know, in Robert's book, he states that he wants stories that uplift.

but they have to begin with struggle before reaching the uplifting part. We've just shared the struggles that he went through and the incredible mindset and faith and determination that it took. to get him where he is today. I love that he says that God gave him this story. So what's your story? What's going to be your audacious goal? is it something as difficult as standing up from the couch who do you need to share this podcast with today is there somebody who's going through a struggle that

just really needs a little bit of inspiration, be sure to share it. As always, we love comments, we love reviews, and certainly check out Robert's book. Paralyzed to Powerful. The links are in the show notes as are his social media. I'm sure he would love for you to follow him on Instagram. Until next time, enjoy.