Kevin Rempel - Sledge Hockey Olympian

This is episode 130 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, vitality and peak performance coach, Kari Schneider.

Hello, Kevin. So welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast. I'm so grateful to have you on. This is Kevin Rempel and you have an incredible story, an incredible history, and also a medal from the Sochi 2014 Olympics. So there's lots of great, juicy topics that we've got to talk about. First off, welcome. Thank you for coming on.

Thank you, Carrie. Super excited to be here. I love doing podcasts and I'm super excited to be chatting with you. You and your husband have an incredible background and knowledge as well, so I'm looking forward to the chat today.

Amazing. Amazing. So take us. I know that there's some friends of mine who know you and know you well and they recommended that I reach out to you because of your incredible story. And I know you've told it before, but you got into high performance sport in a very unusual route when it comes to the Olympics. However, you were in motocross before that. Did you start in sport younger or were you in other sports besides motocross?

When I was a kid, my parents got me into all sticking ball sports. So baseball, soccer, hockey. I tried football in high school but didn't like, I was just trying to do it because that was a cool thing to do in high school, not because I actually wanted to play football. And yeah, so starting from the beginning, I was playing hockey. Like that was my thing if I were to choose. But I actually didn't like hockey as a kid. And one day at Christmas, my neighbors got dirt bikes down the street. The first time I saw these two wheels go zipping by in the field behind my house, I was just instantly drawn to that. And in a short period of time, at the age of 10, was when my passion or dream of riding a dirt bike period came into my life. And then through my teenage years, that's when I began to pursue it more and more.

Wow.

And although. Although football and hockey, especially in Canada, can be considered pretty cool, motocross can be pretty badass, I think. So if it was going to turn heads, I think motocross could do it.

Yeah. I mean, the extreme sports world is and still would be considered my world. I'm known today as a Paralympian in sledge hockey, and I know we're going to get to that. But skateboard, bmx, motocross, and Snowboarding. Those were my four favorite things to do as a kid.

That's your jam. That's your jam. That's awesome. Where did you grow up?

Small town of Vineland in Niagara, down towards Niagara Falls in Ontario.

Beautiful. So you had access to the hills, you had access to what you needed. And your parents, were they ready to back up this sport? Because as a kid, you know, it's largely dependent on what the parents are willing to fund, drive to and do all the things. Were you pretty backed up with that?

Yeah, it's the opposite of what most people think. My dad was a hunter and fisherman and so he wanted me to do those things and he was against me riding. But my mom, she grew up on a farm and she always wanted a dirt bike. So my mom was the one that actually had my back more than my dad did.

See, these are the things I want to find out because it's so easy to make assumptions and then you kind of get this total flipped picture of what actually happened. So that's great, that's great. And you pursued it. When did you start to get competitive? How old were you when you started to get competitive?

Yeah, I started to do a couple races when I was 16 and ended up breaking my leg on my fifth or sixth race. Uh, and at the same time as when X Games started to grow. Like today, X Games is now in its 25th year and it's huge. But back in like 98, it was just getting started and it was 1999, I believe, the first time freestyle motocross was introduced. And so freestyle motocross, for those who don't know, is where you perform stunts on your dirt bikes, just hitting gaps, just doing superman seat grabs and cliffhangers and knack knacks and stuff. And so when I was in my late teens is when X Games was introducing freestyle motocross. And that's when FMX started to take over in, in place of racing.

So to give people a visual, because this is something that if they're not into extreme sports, then they need to really understand what the dynamics of this. Like you're flying in the air, you know, let's say 50ft, 70ft in the air and you pull in the moves, like maybe hands off the handlebars, your legs are out doing the kind of a move in there and then you got to kind of reposition so that you can actually be in a position to land and then land the bike. That, that, I mean, for my naive description does that. I watched a bit of motocross in my day. So my dad was a bit of an ESPN junkie. And that's the timeline for age works out. So I caught a little bit of that on tv. So, um, so to give people a visual of that. So when you're 16, you're kind of trying out more and more moves and you break your leg at that point, was that, did you question continuing on or was it just like, okay, this is just a setback, or were you pretty rattled by that? What was the deal?

Well, when I was racing, I broke my leg. And for me, that wasn't how to say it. Breaking my leg didn't deter me from riding my dirt bike. Um, when we hear the metaphor of like you fall down, get back on the horse, it's like that's what we do as riders or as athletes. Like whether you're skateboard, BMX or hockey or football, whatever that is, is like for most athletes, especially the ones that are hardcore true, true bred athletes, is that that's the first thing we want to do, is get back into the field of play.

Yep.

And so when I broke my leg racing, I knew that I definitely wanted to get back on the bike, but I also kind of knew that racing wasn't. I wasn't that good at it. I got a couple of beginner trophies, but I wasn't going anywhere. And with freestyle it was much more laid back, much more fun. And I had a couple friends I met back through the Internet when the Internet was totally not a thing. Still.

So underground. You're so badass underground.

Well, if you're. I don't know if anybody or yourself might remember icq. Do you remember icq? No, no, it was a chat messenger along with MSN messenger. There's. They're like the two main things. So anyways, getting off track here, but I met some, a couple guys locally in Ontario just through chat and got into freestyle and pursued that to be the best I could. Locally in Ontario. My dream was the X Games. I knew I didn't have it necessarily cut out for the world stage, but I started a company when I was 23 years old, put on my first show, Canada Day of 2006 at the Lindsay Fairgrounds in Ontario. And then two weeks later at my second show, I was performing in Halliburton, which is also in Ontario. And on my first jump of the day there, I crashed. And in that accident, I was jumping 75ft from steel to steel. Mentally, I wasn't focused. I was too worried about the wind blowing the ramps crooked, the crowd forming the other riders. And when I took off, I wasn't in the right body position, didn't do the have the right speed. Probably I wasn't doing a speed check. Cause I mentally let all my routines go out the window when my nerves took over and first jump of the day fell without the motorcycle, ended up crashing without the bike and broke my back, pelvis, ribs. And I was instantly paralyzed. And so that particular crash is what really of course, changed my life. And at that time I knew that I didn't want to quit riding either. My dream was still to get back up on the bike as quickly as I could. But I had no idea where life is going to lead me next.

When did you realize, like that's a. Anybody who's. If anyone goes to your website, they can see the video and they can see what the crash actually looked like. But when you go through something like that, when did you actually realize that I might be really hurt here like this? This might be more than just a crash where I've broken a bone or two. When was it? Were you already in the hospital? Was it when you were being boarded? Were you conscious? What was the, what was your experience of that?

Well, when the crash happened, I was laying on the ground and paramedics are over top of me. And when I tried to move and I couldn't, I knew at that moment that I was paralyzed. I couldn't feel or move my legs. I felt like I had a knife in my back. But I think to your question, a moment where I realized the naivety, being naive has served me very well, I think, in many aspects of my life. But a moment that I'll never forget is I was a bricklayer building houses when I got hurt. And I ended up calling my boss when I was in the hospital, not being able to feel or move my legs. And I'd asked him to keep a job for me, keep the spot on the line for me because I plan to be returning to work to lay bricks and build houses in the next couple of months. Not even thinking that it might be a four year recovery. So that's something that sticks out.

But yeah, like the gritty hard worker in you says, okay, hang on to my job, just make sure that I've got my position. When I'm back up and at it, I got to make money. It sounds so ludicrous, you know, when you step back from it. But what, you know, this is something that as humans we tend not to talk about as much. And it's something that I think Causes so much more suffering and so much more pain because of it. And it's the emotional part. What were you going through? Did it get really bad right off the hop once you started to realize, like, wait a second, I don't know if I can move my legs again. I don't know when. I don't know what's going on. Like when what. What were you experiencing emotionally? And what opened up or closed off for you? What was that like?

Well, my. So there's a kicker to my story. Most people wouldn't ever guess anything like this, but my dad was paralyzed four years before I was paralyzed. So when I was 19 years old, we were out deer hunting, building a tree stand, and one of the branches my dad was standing on broke, and he fell two stories to ground, breaking his back and became a complete paraplegic a few years from retirement. So within a four year window, my mom had both husband and son, both in wheelchairs with spinal cord injuries at the exact same time. And so when I had my spinal cord injury, I already had perspective of what life was like in a chair. I also have now lived life around a spinal cord injury or a traumatic injury, both from supporting someone else as well as going through it myself and mentally. What I knew is that I see my dad choose a victim mentality to a situation, and from that it sent him into a downward spiral where he became very negative and cynical and depressed. And knowing what that path looks like, I said to myself, I don't want to be that way. I'm going to choose the opposite path. And so I already know that there was resilience instilled inside of me from the culture of riders, from the culture of our sport. That it was ingrained in me that I wanted to get myself back to where I used to be, regardless of what happened at home with my dad. Um, but mentally recovering from a traumatic injury, or any injury for that matter, is more as much a mental game as it is a physical game. And so I had moments where I was down and depressed and wondering what my future was going to look like and if I was ever going to get back. But as I speak about in my keynote, I deliver these days, it's about focusing on small things and make a big difference, taking things one step at a time. And through that, through consistent, persistent effort, that we start to see what's possible and we don't know if we don't try. So. So it was just a head game.

Things got worse with your dad and what happened and how did you deal with that, what were what happened and what were the small things that helped you just step by step get through?

So again, for those who don't know, my dad ended up taking his own life five years after his accident. He struggled living with his injury and when I felt like doing the same thing, what I knew was that I didn't want that to be the ending to my story. I felt like mentally it would be easy for me to take the same path as my dad and then no one would blame me for the challenges I went through before my injury and experiencing my own injury as well. And so every single day it was about focusing on just maintaining mental resilience. What are the small things? How can we fuel our mind through things like journaling, through reading, through meditation, creating a vision board? And those were some steps that I took to protect my mind and maintain my well being during that time.

I don't want to. It's a painful place to go. Looking back on these scenarios. And at the same time I know that there's people, so many people right now who don't know what, what to do or how to see something different than what they're currently experiencing or what step to take. If you think of a time that you were at one of your, or maybe your worst low, what was the one or two things that you think just little actions or a thought or like what was one or two things that really made a difference for you that you know, at that time helped you move forward just a little bit?

So going back to the situation again, overcoming my dad's challenges, it's asking yourself questions like what do we want our story to be when we're in a difficult moment? What do we want our story to be? Do we want it to be one where we're throwing in a towel or we're giving up and we call it quits when we know that we have more fight in us? Or are we choosing to pick ourselves back up and take another step, try one more time, make one more call, you know, research one more article. Like in the moments where we feel like giving up, it's what we say to ourself that's critical in order to keep going. And it's just focusing on what is the next right step.

That's huge because it's almost like the override. The brain is going to tell you that this is hard and just succumb to however awful it feels. And it's almost like having this button or having this override opportunity to say, hey, there's this could look different. This could. You can create a way that it can look different. Did you find that after, you know, you're in this process of trying to recover, how did you look for something different? How did you. You know at that point, you don't know that there's a sledge hockey opportunity. You don't know if you're going to be able to lay brick. You don't know how you're going to make a living. You've got a father who's suffering and passes. You know, how. How do you. What do you see for your future at that time? When none of those opportunities were in front of you at that time, like, what was it? Just trusting that there was something more than this? What was the carrot that allowed you to keep trying?

So I'm just. Sorry, the pauses. I'm just trying to clarify the question. But when things are difficult early on, a lot of it is just trying to get to the next step, get to the next day. Like, early on when you have an injury, you don't know, it's hard to think about one or two years out because you're just trying to get through to the next day. And so early on, that's all I was focused on, was just learning how to walk and learning how to get back some independence. And I had no idea that paralympics existed. I never watched the Olympics at any point in my life prior. And so I was just looking for ways to be active, living with a disability. I was back on my bike, riding my motorcycle, but I couldn't jump like I used to. And the risk of getting injured again was so severe. Like, I didn't want to have to go back to the beginning after I just learned how to get back on my feet. It was a. A very difficult process. So looking to stay and be active, you know, I was at the ymca. I saw a flyer for wheelchair basketball and ended up just volunteering at wheelchair basketball for about six weeks. And eventually another kid rolls up with a spinal cord injury, and he asked me if I'd ever heard of or tried sledge hockey before. And I said, no, what's that? And he said, it's real sick. He's like, you get to hit people with disabilities. And I thought that was pretty funny coming from a guy who's in a wheelchair, also with a spinal cord injury. And so I found out that there's a local team I started playing. And my first time on the ice playing sledge hockey brought me back to similar feelings of when I was a child playing hockey, but more so it was some sort of normalcy of like what it was when I rode motocross. Cause I got to put on a helmet. Like that's like getting in the zone. Wearing my helmet when I rode my dirt bike was bliss. It's like the rest of the world shuts off. You don't have electronic devices. You're just you and the bike. And that's so much fun. And living with a disability too, at that time, I wasn't walking like I can today. And so being physically active to the point that you're playing full contact with other players, you're getting a solid sweat on. And you're also spending time with a community of other people who have disabilities, it's. It brings a sense of normalcy to what you're experiencing. And so sledge hockey was introduced just by fluke. And once I started playing, then someone sent me a video of Team Canada playing in Torino in 2006 in the Paralympic Games. And that's where my Olympic dream was born. Was at like 2am having a beer, watching a YouTube video in my apartment.

Amazing. Amazing. Is that, is that one of the things that kept you fueled going forward? Just, just going, hey, like this is something that possible. I can see it. There's that vision, you know, you can picture exactly that. And you can also feel it because it's in your mind and you can, you've got this, this sense of what it could be. Is that, is that part of what fueled you continuing to go forward?

Yeah. I think everywhere in our life we need some sort of some form of a vision to help us believe in what we're doing is supported by some form of purpose or something that fuels you in some way. So as an example from the life experience, from my life experiences, I've put together a program called Resilience Toolbox. And it's a collection of the tools and strategies I've lived in order to help me overcome paralysis, get through depression, excel at high performance sport. And of those three key of that program, there's three key pillars. The first is to create our own belief, intentionally shifting our mindset from hopeless to hopeful. The second is to prioritize mental conditioning so we don't just believe once in a while, but we believe on a regular basis and shift from unclear to focused. Then the third piece is to prioritize self care so we don't burn out along the way and avoid feeling lethargic, instead feel lively. And so when we think about what might be some of the tools and strategies for you for Anyone to develop and adopt a resilient mindset. What I like to call the hero mindset is one of those lessons inside this program is making resilience visual. And that's just through something simple as a vision board or a clipboard or meditation or visualization, something simple and practical. And so that can go in many different ways if we're trying to. I'll give you an example, like what was on my vision board when I was learning how to walk. I had a picture of a person running. I had a picture of sledge hockey. I had a picture of riding a motorcycle. Again, you know, I have had and still have family on my vision board. You know, I got into public speaking by fluke when I was asked to share my story at a fundraising event. And then that became a goal. And I would place my vision board, and I still, to this day, place it at the end of my bed. Because every night and every morning when I go to sleep, when I wake up, that's a way to, like, mentally trigger and feed my mind and fuel my mind. And so if we're trying to reach the pinnacle in sport or pursue a new job or raise a healthy and happy family, we can have a vision for all of those goals. For me, learning how to walk, or during my process of learning how to walk, making Team Canada was a goal to help motivate me to continue to get to the gym and, uh, do my best every single day and prioritize nutrition and adopt healthy habits. So, without question, a vision's required in having the persistence to, you know, relentlessly pursue your goals.

I love those examples because, you know, people will say things like, I want to go to the gym, I want to get more sales, I want to whatever. And that's not usually what they really want. What they really want is to have more energy, or in your case, it was to make it to the Olympics, be able to walk again. You know, it's not that you want to go to the gym. It's that you want to walk. It's not that you want to go to the gym. It's that you want to be able to make the Olympic team and compete at the top level. And it's that, I think, distinction for people to be able to. To continue to go through kind of the sucky, smaller action goals, to be able to get to the thing that they really want. I love that you've got that vision and that as part of your steps, because it's simply part of who we are. We can tolerate the crappy Things if we can see where we're going, if we can see what is possible. So that's amazing. I love that. What was that like for you, realizing that you've made an Olympic team, You're gonna go to Russia, you're gonna go to the Sochi 2014 Olympics. That must have been incredible. What was that like for you?

Yeah, I. The first thing that comes to mind is, like, it's, you know, where. Where the hard work pays off. It's. It's a rewarding feeling knowing that you have a vision, and then after working at it for. For four years, like, every Olympic cycle is that.

Except for this year.

Pardon me? Yeah, except for this year. Yeah. The Olympic cycles are not cycles right now. They're just like a calendly booking system, just picking up whatever is available right now. Yeah, totally. So, you know, competing on the world stage was super fun. You know, for me, it was a way that I got to live my motocross dreams through sledge hockey, because as a kid, I wanted to travel the world, get paid to be an athlete, sign autographs, and be at the top of the sport. And I didn't get to do that in moto, but I got to do that in sledge hockey. So that's something that I'm exceptionally thankful and grateful for. Is, you know, when we think about life sending us down a path that we don't know where it leads, we can't. And Steve Jobs said, you know, you can't connect the dots looking forward, but you can only connect them looking backwards. I can think back over my life and see that the plan that I had for myself maybe isn't God's plan. I don't have super strong religious beliefs, but I believe in a God and just the universe working in our favor at all times. And so I think that all of those challenges were leading me down the path to live my dream, just not in the way that I had necessarily envisioned it. And when I was at the games, too, it was just super fun. Like, you know, getting treated exceptionally well is. Is awesome. Playing for the world on the world stage is super cool. You know, feeling all the support is very exciting to this day. One of the things that I miss the most about sport is just playing at the most elite level. Like, that's something that I can't. That can't. I haven't been able to even come close to replicating because I joke that, like, you know, when you're an Olympic athlete or any elite athlete, really, it's like, when you stop Playing, there's nowhere to go but down. It's like you can't go laterally because that's still competing at that level and anything below that is not the same. And that's what makes the elite the elite. So, you know, I miss playing with not I miss playing with my teammates and I miss the competition where, you know, everything was a hard, crisp pass where shots were most often always on net. You know, where we played well as a team like house league is playing is fun playing sledge hockey still, but it's just not like when you would get there with like great coaching, evenly matched teams and high fueled competition from the moment the puck drops until the minute the game ends.

I love your, your description of that because it's been so true for so.

Many of the athletes that either I've worked with or we've interviewed and for my husband as well. Like he, by the time he was done his professional and national team career.

He had probably three different club teams had him on their roster for years just hoping that they, that he'd play club with them once he was retired. And I think he went out for a couple of games and he couldn't do it because it's so far from what lit him up as an athlete. Like what lit him up was the highest level. It wasn't just the game itself. He wasn't there to have fun. Which is such a big difference between most really hardcore professional athletes is that that's not where they're having fun. That's where they are there to win and there to perform their best at every single element of it. And so he, he just couldn't do it. Like he, if he couldn't play at a top notch level, like the court wasn't even a big enough size in a, you know, in a high school court for him to do what he's capable of. If he couldn't do that, he didn't want to do it. And it was such a hard thing for his identity as an athlete because I'm not saying anything he wouldn't say here because he didn't. Beyond his role as a professional athlete and a national level athlete, he didn't really know who he was outside of that role. And then to have lost that, that one thing that really lit him up, there was a lot of uncertainty in his whole world and so many athletes go through that. So I look at what you're doing and what you've done and just think of how the tools that you've created aren't just incredible. For a business person or for an athlete, they're the tools that we as humans are typically not taught. They're the tools that schools don't emphasize and parents were never taught to know, to teach their kids, which are just these basic life skills to get us through the inevitable dips, these inevitable dips in life that are going to happen. You know, I think that's, I think what you've created for your own resilience and being able to share it is so powerful for other people.

Yeah, we all, of course, have challenges every day and the world's being tested now more than ever. And one thing's for sure is, you know, with a lot of organizations I work with is they're all looking for ways to support employee well being, maintain healthy mindsets. And number one is to prioritize self care because burnout right now is rampant and organizations, as an example, can only do so much to provide employees with the tools and then we need to implement them ourselves. It's just like in sport, we can have a coach provide us with all the direction, but if we don't put in the work, we're not going to yield the results. And so what I enjoy doing the most is not just inspiring people with my story, but providing them with practical tools and solutions and examples of what I've lived in my life. And so I could take you through as an example, what some of these other lessons inside a toolbox are that others can take away as ideas to think about. Would you like me to kind of go through that briefly?

Sure.

So the first pillar of the resilience toolbox is create belief. And how we do that is through three key areas. Number one is to locate our hero, who is a role model, a mentor, advisor, or a coach, someone who has been down at least a similar path, someone that can help guide you from where you are to where you want to be, so that you don't feel like you're completely lost on your own, but you're actually guided in your journey. The second is to assemble your library. And this is about becoming conscious of what we choose to feed our mind with. Because we can allow other people other content to feed our mind, but we know what we allow to go into our mind determines how we think and how we feel about what comes out. As Jim Rohn said, every day we need to weed the garden of our mind. And David Niegel is a money mindset guy that I enjoy following. And he said just on a recent podcast he goes, your mind doesn't care what you plant, but it will grow whatever you plant. And so we want to become conscious about what we choose to feed our mind with. And instead of feeling like we're lost without any knowledge, we can find the answers we need. The third piece is to do what I call our homework. Do your homework. Because most people don't like writing, we don't like putting pen to paper. But that's where we can start to find some true clarity in what's actually going on inside of our mind. And so through simple practices like we've heard over and over again about journaling, gratitude, affirmations. One of my favorite strategies is called a brain dump. Just writing down whatever you can for as long as you need to to empty out the negative thoughts in your mind is that that is how you can actually make a thought real. If you don't write it down, your thought is invisible. It is just up in the air. You can't grab it. Taki Moore is one of the coaches that I have been learning from. And as a metaphor, if you were to compare it to steam, water, and ice is that picture when you're in the shower, when there is steam, it's an idea, but you can't grab it. You can't put your. You can't put your. Your hands on it. But if you cool steam down further, a little bit colder, it becomes a liquid. Well, now you can touch it. That's great. So now we have. We can touch it, but we can't necessarily mold it yet. And so if you cool the water down further, it becomes ice, and now it becomes a solid, and now it's tangible. Now you make it real. And so we want to do the same thing with our thoughts in our mind is that while they're just an idea, they're steam. But when we cool them down further, we put pen to paper, do our homework, we make our thoughts real, they become liquid. We can now touch them, and then now when they become a physical piece of paper, now we actually have the instructions in front of us about what we want to do next in order to make that real. And so one of the first steps in building a resilient mindset using tools in the resilience toolbox is to deliberately create our own belief by locating our hero, assembling our library, and doing our homework so that we can be conscious and intentionally shift our mindset from hopeless to hopeful. The second area is focused on mental conditioning. And like I said, we don't want to just believe once in a while, but how do we believe On a regular basis. The first pillar or the first lesson inside that pillar is making resilience visual. Like I said through quote boards, vision boards, meditation or visualization. I talked about the vision board being at the end of my bed. So I'd wake up and see that every day. I had a visual representation then. Additionally, when I was learning to walk, I had a quote board that I just captured. Quotes from books I read, podcasts I listened to or YouTube videos or documentaries. And I would put it over top of my toilet. Because when I was a spinal cord patient learning to walk, I was living like Covid life, living at home. You're going to the bathroom five, six, seven times a day, every single tape. As a man taking a leak, I'm standing up in the toilet, I'm reading that vision, I'm reading the core board. I'm programming my mind six or seven times a day with the affirmations that I want to believe. So make resilience visual. Secondly is set your bearing, which is just some personal goal setting strategies in addition to professional because often we'll do it for work but we won't do it for our personal life. And then third is to focus on habits. I took this lesson out of Charles Duhigg book the Power of habit why we do what we do in life and business. And it's about making an unconscious behavior conscious. And so if we can have a vision, set some intentional goals and then practice the healthy habits that we want to instill on a daily basis. Now we're conditioning our mind daily. We have a visual representation through images. We have it through audio, through quotes. We have action items to take on a regular basis along with the belief that we've created or we continue to practice. And this is how we can believe on a daily basis. And then the third piece is the self care. This is pretty simple. It is harder to do, but it is simple to understand. Is that what are the three key areas that we often most neglect in our self care, which is nutrition, sleep and exercise. Similar to what we feed our mind with information is how we will respond to the nutrition that we apply in our life. If we're eating like garbage, we're going to feel like garbage. We need to become deliberate about what we choose to fuel our body as well as our mind. The second, we need to hit the lights, get the sleep we need, whether that's developing an evening routine or a morning routine so that we're not on devices until wee hours of the morning. So when we wake up we're Ready to get going? We're not hitting the snooze button. Then the third piece around. Moving your body is creating what I like to call the ideal week. Because when we think about not just exercise, but our goals and our dreams is the challenge that most people face is they will say, well, I don't have the time. The lesson is that you won't have the time if you don't make the time. We need to deliberately create time in our schedule to prioritize self care, to prioritize sleep, to prioritize making a healthy meal. Because what's happening today and what happens with most people is that you let work consume your life and you just go about your day to day and just let yourself be affected by the world rather than create the effect that you want. Because we don't take the time to create the space. We want, as Taki Moore would say, to put Matt, create the space, to put magic in its place. And what is that magic for you? Well, that magic is your goals, is your dreams, whatever that is for you. But you need to make the time. So if we practice prioritizing nutrition, sleep and exercise, we can shift from lethargic to lively. And using these tools as an example, this is how we can develop a resilient mindset, using tools inside the resilience toolbox and become a hero in our own movie.

That's amazing. That's amazing. I think it's so even in creating.

Your ideal week, I like to see this in terms of what we would use in sport, which is a paradise plan in that any of my clients, if I look at their calendar, if I look at their schedule, that speaks to where their priorities are. That speaks immediately. No matter what they say or what they think is their priority. Their schedule, their calendar. What's actually happening in the real world is what their priority becomes. Even if it's not what they intended it to be. It's a very powerful thing to get that on paper. I love your system. I think it's so comprehensive in terms of what life throws at people all the time. I have a few personal questions to bring us home here. What. What do you feel like now you're living your life's purpose? Is this. Has this all you spoke about?

You know, being able to look back.

Being able to connect the dots, like Steve Jobs says, Do you feel like you're in your life's perfect purpose now, living into it?

I do. And I also believe that I created it. Not that it was all me and not that it was all by fate. I think that this is an example of where each of us can find meaning and purpose in our life, is that despite the cards we've been dealt, is to continually be persistent, playing the best hand you can that you have possible for you. And I think that I. Well, not think. I know that I'm in a great place. I love where I'm at. I'm super happy with my life. I'm grateful for all the challenges. I'd never change any of them. I get asked that question often, and it's created life experiences for me that I couldn't have even possibly envisioned prior to things going sideways. And so that would be one less of an encouragement for anyone. It may not make sense right now, but you'll. You'll find meaning, you'll find purpose if you continue to show up every single day and put in your best effort. And then that's when things start to reveal themselves.

That's so true. It's so true.

Do you.

Do you find that, you know, you faced so much, you know, the accident, the accidents, the death in your family, the overcoming the personal growth. What now in the now you. Because you're a different version of you than you were even a year ago or a few years ago. So the now you. What are you afraid of now?

That's a good question. It's not, I can tell you, it's not afraid of failure because I feel like I fail in front of people regularly on social media with just not major things. But in business, I've had a lot of flops and I share those as much as possible. I don't have any fears that really come to mind, to be honest with you. Just like a desire that I have that I haven't fulfilled yet is that I want to have a family. I feel like I've done everything else. I really have feel like I've checked off everything else in life. I've traveled the world a lot. The elite athlete was a major one in my major checkbox. I've done that. It's not like I'm a millionaire by any means, but I've. I'm financially in a. In a great place. That's not an issue. But the family thing is something that I look forward to, really want. I want to have at least one kid. So it's not a fear that I won't have a family, but it's like that's something that I would like to.

This is your next. Your next goal and desire, if you will. Are you in a relationship? Nope, not Right now, so we can spread that on the public platforms that this is an incredible human being who's available. And that's great. So on that, there's a couple other questions that these will allow people to get to know you a little bit better. Is there something for those young athletes, any athlete, any sport, paraplegic?

Not.

Is there a message that, you know you'd like to share that maybe it's a one sentence, one liner that maybe you needed to hear when you were younger? What would you share to young athletes or even coaches out there that might. That might resonate?

Be more than an athlete.

Nice.

Yeah. I didn't coin that phrase, but it sticks in my mind a lot. I'm a part of a team right now called Horizon Leader Group, and it's about helping athletes build their. Their life, their business, their brand, from the locker room to the boardroom. And in some of the work I've done with hlg, I think it's another organization. I forget. And they. And their tagline is I am more than an athlete. So I can't coin this. I can't reference who it is exactly. But it's why I'm involved with hlg, with Horizon Leader Group, is because the transition out of sport is difficult. It was for me, and that's the biggest challenge, is that when you're in sport, and I understand it, Cause I've been there, like, you just want to focus on sport. You want to be the best. You want to give 120% and you have blinders on and you're in tunnel vision and you're going to be relentless until you get your result. But life is more than just sport. One of the things that I hope to help athletes see while they're competing is that while you're an athlete, are some of your best opportunities to start to foster those relationships and build your network and create a product or something that will help live on longer than your athletic career. Because when you're finished competing in sport, the phone calls don't get returned as quickly. Things dry up really fast, and you start to disappear really fast. And even the medal, as an example, I'm a 2014 Paralympic bronze medalist in the Paralympic Games in Sochi, Russia, on the world stage. And in 2014, I was the shit. Like, not that I think that I am the shit like that, but it's like, you're an Olympian. You just meddled in the last six months. Holy crap. Everybody wants to talk to you. You know, your. You can walk into, like, I mean, I didn't do this, but I had. I know many people, many athletes who have like you can. They'll walk into a restaurant, walk in anywhere, you got your metal, you get shit for free. Like everybody wants to shake your hand, take your picture and like I said, everybody's going to return your phone call before another person. But that, that stuff dries up real fast. Like six months, 12 months down the line. The next Olympic cycle, the summer games are on. The winter athletes are disappear real fast. So I don't know. That's a long winded answer for a 5, 5 word answer that I gave earlier.

It's so true.

More than be more than an athlete. But that's it.

It's so true though because yeah I've seen it with, with lots of different athletes, lots of different sports. So it's so true. On, on a. On a personal note, just some fun questions. Do you have favorite music you like to listen to before working out or to hype you up? Do you have or relaxing music? What do you like to listen to?

It varies, I would say like rap, hip hop for sure is my workout music. Pop smoke. He's no longer alive but he's someone I discovered in the last few months that I listen to a lot these days. A great life hack or work hack is the website called focusatwill.com and this music is scientifically curated to help you focus and relax. And it's got no lyrics and I listen to that daily like every single day. It's a great resource to have some great tunes.

Kind of thing. Or is it like a Binaural beats or a.

It's different. I know like I Binaural Beats same idea. The idea is that it's something consistent, mellow, help you stay in rhythm. They change their song every 20 minutes intentionally to help you mentally switch. That's another part of the research. But same idea is that what can help you get in the zone and stay there without being distracted.

Very cool.

What.

What about a favorite movie? Do you have a favorite movie that's a go to for you?

I'm not a huge movie person. Anything Will Ferrell related is usually some of my favorite stuff. Trying to think what else. Like I like entrepreneurial movies. So Steve Jobs movie just called Jobs. The Facebook movie was one of my favorites. Stuff like that.

Nice.

And then what about a favorite meal or dessert or anything? Do you have some?

Well, I'm on a super strict diet right now trying to solve some food allergies but Ruffles, sour cream and onion Potato chips are my drug of choice when it comes to food, and that.

Probably isn't allowed on this particular elimination diet.

Imagine.

Do you have a favorite dessert?

No, that would. I would consider that my dessert.

Yeah.

I'm not a big sweets person. I would consider that dessert, though.

Nice.

Anything else that you want to add that that might resonate with our listeners? Anything else that you want to share?

I don't know what comes. Life is long, you know, if things aren't working out for you right now, just know that it's not over yet. I still have my moments. I'm not invincible by any means. But, you know, it's been about 20 years since my dad was injured and then 14 years since I was injured, roughly around those times. And you know, when you look for me, when I look back, I'm like, I accomplished a lot of stuff over the last 15, 20 years. And that's another. I don't know if this is Tony Robbins or, or who said this, but it's like, you know, most of us overestimate what we can do in a year, but underestimate what we can do in a lifetime. And, you know, when I got injured, I would never have thought all the things I would have accomplished in the next 13, 14 years following my injury. And it's been an insane amount of incredibly awesome stuff. And so I try to keep that in perspective today. It's like for each of our listeners as well here, it's like, you know, just think back over the last take 15 years as an example or 10 years and like, where were you 10 years ago? You know, at that time, you probably wouldn't have thought you'd done all the things you did in the last 10 and try and just take that perspective going forward for the next 10. Because it's. Life is long. There's a lot of stuff to do. And just because you have a bad day doesn't mean you have to have a bad year or that your life is bad.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. And on that note, you are available for keynote speeches. You do some coaching opportunities and mentoring opportunities as well. And you can be found on Instagram evanremple, I think. And then also your website is kevinremple.com if people need to reach you, you. So we want to give you a huge shout out because we think that when I say we, my husband and I think that you, what you're doing is really amazing. People need more of it, especially in the world environment now and keep doing what you're doing and thank you so much for sharing your story and sharing your wisdom with us today.

You got get to thanks for having me on.

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