Mike McCastle: Extreme Athlete, Performance Coach, World Record Holder, 12 Labors Project
Nov 23, 2022, 11:00 AM
The ultimate tour de force of human strength, endurance, mental toughness, and unyielding perseverance. That's what this week's Team Never Quit Podcast guest, Mike McCastle is. Listen in as Mike and Marcus engage in a discussion about Mike's seemingly unbelievable feats he refers to as "labors". Endurance athlete - yes; Multiple world record holder - you know it; In-demand performance coach - for sure; Motivational speaker - of course. After serving 11 years in the U. S. Navy, he founded Twelve Labors Project, a charitable initiative driven by a mission to redefine the limits of human potential while inspiring others to elevate beyond their perceived capacity for greatness. Mike is perennially challenging his own physical and mental limits, and he's not anywhere near done yet. In this podcast, he reveals his upcoming 9th labor, and it will blow you away when you hear it.
Mike's 8 charitable labors he has accomplished so far include:
- A 50k run while wearing a 40lb vest for Cancer Research.
- A 13-mile, 250-pound tire flip for wounded veterans.
- A Rope Climb that equaled the height of Mount Everest - 29,029 feet in 27 hours for Parkinson's Disease Research.
- Breaking the Guinness World Record for 'Most Pull-ups in 24 hours after completing 5,804 pull-ups, while wearing a 30-pound pack to represent the heavy burden of the wounded warrior.
- Pulled a Ford F-150 pickup truck for 22 miles in 19 hours across Death Valley to raise awareness for Veteran Suicide.
- Ran 20 miles per day for 100 consecutive days to heighten awareness of the Veteran Suicide epidemic.
- Pulled a full-size pickup truck for 10 miles through the Arctic Circle.
- Broke the world record for the longest full-body submersion in ice (2 hours and 40 minutes).
In this episode you will hear:
- I basically grew up in a cornfield.
- I went to BUDS (Navy SEAL Training) and blew my knees out. Then I needed to re-find my purpose because my one-man pity party wasn’t working for me.
- My dad’s Parkinson’s started to progress, and one day I came home and he was on the floor. He had had a stroke. I decided to take care of my dad and stop the pursuit of sports. But in my mind, I quit.
- You can fool other people, but you can never fool yourself.
- Things that pull you away from your purpose are those are things behind the doors in your hallway of life. You’re tested, dragged through the fire, and you feel like you're cursed but you still have a choice.
- If you put all your eggs in one basket and when it gets taken away from you, you’re left with nothing. Then who the hell am I?
- I needed to find my purpose again. That’s how The Twelve Labors Project got started. I wanted to create a physical manifestation of the message I wanted to deliver.
- It’s not a weakness to be vulnerable.
- Finding your purpose in life requires risk.
- I don’t give a shit about records. What I care about is “Is this going to deliver my message?” “Are people gonna remember WHY I did it?”
- Reality isn’t what happens to us, it’s our interpretation of what happens to us.
- We're all writing our own stories.
- You cannot only come back after failure, but you can come back stronger after failure.
- My father always said, "You suffer more in imagination than you do in reality."
- Finish what you started. If you're gonna do it, go all the way.
- We're all the heroes of our own story. You go through the crucible you come back, and you share the lessons learned.
- The reward for finishing a labor is the next labor.
- The internet is undefeated.
- Our time on this planet is very limited. The things we do echoes through eternity from the lens of your loved one.
- The only goal for my son is to leave this world a better place than he found it, like I hope I am doing and I hope that everyone who hears my message does.