IDL21 Season 1: Do Not Let Your Circumstances Define You with Joe Delagrave

How do you deal with adversity? Do you put your head down, bury it in the sand, and hope it gets better? Or do you look at it as an opportunity to get better?

Joe Delagrave shares his life story, how he persevered, remained resilient, and kept on believing during the darkest days.

Meet Joe Delagrave

A keynote speaker and Paralympic Bronze medalist in wheelchair rugby, Joe Delagrave loves to share his resilience story. His journey took him from being a college football player, to fighting through a devastating accident, finding his passion as a professional wheelchair rugby player (yes this is a thing where players are disabled and crash into each other as hard as they want), and eventually finding his purpose as a speaker.

Joe grew up in a home that was centered on faith, and he needed that faith to get through the devastation of paralysis. Through faith, a strong inner circle, and discipline, Joe has not let paralysis stop him from finding his purpose in life! When speaking to audiences, Joe has the honor of sharing how God had a plan and a purpose all along with his paralysis. He uses heart gripping stories, humor, and authenticity to captivate his audiences, and help them see that they can choose to have permanent victory!

Some of Joe’s accolades over the years include 13 years on the USAWR National Team, 8 years as a captain, the only player to win player of the year twice in the USWRA, 2x World Championship All-Tournament team, and a myriad of club tournament awards. Way more important than any of the accolades are his wife, April, and 3 kids, Braxton, Brayden, and Brynley! Joe and his family reside in the Caribbean Island of Holmen, WI.

Visit his website. Connect on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Subscribe to his YouTube channel and connect on LinkedIn.

In this episode we discuss:

• Leadership starts in the home

• Not doing it on your own

• Joe’s advice

LEADERSHIP STARTS IN THE HOME

Leadership is about service and about relationships. We become the best leaders we can be by forming strong bonds with those around us, and we can always begin with the relationships we have in our homes.

“Leadership throughout the years has meant different things to me but as I get later and later in my career, I realize that leadership is about serving and it starts inside the home. I think a big component [is that] we need to build our foundation inside our home first with our [partners] and with our kids, making sure that foundationally our relationships inside those four walls are good. ”

— Joe Delagrave

Having the foundation of those relationships be deep and real, you can build the service on top of that foundation, so that you can truly serve those people in the way that is best for you and for them.

This principle, building a foundation whereupon you serve those around you through meaningful connection, it what makes a leader and the people they care for thrive.

NOT DOING IT ON YOUR OWN

Everyone is fighting internal battles, and sometimes we set ourselves up to fail by saying that we need to do everything alone, but that is not true. Even though it is important to be self-sustaining and independent, we achieve incredible things when people work together.

We do not have to do it all alone, and often when we do it together, we go further and reach higher than if it was just one person.

“You have to link arms with others in order [to] really evolve forward and make sure you get through it because if you try to do it on your own, it’s not going to happen. If you are a leader in any organization, if you try to do it on your own, it’s not going to happen. ”

— Tyler Dickerhoof

As teammates and within a team, linking arms and getting to know one another, all you can do is make the team stronger because the more we know one another, the better you can support each other and ultimately create a stronger team together.

JOE’S ADVICE

If you are constantly working on your dreams, make sure that you also take the time to rest, and realize that you have a purpose and a personal responsibility to step into that purpose.

Every day, you have a choice within your circumstances, you can choose to see opportunities within obstacles.

Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:

Visit Joe’s website. Connect on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Subscribe to Joe’s YouTube channel and connect on LinkedIn.

The Impact Driven Leader YouTube Channel

Join the Impact Driven Leader Community

Connect with Tyler on Instagram and LinkedIn

BOOK | Jeff Henderson – Know What You’re For: A Growth Strategy for Work, an Even Better Strategy for Life

BOOK | Don Yaeger - Greatness: The 16 Characteristics of True Champions

About the Impact Driven Leader Podcast

The Impact Driven Leader Podcast, hosted by Tyler Dickerhoof, is for Xillennial leaders who have felt alone and ill-equipped to lead in today's world. Through inspiring interviews with authors from around the world, Tyler uncovers how unique leadership strengths can empower others to achieve so much more, with real impact.

Rate, review and subscribe here on Apple Podcasts or subscribe on Stitcher and Spotify.

IN ORDER TO SERVE AND LEAD PEOPLE, YOU'VE GOT TO UNDERSTAND WHERE THEY'RE COMING FROM. WHO THEY ARE AS A PERSON, HOW THEY TICK.

Joe Delagrave

Podcast Transcription

[TYLER DICKERHOOF] As you know, as you've heard, part of this podcast is also doing the Impact Driven Leader round table. I want you to listen to this quick message from Josh, who's part of the Impact Driven Leader round table, the value that he's gotten out of it. And this is an invitation. I want you to come sit at our table. You're going to learn, you're going to grow and you can't help, but have a great time with us. So thank you to Josh for being a part of the round table. And I invite you. You're listening. There's a seat for you with your name on it. Come join us. [JOSH] Hey, Tyler. Josh here. Hey, I just want to take a quick second and thank you for all you're doing with the Impact Driven Leader, in particular book club round table. And when I first was thinking about starting the round table, I was looking at reading one book a month, and this was in addition to, I'm a big reader. In addition to the other books, I would be reading plus a busy career, a really busy family. And I thought, man, I just don't know if I can do that. But sometimes in life you think, I just need to go for it. And I made this decision to go for it. I'll tell you what, I haven't regretted a single second. I've been able to keep up. It has really pushed me and challenged me to do that and often in life we think we can't and yet we don't even know our limits. I've been able to keep up. The conversations have been incredible. In fact, not just the books, but the conversations that we've had at the round table have really impacted me, impacted my thoughts, impacted my actions and therefore impacted my business and the people around me. And I've got a ton of value out of. It's been very worth the time, worth every minute, and I would do it again if I could. I would certainly encourage anybody who wants to grow in leadership, be connected to people from various industries across the nation to get involved and get going. [TYLER] How do you deal with adversity? Do you put your head down, buried in the sand, just hoping that you'll get through or do you look at as an opportunity to do better, get better? Hi, my name is Tyler Dickerhoof. I'm the host of the Impact Driven Leader podcast. Although a different opening, but today is a little different guest. Here's a guy that I've just grown to know over the last couple months since I recorded this podcast and has gotten to be a good friend, a friend that I love to be able to interject to just share the live life with. Here's what I want to let before you listen to this. You're listening to the captain of the US Paralympic Rugby team, and that will be competing in the Olympics in Tokyo in 2021. It was 2020, but it's 2021. Joe shares such great lessons in life, such great resilience and perseverance and can-do attitude. Those are all cliché, but I'm serious. This guy's got a heart of gold and it's been displayed big and I'm so excited for you to listen to this episode. So excited for you to hear from the leader that is Joe Delagrave. Please enjoy. Let me know what you think. Give me a review, give me a rating. Let me know what you got out of this episode because I know you're going to get something great. Joe Delagrave. Thanks for being here, man. Thanks for being on the podcast. How are you doing today. [JOE DELAGRAVE] Tyler, thanks for having me, man. Doing well, grinding, it's a Tuesday, so grinding with my workouts and with rocket, the biz and well. [TYLER] So the audience, in the introduction found out a little bit about you that that you're a Paralympic rugby player captain of the team. Eight time captain, is that correct? [JOE] Yes. Which just means I've been around for way too long, but it's yes, yes, absolutely. [TYLER] So you are in preparations for the Paralympic games in Tokyo. So where does your training have you right now? What's your training schedule right now here the end of March? [JOE] Yes, it's different than a normal year, of course with COVID, but normally we have lead up competitions towards everything and right now we have just lead up camps. So we've had a camp in end of January, February, camp at March, we'll have a camp April, May, June through, until we go to August. So it's camps that are about two weeks long and then when we're not there, we're training on our own, getting our individual workouts done. [TYLER] So that's a real difference than what it's been in the past. You guys are usually competing against international opponents getting ready for a competition. How many times have you competed in the Paralympic games? [JOE] So I competed in 2012 where we won bronze, 2016 alternate and then heading into Tokyo here. So the team is named in May. So I've been to one Paralympic games, alternate for the other one, and then hopefully should be named to this next team coming up. [TYLER] Okay, awesome. Let's kind of dig in. This podcast Impact Driven Leader podcast is about leadership. Obviously that's a big part of your life, but one of the things that I believe is that we're all leaders and as we all get better, we're able to lead everyone in our life better as well. And so I'd love for you to just kind of unpack the challenges in life that you've overcome as a person and as a leader and why that's made you who you are today. [JOE] Yes. Gosh, unpack, that bad boy is --- [TYLER] That is asking you to unpack like a tractor trailer load and break that down to the smallest suitcases you want. [JOE] Yes. I love that you said everyone's a leader. I truly believe that as well and leadership throughout the years has meant different things to me. But as I get later, later in my career, I realized that leadership is about serving and it starts inside the home, a big component that we need to build our foundation inside our home first with our wives and with our kids and making sure that foundationally my relationships inside my own four walls are good. And not even like, oh how's your wife? Ah, she's good. How's your kids? Ah, they're good. Like rock solid on fire, deep real relationships and then from there being able to kind of fill other people up in other ways with leading. So that's kind of where I guess I would unpack that, but I know there's a lot more to get into with that, but I think that's kind of where it starts from foundation is, or what's your house look like? What's your relationships look like? [TYLER] So would you say that's being intentional about the practice of leadership and the practice of kind of yourself, right? [JOE] Yes, yes, absolutely. You know, intentionalities are buzzwords thrown out there for many, many years now, but I think, yes, absolutely that we are going to have relationships inside our home, build those up. Those people inside your home, know the real, you, they know your faults, they know your fears, they know kind of everything about you. And so as someone that speaks and goes out and tries to inspire other people to inspire themselves, man, I better have my ducks in a row at home and I think that's been a lesson I've learned throughout the years. [TYLER] So one of the things that we got a chance to get to know each other here over the last couple of weeks really is learning that every single person has challenges they have to overcome. Some of them are very internal where we can't see them and some of them are very external where you can see them. As we talked about that, and you kind of shared your purpose and really in life is to help people go through that process. So do you want to take people through the process that you've taken to recognize how you could overcome and really kind of living out that purpose? [JOE] Yes. Let me give you the elevator speech of kind of what has happened in my life. I'm 19-years-old and I am playing college football and living out my dream. That was my dream, to play a college sport pretty, pretty decent on the basketball court. I'm 6'6 when I'm standing up, which I don't do anymore, so and now I'm at a perspective of about 4'10, smelling everyone's farts is what would have happened, but anyway. But yes, 19, playing tight end in college and a big persona with the rough tough football player and in between my freshman and sophomore year of college ended up having a boating accident where I broke my neck at the C6 and 7 level, which is six and seven vertebrae down from the base of your skull. It left me a quadriplegic where I don't have full use of my legs or my hands. My arms work pretty well. My legs don't work at all and then my hands don't really, really work at all either. In that really went through a process where I had to figure out my identity, my identity being ripped away and figured out like what's going on here? Had a wrestling match with God and going, like, "What is going on here?" It's one thing to have faith in something when everything's going well and all of a sudden when literally everything stripped away, including your physical ability to just walk, what does that look like? What is your faith in, who's your faith in? And it's something that I wrestled with as that 19-year-old kid, where for me, I felt man, my identity is gone. So in that, having to figure out life again, you know, at 19, you have all these questions rolling around in your head. And I think most 19-year-olds do 18-, 19-year-old kids going through college and they're trying to find themselves or figure out themselves and what do they believe in that's apart from how they grew up and making their faith their own or figuring out their identity or maybe their purpose. A lot of people are like, what's God's will for my life type of thing and figuring all that out. And then he added in this devastating accident and going like, "God, what's my purpose. Can I have a passion again? Because athletics is my passion and it's this girl that I'm with, going to stay with me and I'm going to be able to have kids." Like all those things, just swirl in my head and I'm laying there in the hospital bed for days and weeks and then months and --- [TYLER] How long were you in the hospital? [JOE] Three months, three months, 89 days, if we're keeping track, which I did. It was a long time. It felt like a prison sentence. It was, but so in that hospital room and you're laying there and each day I'm just like, man, I'm trying to wiggle my toe or I'm trying to move my legs. I'm trying to fix everything because I'm, as an athlete, I'm just like, I can do this, if there's a will, there's a way type of thing. As an athlete, work hard, work hard, work hard, and then you'll get it and nothing happens. The legs don't move and the paralysis is permanent and there and the doctors are like, "Man, you got a 3% chance of walking. Basically, you're not going to walk again, Joe, and this is your life in a wheelchair." So in that moment I've got to trust in what God has for me but also make a choice. Do I want to live in this wheelchair or can I play the blame game? Can I say, "You know what? This isn't my fault. This is my buddy's fault who crashed the boat or I didn't want to be in this wheelchair and this isn't the life that I wanted and what's going to happen," type of deal. And it's a lot easier to just take that exit of the blame game and just point the finger at someone else and say, "This isn't my responsibility. Let's just soak in that." [TYLER] So as you described that a thought came to me here is, and I wrote this down, I'm going to read it. How much does wanting to will it to happen, parallel the struggles we as people wrestle with every day? I mean, you were sitting in there in the bed, you're trying to will your feet to move, and you're trying to wiggle your toes. You're trying to make that happen. In life, sometimes we want to just will it to happen. If we put enough brute force on whatever's in our life, if it's a difficult of a challenge, whatever, if we just will it to happen and you had, obviously you had to rely, this is going to happen. How am I going to overcome this? To me that parallels really journey for all of us in life in some way. [JOE] Yes, absolutely. I think it's one of those things too, like you talked about just willing it to happen. And for me I'm willing it to happen, my legs moving. And at some point, like it's kind of weird because like I think a lot of people in life go, yes, like that's the ticket. Get that, get on that train and you work your way through it, because a lot of, whatever success and however you define that it takes hard work. You know, whatever it is, running a business or building a business or being a leader of a team or whatever, a marriage, relationship, like all of it is hard work, dedication, discipline, determination, like the whole thing. But then like, what is your identity? Or who's that in, I think is what I keep coming back to you, because I think it's easy to take that train, but then you go, go, go, and you work, work, work, but you're never resting. And when we rest, it's literally the physical aspect of being able to say, everything's okay, I've done enough, and I'm going to have faith in what I did, faith in what God has for me and having that rest period and saying maybe it's okay. So as I'm resting there and I'm laying there right away, it's like I'm not resting. I'm just like, why is this not happening? I'm praying about, having people pray for me. It's prayer chains. Like everything, and nothing's happening. So like, what is going on here? And at some point I got to say, I can't do it on my own. I can't get to that destination on my own. It's not going to happen by Joe's will, Joe's power, his ability to put enough willing to it. It's not going to happen [TYLER] To me, that is, as I share with you are, as I mentioned earlier, whether you're, our circumstances are external, where people can recognize, see it all the time. I'm bold. I mean, I have no hair. You're in a wheelchair. It is what it is. I mean, it is what it is and that's easy for people to recognize, but yet, so many of us, every single one of us are dealing with stuff internal that we have to come to that grips and say, I can't do it on my own. And for you, as you were sitting there laying there in the bed, I can't do this alone. I can't go through life on my own. Well, I look at that and say, every one of us, no matter if we're able bodied or not, we have function of every single appendage, we can't do on our own either. And you were forced to deal with that as a 19-year-old. Others were forced to deal with it at different times of life and however, that may be, but one of the things that you've shared with me, and it was funny, I had this idea, and then I go to your website kind of prepare and I'm like, oh, it's right there. I had, not being defined by life circumstances. And you, this is your quote, "We all have a choice to not let our circumstances define who we are. It is a powerful thing when we realize we have an opportunity and any obstacle we face." What was that pivot point for you? What was that time where all of a sudden you're like, "All right. Instead of being that victim to that, victor, what was that like, that point for you? [JOE] There's a couple of things. First, and I've talked to you about it, I believe, but this verse that I was given about a week before my accident, a weird deal on a Dom BB how to speed shirt. I got it from a kicker on our team and then it's like, there was a whole joke where I forgot my shirt underneath my pads and so our kicker made fun of us, which is never a good thing when your kicker is making fun of you and like --- [TYLER] No wonder you're a tight end and a kicker is making fun of you. No, that's not right. [JOE] Yes you're like, "You know what, let me just go and stick my head in the trash, because this whole thing sucks." But like it, and then I had that shirt on a week from accident. The camp counselor had noticed this Bible verse on my shirt, which I hadn't even noticed before. I just kept the shirt because I'm like this guy's going to make fun of me. I'm keeping a shirt because it's kind of a cool shirt. Don BB was the man back then and yes, and it was Proverbs 3:5-6, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, encourage Him and He'll direct your paths." After my accident, I'm thinking about that verse, I talked to my mom and my sister's about, they had put it on the hospital wall each day. When I woke up, I looked at it and each day, right away in the beginning, I just get angry about excellent trust the word and I', "No, I want to know what's going on here." A lot of us want to know, like when we step out into something, we want to know what the end result is already. That's way easier than, like if I'm training, all right. If I put in XYZ of training and I know I'm going to get the gold medal, well, then training is easy because you already know the outcome. Training gets hard when you don't know the outcome. And so like, with me it's going, okay, yes, I got it. I'm going to trust in you, but can you tell me what's going to happen here, because it would be a lot easier if you did? So that pivot was more of the pause of saying surrendering my will and me trying to do everything and going, "You know what, I'm going to start believing in this verse, that I'm going to trust in the Lord with all my heart, that I'm going to lean not on my understanding." By my understanding is off the wall, crazy, because I have no idea what's going to happen. And so let's do that 3% chance of walking, Proverbs 3:5-6. It's the theme of threes. So he gives me this verse and slowly it took me a long time. All right, I'm going to trust in this. And then secondly, that was kind of the first deal, and secondly, I have people in my life that were just God given rocks and support and a system in place that were supporting me because I was at a place, I didn't take depression medication or anything like that, but at a place where I'm obviously trying to figure it out. My wife now April was my girlfriend at the time she was there, 89 straight days in the hospital. At 19-years-old, it's just, that's crazy to even think about that a woman could be so strong at that point in our lives. So for God to just have that woman in my life, that was like, we are going to get through this together, and I'm going to lift you up when you need it and pull you back when you need it as well. And so having her, my family, my teammates, my friends in my life was absolutely important for that aspect, that's on my life. So I think it's trusting that God has a purpose in it. And that took a while and then also realizing, wow, there's people around me that are supporting me in figuring this thing out. [TYLER] You know as I think about that is I realized too, is that, and I've said this a lot on the podcast, and I think it's fun to me when it continues to verbally rate through, because that means there's something to it. And you talk about April being there with you and your teammates and your friends, people that really linked arms with you in a way because you guys were all stronger together. And I believe as leaders in just as much as I'm guessing you as a captain of the team is that you guys know that you're only strong when you're all together. And it's when you try to do it on your own, it's like, it's not going to work, right? [JOE] Exactly. Exactly. [TYLER] You know, we got to know each other through Clubhouse, which is fun, exciting. It's amazing to me see how relationships are build up. And one of the guys that I think we both know was a Navy Seal and he was sharing this story about how, you know going through Seal training and they're like the only way to get through the surf when the surface just beating you down is to link arms with others. To me, I think that's a powerful gesture in this case too, is like, "Hey, you have to link arms with others in order that you can really evolve forward and make sure that you get through it because if you try to do it on your own, it's not going to happen. If you're a leader in any organization and try to do it on your own, it's not going to happen. How much do you, can you rely on that circumstance to help share that story with others that you interact with, your teammates? How much does, as you guys share going through each of your circumstances, and obviously if it's a Paralympic, you guys all are there for a reason, how much does that help each other say, "Hey, we can get through this because we've already got through something like this." [JOE] Yes. It's interesting in the Paralympic space, because a lot of times we kind of forget the power of that because we're so normalized by our disability. Everyone has a disability there and everyone has a story, whether they acquired it at a later age or they're born with it. And sometimes you forget about that. But I think in the last four years, five years, we've really talked about who we are as people coming into our sport. I think in order to serve and lead people, you got to understand where they're coming from, who they are as a person, how they tick. I think it's really important to have that relational side. So our sport is fast-paced, you're crashing into each other, scores are about in the fifties or sixties for games, and so it's just --- [TYLER] How long does the match last? How many minutes? [JOE] 32 minutes of like game time, but the game's time is about an hour to an hour and a half, depending on how it goes. But in the course of a game and like Tyler, I mean, you understand being an athlete and you're not, when you're talking to a teammate, you're not going to be like, "Hey Tyler, I think it'd be really cool if you come and pick and roll, man. I love you brother. Awesome." No, you're going to be like, "Hey, I need you over here right now. Get your butt over here." But having those conversations before that, off the court about who we are and where we're coming from, what our story is, what we've overcame and really laying that groundwork and that foundation so when we are on the court, we can have those direct conversations, and where they rooted in, they are rooted in love, rooted in what we've first talked about. And I think huge for, especially fast-paced environments that demand quick, one word conversations where if you don't have those conversations before that people's feelings are going to get hurt pretty, pretty easily. [TYLER] It's being empathetic, right? [JOE] Yes. [TYLER] I would call that. How would you define empathy in your eyes? [JOE] Yes. Well, empathy and sympathy get tossed around a lot. Empathy is truly understanding someone else's emotions where sympathy is like, "Oh, I can kind of relate," but you're not really relating. You're just like, "Hey, I'll pray for you, man. That sucks that you're going through that," where empathy is like understanding what they're going through with that. And it takes work. That's how I would define it. I don't know if I completely butchered that and I know you're the empathy guy. [TYLER] No. I mean I've never done that with a guest before, but I thought it was awesome. I'd love to, because to me that is, when we choose to deeper connect, we're choosing to be empathetic because we want to connect because we want to be able to have a common bond. And as leaders, if we have a common bond, then we're willing to walk together. As you talk about it, and again this is the end of March and we're going through the NCAA tournament and I've had the luxury of living in Spokane to get pretty close with some of the Gonzaga coaches and staff. I was talking to one of my friends yesterday who's been on the podcast and I look at Gonzaga and they're strong because I know every Monday for the last year, they've sat down in a room and they've talked about life. It's a practice they have, it's called PGM and what you're talking about, I imagine you guys do as a team too. You talked about that over the last four years, you've stopped and said, "Hey, let's talk more about life." And I think about that organizationally, everywhere else in society, are we so ingrained in our job? Hey, let's go out there on the court. Let's go out there and just accomplish our sport and not stop and think, "Hey Joe is a real dude, who's got a wife and three kids. He's dealing with stuff and that's going to show up here." If I just go in and say, "Joe, let's talk. How are you doing, man? What's going on in your life," and be genuine about that, there's no way in my mind that you can't be better teammates if you don't go through that practice. [JOE] That's so good, man. That's so good and I think you can see it. You can see, and you can not know anything about the team up in Spokane. I always say it wrong. Did they hit it when that's a Gonzaga or Gonzega? What are the --- [TYLER] Dude, I mean, it's, I brought in to get Gonzaga. [JOE] I always say in Gonzaga. I get corrected sometimes by --- [TYLER] I hope by the time this releases, they won the tournament. If they didn't win, well, there's a reason why, but we'll learn something from it. [JOE] Exactly. But I think all that to say, and I love [inaudible 00:26:41] as well, and I think in any teams, you can see their affection for each other, just oozing out of them. It physically shows if you watch the benches of some of these teams. Gonzaga has probably five guys that aren't going to play at all and they're the guys that are the most fired up. On teams that aren't winning, that don't talk about that stuff, they're the guys in the bench that literally won't get up and shake a hand with someone. Michigan's the same way where their bench goes bananas and not everyone goes bananas and it's theatrical, but you can see that physical, just oozing out of them, that they care about each other and that they're in this together and it fires me up. [TYLER] Well, I mean, for being a part of a team, and life is a team sport, you can't do it alone. We've talked about that. And to see it displayed, I think to me, it says, okay, how am I trying to live that out in my life? You know, it's all professional sports and I think professional sports is very unique because we get to critique it with cameras and everything else. We don't have that in our everyday life. I don't have someone with a camera here in my office, critiquing how I interact with teammates. And we get that in sports but to me, if we don't emulate that in life and Don Jaeger has the book, Greatness, and he talks a lot about that stuff. And to me, I admire tremendously. And I think you bring up this point, it's like, hey, if the person in your life, say it's your daughter, if your daughter is excited for you when you accomplish something, that means she feels a part of the team, but if she's like, "Oh yes, dad's doing whatever. It doesn't matter to me," then you're not going to feel connected to what you're trying to accomplish in my opinion. [JOE] Yes. That's great. Yep. Absolutely. [TYLER] All right. let's kind of pivot a little bit, but it's connecting all of this. You had to relearn how to do everything, right? [JOE] Yup. Yup. [TYLER] How did that relearning process really give you just a greater strength to look at life and say, "Hey, if I can relearn that, if I have my mindset right, I can accomplish, I can take on anything, because I went through that, dude, what's the worst thing that can come at me next, right? [JOE] Yes. Yes. It's, we talked a little bit about like the pause before the pivot and in trusting in my faith and the people around me that I had, but then there's my personal responsibility piece and making a choice. Do I want to choose to be that Victor or choose to be the victim? Victim's the easy route, play the blame game. Victor's the hard route, because then it's all about looking in the mirror and having some responsibility here. "I've been I've been given this passion and maybe some purpose, but then like there's personal responsibility and putting the work in. And for me, it started with all right, I got to figure out how to put on some socks and some pants and a shirt. I couldn't dress myself. So I got to figure that out. And now I got it. I figured out how to transfer from my bed to my wheelchair and now I got to figure out how to get my wheelchair around the block and figure out, "Hey, maybe I should go back to college." Like some of this starts to snowball where you start to feel like you've got a purpose, you start to feel like you've got an opportunity, and all of a sudden, like slowly, I'm starting to go, "If I get in this wheelchair and start doing life again, there's opportunity here." So instead of looking at the wheelchair and like, "That's my permanent paralysis," I can get in that wheelchair and all of a sudden, that's my permanent victory. I can get in there and all of a sudden I can have an opportunity to get an education, an opportunity to get a master's, an opportunity for April and I to get married. 3% chance to walk and it didn't happen and it turned into Proverbs 3, who knows? [TYLER] Come on dude. [JOE] It didn't happen. And who knows and then --- [TYLER] Yes, hey, God's will. [JOE] Exactly, exactly. [TYLER] I'm a believer too, and yes, keep going dude. [JOE] And then Proverbs three comes around, 3:5-6, and then April and I have three kids and I'm heading to possibly the third Paralympic cycle of my career wearing three letters across my chest USA. I go back to the 19-year-old kid with all those questions swirling around in his head. And if I could go back in time and go, "Dude, buckle up. You have no idea. Just take a step of faith. Just figure out how to get in the wheelchair, figure out how to put a shirt on." It starts, a lot of people talk about like a leap of faith. You're jumping off a cliff. No, you're not. You're just taking a step and that step turns into another step and all of a sudden you're sprinting a mile type of like, it just starts with one step of faith. [TYLER] We psych ourself out because we make the mountains so big, but every single person that's ever climbed anything, it doesn't matter what it is, a ladder to Mount Everest, we take one step. You know, how did you go from laying in that bed for 89 days to being on the team? Putting it out there, being on the team to be representing USA in Tokyo, is one step at a time dude. [JOE] One step at a time. Yes. [TYLER] And believing that, "Hey, I have a purpose." And I think that's to me kind of bringing this back around is everything that happens in life, there's a purpose and we understand and we stop and we accept that and then we start looking for opportunities. And I think that's what you've done. I mean, you have talked about wanting to get back into athletics and then finding this crazy random sport wheelchair rugby, and then excelling at it because you're like, "Hey, I can do this, but there's a purpose to it because I'm living out of passion, but it's also, I get to be an example to those around me." [JOE] Yes, yes. That's so good. Yes. [TYLER] Kind of wrapping things up here, you know, people can check you out your website, joedelagrave.com, it will be in the show notes. You know, obviously you're doing some speaking, sharing your story, really helping people recognize the opportunity to overcome their own challenges. If you have, if we're looking back and you and I are, are sitting down visiting in five years, 10 years, 20 years from now, if someone said, "Man, Joe impacted my life in this way, what do you hope that would be?" [JOE] I'm hoping that they understand that they take time out of their hard work and they're working hard at their dreams, goals, desires, and work, work, work, work, work. They take time to rest and realize that they have a purpose, a God-given purpose and then they have a personal responsibility to step out into that purpose. And that's what I hope that whenever I speak to people or talk to people or they hear me on a podcast or whatever it is, that they realize that they can look in the mirror and they've got a choice in their circumstances, that choice to find an opportunity within their obstacle, that sometimes the obstacle doesn't move. It's just too big to move, but there's opportunity within it that you tackle it head on and there's opportunity in there. And they've got a personal responsibility to seize that and step into that. [TYLER] Joe, thank you for joining me. Thank you for sharing your story and being a great example. I'm thankful to call you a friend and I'm glad to be cheering for you and always, and just appreciate you being the example you are in my life. So thank you. [JOE] Tyler, thank you so much, man. It's been a pleasure getting to know you and to call you a friend as well. Thank you very much. [TYLER] Absolutely. Leadership is a journey. You heard that from Joe. You heard that from maybe listening to other episodes. You know, one of the things that I love about doing this podcast is being able to build relationships with guys like Joe. You're going to hear from other podcast guests here in the future, you've already heard from other podcast guests that I didn't know at all before all of a sudden we had an opportunity to record an episode. And now I look back and I'm like, "Where would my life be without it?" Well, one of the things that I've realized, you've got to be really intentional about curating that community. That's part of the Impact Driven Leader community. That's part of why I have a book club to add value to say, let's read this book together. Let's grow together. That's why we have the round table, a weekly Zoom where we get together, we learn, we grow, we go through the books, we break them down. We talk about some of the podcasts, guests and information that they shared, but it's really a round table where we all layer in what we're going through in life as leaders to learn together. I used to believe in my business that it was a man on an island. And I shared this this morning with a friend. It's only when you lift your head up, you open your arms, you realize you're not an island and link arms with those people around you that love, care and support you. They're out there. Maybe they're in your company. Maybe they're your supervisor. Maybe there are people that work with you on your team. Maybe it's someone in your community you play basketball with, workout with, go to church with, play golf with. Whatever it may be. Maybe it's another mom that's also running a business, trying to figure out how to make it all work. Well, that's where we get together at the round table and we talk and we share those lessons and we lift each other up and support each other. I'm inviting you to come join, be a part of the round table. I know you're going to get value. I know you're also going to add value to others because how you see the world also adds value to everyone else. Thanks for listening. See you on the next episode.