ITT 012: Conquering Mountains with Dan Adams

Your Higher Purpose

In today's interview, I talk with Dan about The Higher Purpose Project. It's an intensive training course designed to help you live a life of courage aligned with your highest values. It pretty much goes without saying that I support the project and encourage anyone interested to reach out to Dan and apply to be a part of it.

Starting From Scratch

In 2012, Dan Adams did something impossible. With no experience, no resources and no connections, Dan created an award winning (2012 ESPY Award winning, actually) social project called Mission Kilimanjaro where he and a small team of veterans and civilians summited Kilimanjaro. Of course, summiting Kilimanjaro, while impressive, isn’t the remarkable part...climbing it alongside a quadruple amputee while raising awareness for disabled kids and veterans (and donating $25,000 to the Mwereni Integrated School for the Blind) certainly is.

The Call to Adventure

Dan’s story, though, like so many others, didn’t start at this culminating point – it started years before with many trials and tribulations. Back in high school, Dan knew he wanted to play college football.  While a talented and disciplined player, he was considered undersized for his position as a middle linebacker (at 5’9” 190lbs give or take) and nobody expected him to play college football. Not only did Dan make the team of a Division I school, he set a record for most unassisted tackles his junior year.   Possibly even more impressive: he still owns the record for most unassisted tackles in one game many years later (he set the mark pretty high). After college, Dan entered corporate America.  While he was doing okay for himself financially, he found himself emotionally drained from the unfulfilling work.  At one point in his career, Dan even brought in $34,000 in a single day.  A great day by anyone's standards, to be sure. For Dan, it was the worst day of his life. Dan realized he wasn’t living the life he was advising others to live and this self-reflection led to an epiphany: you can’t change others by telling them what to do, you can only change others by setting the example and living the part. So Dan set a date to climb Mount Kilimanjaro with Kyle Maynard to show veterans and kids with disabilities around the world that regardless of the challenges they face, no obstacle is too great to conquer. In 2012, Dan and his team conquered Mount Kilimanjaro. And now he's off conquering new and greater obstacles.

Dan's Hero's Journey

This is just a short intro to Dan Adams – an incredibly intelligent, compassionate and driven person.  In today’s broadcast, I sit down with Dan to dig into his story and find out how he did what he did (and what he's planning for the future). Just one of the remarkable things we talk about: how Dan uses disciplined visualization to achieve success (from visualizing the plays and tackles he’s going to make the night before a game, to the visualization process for creating an award winning initiative from scratch). Simply put – if you’re interested in improving yourself or your performance in any aspect of your life, you HAVE to listen to this interview.  Dan’s the real deal and we dig into exactly what he did to create success in so many aspects of his life.  I know I personally took a ton of notes and plan on listening to this podcast more than once as I develop the projects I'm working on. So enjoy today's broadcast and please leave a review on iTunes! when you finish.

What Dan Adams and I talk about:

• How Dan transitioned from corporate America to founding an award winning movement in less than two years
• How Dan took the leap into doing work he's passionate about
• Why the first step is the hardest (but also the most important)
• The importance of adversity and taking big leaps
• Dan’s 2 painful and personal experiences that changed his life
• The importance of embodying the virtues we want to see in others (and living the life we want to see others live)
• How Dan uses visualization to manifest his life on a daily basis (seriously, he's set national records and won massive awards using this technique)
• What it’s like to start with no experience, no resources, and no connections, yet still craft and bring into reality an award winning project
• The power of focusing on one thing at a time
• How Dan creates success in his life through persistent focus and discipline
• How Joseph Campbell’s “Hero's Journey” influenced Dan’s personal creative journey
• How Dan built an award winning mission by learning from others and connecting the dots
• How fear is an indicator to take the first step and a guidepost that you’re headed in the right direction
• The power of expressing authentic gratitude for another persons work as a way to start a powerful relationship
• Why having the mindset of creating value for others will always lead you to success
• How Dan bootstrapped a massively successful personal change initiative (and how next year will be even better)
• Why you need to embrace Neverland (the Peter Pan story Neverland, not Michael Jackson’s ranch)

Awesome Quotes:

On the need for adversity:

When everything is comfortable we don’t take the steps we need to evolve. [tweet]

On fear (and courage):

Whenever I fear something I go right at it.  I see fear as the accelerator. [tweet]

On starting your hero's journey:

The people that succeed are the people that take the first step. [tweet] A Short Clip from Dan's Project: Mission Kilimanjaro:

Where You Can Find Dan:

www.thehigherpurposeproject.com www.athleticcapital.com/ missionkilimanjaro.com @AthleticCapital Facebook

Additional Show Notes

Joseph Campbell (Hero’s Journey) Collected Works http://kyle-maynard.com/

p.s. if you enjoy the show, please leave a review on iTunes and help spread the word.