Army combat veteran, bull rider, performance accelerator Wylie McGraw

Wylie McGraw is a former star athlete, competitive bull rider, and 3-tour combat veteran.

It was through those intense experiences that he discovered his crazy superpower of being able to expose blind spots, erupt & eradicate stress, and fully unleash the untapped potential of high achievers.

He’s the founder of Radical Performance Acceleration and the creator of High-Performance Meditation. For well over a decade now he’s been behind-the-scenes doing life-altering work with powerful CEOs, Entrepreneurs, Leaders, and Public Figures accelerating their performance both personally and professionally.

His work is the proverbial “Navy SEAL Training” equivalent to high performance and leadership development – pushing even the elite beyond their limits so they not only hit their peak but sustain it.

Wylie’s formal title is Performance Accelerator. He has been named a “secret weapon” by some of the most influential leaders across industries from Wall St., Hollywood, Professional Sports, Fortune 500 companies, Personal Development, and everything in between.

His work is about giving an elite edge to high achieving individuals while ending their cycle of stress, sacrifice, and suffering that’s unfortunately associated when reaching their levels of accomplishment and success.

When Wylie’s not traveling the country to meet his clients, this family man enjoys skydiving, mountain top sunsets, and occasionally sipping on an 18-year-old single malt scotch pondering the philosophies of life, the cosmos, and beyond.

Wylie can be reached at WylieMcGraw.com.

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Transcript

Ep 51 - Wylie McGraw

Greg: [00:00:00] Hello, my friends. Welcome to the Greg Krino show.

Welcome everyone to the Greg Krino show, where we talk to experts and people with unique experiences so we can become better critical thinkers and have a little fun in the process. Before we begin, please help me grow our audience by giving a five star rating and friendly comment on your podcast app and share the show on social media.

If you would like to learn more about me and my guests, head over to Greg dot com and subscribe to the newsletter. And if you have ideas for the show, please email me at Greg show@gmail.com. Happy 2022 every one, as I'm sure in the new year, we all want to make our lives better. So we have the perfect guest for today.

None other than performance accelerator Wiley McGraw. Wiley is an army combat [00:01:00] veteran who began his career by counseling his fellow vets and helping them cope with PTs post traumatic stress. Now what's different about Wiley is that he gets out there in the field with you. He's not just in a stuffy office while he has been featured on NPR and NBC.

So we'll talk about his journey and a little bit of bull riding. The man does it all. He can be reached@wileymcgraw.com. So here he is my friend. While I get my grow. Welcome to the show, buddy. How you doing today? Not too bad, Greg. Thanks for having me, bud. Fantastic. I got to say you got that great radio voice.

Do you do a lot of these shows because 

Wylie: you should. Yeah, I've done. Uh, I've done a, I would say probably a dozen over the last few months, but, uh, yeah. That's I appreciate that. Good. I'm glad it works out. Yeah. Yeah. And were you out of where, where are you from at the moment I've been to Arizona? Uh, I traveled around the country.

Uh, my, my business is located in Florida. I've got a place in San Diego, California, so I just move around as. [00:02:00] And right now I'm currently sitting my, myself in Arizona. 

Greg: Oh, nice. Cause I spent probably half of my adult life in Arizona. I was in Tucson. Yeah. Yeah. Flying eight, 10. Are you up in Phoenix? Are you 

Wylie: Sedona at the moment?

Oh nine. Oh, it's beautiful. Up there. Little more north. Yeah. 

Greg: Yeah. That is nice. Well, fantastic. So you were an army, a hundred first airborne, and then you started helping out soldiers with helping them out with PTSD, helping them get through that. And now you're a performance accelerator helping CEOs and athletes and just people from all walks of life.

So, sure. That's an interesting transition. Um, first, can you just describe your, your experience in the army and why, why you got in and, and just kind of your, your combat experience. Cause I think you and I had roughly the same years, cause you were describing how you were in Afghanistan, kind of in that.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Wow. We were there probably at almost the exact same time, 

Wylie: you know, I [00:03:00] laughed, but I know you were an eight, 10 pilot and I thought, you know, he's your, our angel in the sky at times. So I'm sure that at some point you were one of my part apostles air support that supported some of the combat operations we were involved in.

So, yeah. So 

Greg: yeah, just kind of describe that early part. Cause I just, I'm just curious just to get to know you personally, cause that's a lot in common. Yeah, 

Wylie: absolutely. Um, you know, I'll make a long story short. Um, I grew up an athlete, so for me it was sports were, uh, was my world in, uh, and as I got older, it wasn't what I thought it was, what it should have been for me.

It was too hyper-focused um, the pressures of being perfect all the time and, and living up to the standards of the pros that were around me. It, it, it started to wax and wane on my, uh, my ability to stay focused and. More alive in my own skin. So I just broke away from that. And I found myself enticed by the world of bull riding and I became a bull rider.

Uh, I was lured into that world. I found that it was more holistic for me. It started to ignite this inner part of me that I'd been waiting to meet that wasn't existed through my baseball career. Uh, [00:04:00] and I, I felt alive for the first time. I felt like I was choosing to do something that was scary and unknown to me, but very challenging.

And that's where I decided to continue on that path to, to find more people that were like that, that could really raise the bar and the stakes when it comes to challenge to stretch who I was to find a little more of my potential, how my power affects me and those around me. And that's when the military came knocking and I decided to join the United States army become a combat infantry, man.

You know, I wanted to go to ranger school. I want to jump out of airplanes, uh, and travel the world and experience. Uh, I would say that more, that team, that group environment, where we were radically challenged in, in ways that stretches far beyond our limits mentally and emotionally, even energetically.

And I discovered that as a combat infantry man, and I was stationed with the hundred first airborne division for six years, did three tours, overseas, Kosovo, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. And, uh, I found in a, you know, in the combat zones that I was, I was put in, I really, uh, discovered this unleashing of my own super power.

And I took that understanding from [00:05:00] those more intense experiences, which, you know, very well as a yourself. And I took it outside of the military and I wanted to do something with it, to support people and optimize their lives because I realized that the challenging environments we find ourselves in that scare us, that stretch us.

Those are the things that are going to really help us access our potential, our power that's, what's going to really give us the, the solutions and the answers to really optimize our lives and, and get the results we want. So, going into what you asked about veterans, I just found myself connecting to other combat veterans, special ops guys that really wanted to go far beyond the limitations that they were being put on, put in through the VA system, et cetera, medications, so forth, you know, and, and really get out of the pain that they were feeling in the suffering they were experiencing coming back into the civilian world they wanted to do with.

They tried other things, but they were left disappointed. So in the work that I do as a performance accelerator is truly for those types of people who say, I don't want to wait a [00:06:00] year, two years, five years down the road to get to where I want to go. I want it. Now. I w I'm willing to embrace. I'm built into a brace, the real world challenge that comes with the work that you do so that I can have the results that I want sooner than later, which is why I'm glad I'm on your show because you bring a lot of interesting people on your show to talk about certain things.

And I felt for us human performance, acceleration is a missing component in our world. And it really getting to understand what that means and what it actually takes to get there. And there are some people that are built to actually do the more, I would say, arduous challenges that really shift who they are and get them to the top of their game so they can experience wealth impact, bottom line, more meaningful, healthier relationships, optimize health and wellness, more focus and clarity, peace, and freedom with their successes.

And that's what I've been doing for the better part of 13 years. Now, 

Greg: what did you find was the thing that the VA was missing? Because I know the VA is a bureaucratic mess. It can be very frustrating. Was there anything specific with their therapeutic system that the guys were saying, Hey, they're not [00:07:00] giving me this.

And, and what can you do? Like what, what was the missing link that the VA 

Wylie: wasn't, I'm glad that you asked that and I will, uh, land this real quick. It's not holistic enough now that I understand they have departments, you know, there's the physical therapies and the, you know, the, uh, psycholog psychology aspect of it, the group therapies, but they're missing the holistic approach to someone.

Uh, in real time, it's easy to give people appointments and have them show up for their coaching sessions or their therapy sessions or their drug medication, you know, uh, routines. But what I found in what I was experiencing with the vets that were coming to me, uh, was the feeling that they weren't being seen for what they were really going through and understood for what their own unique experiences were.

And it was not holding. At all to them that allow them to eradicate the stress that they were under, get rid of needing their dependency on medications and on all those other aspects of therapy that weren't really serving them for their hires. I mean, it [00:08:00] was given him the, or the awareness that we're getting an understanding, but it wasn't doing anything to actually resolve the problem.

It was just kind of like, I would say compensation was the key that they were telling me about and when they would come and do the work with me, uh, it was all about real resolution in the work that I have putting them in these challenges in real time with them in their life. Having a network of people around me that I use in tandem that knows how to get into those nooks and crannies of a human being to truly bring forth what's holding back their potential.

And that's why they would actually experience that accelerated growth in their life and getting rid of their medications, their relationships would improve. They would sleep better at night. They would actually feel more reprieve and more resolution as they go off back into the civilian world versus being feeling stuck in a current.

Greg: And did you find that there were any common threads with the veterans, uh, in terms of what they were missing and you sort of alluded to it in your answer that they were being given medications, those weren't working and I'm not against medications. Sure, sure. They have their, their [00:09:00] places, but I'll, I'll admit I'm one of those guys that's, that's afraid to take the medications.

You know, I got, I feel like if there's something wrong I'm having trouble, it's going to be something in an experience that I've had or something, or some way that I'm looking at the world. Was there a common thread that you found with, with the veterans that they weren't looking at the world in a way that was helpful?

Or are there some common combat experience? Could you kind of put your finger on it with veterans specifically 

Wylie: the common? Well, I mean, we're all combat veterans, right? Most of us. Um, so the trust first and foremost of being a combat vet was already there and established. Was happening was what was being thrown at them, or band-aids on the bullet hole, if you will.

Right. And, and I see this in working behind the scenes from our ministries, from wall street to Hollywood, I've worked with these high powered individuals for very long time. They're the same thing. They're being bombarded with so many different options when it comes to their high performance, but they're always left unsatisfied and unfulfilled, and they always feel like they're still struggling to figure out what's [00:10:00] next.

And same thing with combat veterans. It was take this medication for this pain. And this problem, I specifically remember working with a guy who had been, I would say he's a new Yoda, a specialist with the Navy working with seal teams. And I remember him telling me he was over at my place and we were doing some work together.

And he said, look, I've been hit by three IDs. I have shattered pelvis. I'm in pain constantly every single day. Uh, and I fight with my wife constantly. And the VA just wants to give you medications and expects me to go to group therapy three times a week. That's causing me more stress than it is helping me.

I don't know how to get out of this problem. I spent 18 years as an EOD specialist with the w with the Naval special warfare. He goes, I deserve better. I know I, I, there's more to me than this. And that's, I think the common theme is they're not getting enough of the right solutions based on who they are and what's necessary for them.

It's just kind of like a cookie cutter program they go into and they need, again, this comes back to this human performance. I just talked about, we need holistic approaches [00:11:00] to who you are, not what, everything, you know, we're not some cookie cutter system that you just throw people into and hope that just turns out, you know, these copy and pasted method, you know, versions of other people that hopefully get somewhere.

Greg: Yeah. I think that, um, what, I've, what I've found, and I don't have any major struggles or PTSD or anything like that, but one thing that I've found that I've missed. Is the, the family and comradery that I had in the military. So I'm, I'm still, I'm still a reservist now, but I'm very much a part-timer I do my two weeks a year.

So it's not nearly the same experience that I've had as an, a 10 pilot and, you know, deployed. And, but when you're over there, you, you, you have this very, very close knit family and yeah, you, you have some dangerous situations where the blood's pumping and, and of course there's a life or death situation that you're having to deal with.

And that's very stressful, but you come back and you've got your, you're surrounded by your hundred best [00:12:00] friends, and you can talk about things and you have, everybody has something in common and the girls become like sisters and the guys are like your brothers. And it's very, it's, it's a very cozy atmosphere in a lot of ways.

And I would imagine a lot of, it's just, you feel like you're losing your family when you come from. And maybe it's the sort of that nakedness that makes people less able to deal with, um, their, their problems. Maybe that's not the source of the problem, but it kind of makes them less able to deal with 

Wylie: yeah, wait, Greg.

And that's a good, a good point. It's amazing. It took me six months, I think. And I remember counting because I was very adamant about it to finally realize that I didn't have my weapon around me anymore. Uh, remember I'm six years as a combat infantry men. Right. And then eventually I led my own, my own team into Iraq.

So I had that. You're built into that, that, that mode of your team, your family, uh, these are the people understand you. These are the people you're bleeding and dying with. You're you're losing friends, you're in the middle of war. [00:13:00] And when you get home, it took me six months to realize I'd wake up in cold sweats thinking where's my weapon.

Where's my, my buddy were, where's my brother at what, what do we got going on? And that's part of the problem. But the other part of the problem that I have found, and this goes across the board, I will be blunt with this across the board. Even with leaders, CEOs, executives, people in, in, in power and an influence.

There is this, the unknowns that people are not like you. So trying to find those people that are like you again, is a part of the struggle that we do have transitioning back to the military. It's why people that have been fighting wars for 20 years. I know friends of mine are army Rangers. My brother was special ops friends of mine are seals.

They've been doing this for 15, 20 years. All they've been doing is fighting war. So what do you think is going to happen when they come home? Well, they need that kind of environment just to feel comfortable again and until they get the right resources that eradicate the stresses of combat. So they can find peace as their comfort and not war as their comfort.

We're never going to get them to where they really [00:14:00] want to go. And they over forever going to feel like something's still missing and they're going to reach for those things of relief. And that's why we find they get in trouble. There's a lot of chaos in our society. These veterans just stay in the military because that's all they know we're rewired in combat.

Would you more chemically restructured because of war. You're going to try to create that where you're at when you don't have people that understand you. Yeah. I 

Greg: think, I think that's a great point. And by the way, sorry about my lighting here and it's this part out. I know it's very dark day here in Iowa.

No problem. Um, yeah, I think that a big misconception on the civilian side is that combat veterans are afraid. Like they hear a noise and they automatically want to, you know, get their weapon and shoot whatever is coming their way and for some people. Yeah. Yeah. But I think for the most part of it is, is the, the changing environment.

You, you don't know. The person next to you sitting in the board room, you don't have as much in common with them. Like, I felt a little bit of that. I, when I [00:15:00] was active duty for about 10 years, and then I got out for a brief time, went to, went to grad school and you look around and I just feel like none of these people know me, but it was always something in my mind.

They probably would like to have known me. I'm sure if I had opened up a little bit, I would have made a few more friends, but right, right. In the beginning you just feel this isolation and it's, you kind of have to, it's hard to break through. I'll admit I still haven't found the answer. I really do. Like when I meet a veteran, um, I immediately want to, you know, I feel a connection.

I want to talk to them and I can't quite do that with somebody who's never been there. Like I, you know, like when I'm flying, I'm an airline guy now. So when I fly with my guys, I asked them, Hey, how did you get your pilot license? Did you go through military? Do you go through civilian? And it probably half of them will say, oh, I was a civilian and I don't want to be.

I don't want to disrespect it at all because people have their own experiences and going certainly in to become a pilot's its own has its own, [00:16:00] uh, obstacles, but I'll admit I'm a little disappointed cause I'm like, man, I can't, I can't connect with this guy quite as much, but when it's a military guy, it's like, boom, we can be talking for the next two hours in the cockpit.

That's great. 

Wylie: And so I don't know. Well, you made a, you mentioned a word that I taught. I con excuse me, constantly talk about is environment. Uh, the right environments are what are going to give you more insight and understanding to who you are. They're going to give you access to more of your power and potential.

It's gonna allow you to be able to relate to scenarios and situations despite common threads. So using the military aspect of it and then taking from what. Uncovered about myself in combat being in those chaotic situations, being committed victory with the a hundred first airborne division we're on the ground.

We're constantly doing these operations and working alongside green Berets and seals, et cetera. And having these taskforce that we were, I took that, that understanding of the environment. I didn't let the military become me. And I left the military and I bring [00:17:00] my own specific superpower to the table to do the work I did starting with veterans and eventually leaning into professionals, executive celebrities, professional athletes, and so forth.

Cause because they, in my experience have never been given their environment to thrive. They've not been given the right resources, that holistically approach who they are. I've seen a lot of military guys that I know become coaches and consults. They run these, these corporate firms. And what they're unfortunately doing is trying to turn CEOs into military style type leaders.

You cannot do that. Civilian CEOs are not meant to become Navy seals, army Rangers, you can create and provide them military leadership tactics and understanding from the battlefield, what will support their ability to grow as a leader in the organization, but trying to make them these cookie cutter or copy and pasted versions of soldiers is the reason why they're still left feeling limited.

So you need the right environments to really accelerate people's performance human performance. And there's not a lot of people that want that. There's not a lot of [00:18:00] people that want to do the real challenging work in the right environments to really accelerate and take, take them to the top of their game.

Human beings, unfortunately are designed with this like hack mindset or, you know, the short, uh, shorter path to the, to the top or circumventing things or that, you know, the personal development world has been lost in the marketing, uh, aspects. Hyping people up around transformation and performance and being the best.

And they get people get caught up in that. And then they go, why am I not actually getting what I want? Why do I still feel like something's missing the military is the same way. It's like, why am I not healing the way that I want to heal? Well, it's because you're being bombarded with things that aren't meant for you that are just designed to put people through a system and hopefully, you know, you can turn out more massive amounts of, of, of, of candidates so to speak if that makes.

Yeah. Yeah. 

Greg: And I noticed on one of your blogs, you said that you will throw your clients out of airplanes. So it seems like there's, and I I've, I've skydived a couple of [00:19:00] times and I'll admit it's, it's definitely a shocking and exhilarating experience. And I imagine that would fit pretty well for a military person where you, you want that shock.

You want that. Intensity to, to recharge yourself and find that's the case. And then B, is there a difference with civilian side? Like what kind of environment do they need? Because we talked about environments, of 

Wylie: course. Well, you know what absolutely. I'll expand, uh, quickly on that. Uh, I'm a skydiver, obviously.

You've probably figured that out. I have about 600 jumps and I love seven years in this sport. I really love jumping out of airplanes very much for me. And most skydivers, it's actually a meditative. It's very zen-like for us. When we leave the airplane, we had to fly together groups. But going to your two point question, uh, a it's.

The shock value of it has its place. And it's nice because when I'm dealing with a client or whoever I'm connected to, and I need to shake them up a little bit, I might, I might take them to a drop zone. I might surprise them and bring them to a drop zone, already have the [00:20:00] tandem book and actually get them and throw them out of an airplane and chase them.

I'll be flying in the sky with them. And I want to see how their face looks. I want to pay attention to their body language and then experience what they feel when they hit the ground and they land what comes up for them because that's when they're at their most vulnerable in that moment. And I have found in my work and in combat is when you're at your most vulnerable.

That's where your real power is derived from. That's where your real potential can be unleashed when you're not being as vulnerable as you, you could have. You're actually hindering yourself. And that's the unfortunate part about what's being offered into the civilian side of things. Personal development is all about marketing.

Now I call it the, I honestly call it the sugar and caffeine, a verbal, verbal sugar, and caffeine. People are getting very high and excited on the marketing of transformation, high performance, peak performance. These are words are constantly thrown around, but do we don't really understand the definitions of those.

We have this common misconception that we get what that means. And then everybody gets bought into [00:21:00] those programs and systems that promise more success and they always end up feeling fulfilled. So to just answer that last point B uh, the clients that I've worked with, the high achievers, the leaders, CEOs, uh, these high powered people have spent millions of dollars with these big household name gurus, you know, the high performance guy offers these programs and they ended up coming to me going.

What did I get? Why do I feel like I spent all that money? I got some strategy. I got some insight things, you know, have changed a little bit, but why do I feel like it's not what I needed? There's something still left to be uncovered here. And I don't know why I feel that way. It's because they are not given those environments.

That challenge who they are that matches their capacity to perform. And they want something that is accelerated. They want to get to the top of their game. They don't want to drag their feet and waste their time, which is why my work is considered that proverbial Navy seal training equivalent. To high performance and leadership development, because it's about the framework that I [00:22:00] created in the environment that we have together, that challenge the challenges, the client in the right way, that matches who they are in their capacity to perform.

So they can accelerate to the top of their game. They can experience that exponential wealth impact and bottom line, they get experienced a piece of freedom with their successes. They know what they're creating and innovating is coming from the purest place of their power. So that's why I talk about environments and military needs it, civilians need it.

Greg: Yeah. And, and I want to kind of get into the things that hold people back. Another thing that you had mentioned was, uh, rigidity that that's a big detriment to a lot of, a lot of leaders. Is that a person who, and it probably is a big problem in the military. I'd imagine where you were. Oh, you know, abiding by rules and you think this is how it needs to be.

And if I just push harder, then I'll have more success. Right. But you're sort of saying, that's not always true. A lot of times that rigidity can hold you back or that rule [00:23:00] following in that, you know, that hard-nosed attitude can often be confused into rich or can often be too rigid. And you kind of expand on that, like how you learned about that.

And, and, 

Wylie: well, you know, part of the, what I really love is I, I practice, uh, ancient Chinese martial arts and the philosophies behind all of understanding how to be like Bruce Lee talks about it, how to be like water, be fluid, like water, right. Going back to the rigidity aspect. What I've discovered in my work with being a, a combat soldier to working with as a performance accelerator with these leaders is it ends up being boiled down to a personality flaw.

And what I mean by that is it's the idea that the harder I grind, the more I push it up against something that challenges me. The more that I don't agree with, what I'm being challenged with, the harder I'm going to fight it. We have a, what's called a Mo my teacher in a martial arts talks about Western anatomical thinking.

We have this compartmentalized black and white mechanical thinking over here in the west. [00:24:00] We are not as fluid as we could be as human beings. We like to resist first. And then if it feels right or comfortable, then we might let our guard down to learn something. Our first reaction is to push up against something that's new to us.

That challenges us, that stretch us, stretches us. So when I'm talking about rigidity and that piece that you read. This is an example for you. And you're going to like this example. I had a, um, a Colonel, uh, my battalion commander, when we went to Afghanistan, we arrived in country. And within three weeks we were given our first assignment to go to Tora, Bora, and Tora.

Bora was filled with combat fighters. We were there to go gather Intel. They wanted to send about two companies worth of infantry men with some special ops teams to go in there and fight the Taliban and find the Intel that we needed. But our intelligence was telling our Colonel you're probably going to lose 45, 50 5% of your men.

If we send them in right now, instead of waiting for more people to show up, cause we just got into country. And yet his rigid mindset was, I want to be a combat Colonel. [00:25:00] I want to have that under my belt because he's never had that before. So we called him a badge chaser. He was one of those guys that wanted to CIB.

Then he cared about the men's lives that could be lost. We just got into country and you want to kill 45 and 55% of your men just because you want that combat experience. His rigid mindset was made up. This is what I want to do now. Of course, our command Sergeant major, who old score our airborne army ranger basically battled him and said, no, we're not doing that.

And fought him tooth and nail until we actually can. The entire op until we got more of our resources at. But my point here is when you have leaders that are that way, you break things more than you actually grow them. You cannot move cultures and companies and performance to a whole nother level. And when you have that kind of approach to challenges that are uncomfortable, that stretch you, that push you in new directions when you're used to going into the one-year on yourself.

Greg: Yeah. I had a commander who was similar, where he, he said, uh, his goal on a, on a, [00:26:00] on a deployment was that everybody gets shot at and wow. I, you know, I'll be charitable and, and say that, well, maybe he wa he was just trying to say it was, Hey, this is a good thing. And don't be afraid to get shot at and, you know, make sure you're doing your mission correctly, but it shouldn't be the goal.

It shouldn't, it shouldn't be the number one priority to go out there and get shot at, just so you can have that badge. I like that. I'm gonna start calling that, uh, to people. You're a badge chaser. Yeah. 

Wylie: Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, I love that you said it cause he would watch his uniform. He already put down on the right shoulder.

Cause in the army, we wear our combat patches on our right side for the unit we serve with. And then in, in combat we move the American flag down. So we have room for it. He already had his American flag. Sona is you for when we got into country down here and it's kind of like, well, we're not even, we haven't been in country more than five days and you've already done that.

It's a little bit weird for people. And I know by my buddies are seals were like, Hey, we don't care about the salad on our chest. We don't do what we do for the glory. We do [00:27:00] what we do because we're committed to being the most elite in our work as military. And that's the same thing that I talked about earlier.

You, you know this very well. When we go into the military, we actually don't really know outside of maybe the framework they've created for us in bootcamp and so forth. Our schools would go to, we don't know how challenged we really are going to be. We don't understand our limits yet. And what they do in the military is they push us to our limits and beyond mentally, emotionally, spiritually energetically.

So we can get rid of the weaknesses and become the most elite in our job. And that's what it takes to become the best. So when you're talking about being a leader in the civilian world with companies, industry, Titans, et cetera, these people unfortunately are out of balance with their success. They're, hyper-focused on making money and being somebody and they're letting their relationships, they're letting their health.

They're letting everything over here, suffer. And I'm saying, if you want to truly be elite in your life and you want your performance to accelerate, and you want to feel what [00:28:00] it's like to have the most optimized results, you have to balance those things out. And people aren't doing that right now. They don't have.

This type of work available to them. They're just bombarded with these ideas that this is what it's going to take by going through these programs and adding more strategies to your life. And I'm saying, look, this is why I created what I do is because it was missing. It's something that's so needed out there.

And I'm bringing forth all of my experiences in a more holistic approach to optimize a human being, to that's top of their performance. 

Greg: You know, I think it's, uh, there was this article I read recently about a general and air force general who only wore the top row of his metals. And for people who may not be experienced in the military, I'm sure everybody's seen it.

You have the multiple rows of ribbons and badges, and you'll see this, if there's always the joke about the, the south American general, who has, he's never been to combat, but he has probably 200 ribbons on his chest and metals everywhere. [00:29:00] And so this, this general, I think he was a . I don't know. I don't think I 

Wylie: heard about that.

Greg: Yeah. I'll have to dig up that article up. I'll post it, but he just wears the top three, just the top, the top row, which you're you were all allowed to do. It's in the right. Right. But I do this. Everybody does it. You want to show off all your badges and everything. And I really enjoyed how he did that. I kind of wish they would make that a requirement.

Now you just wear your top row, that's it. So we can see the three best things that you've done. So you get some recognition, but you're not out there chasing a big decorated suit. Uh, you know, we need to focus back on our mission and not just checking boxes. 

Wylie: Thank you for checking boxes. And I, and I want to touch on what you just said, Greg, if you don't mind, I'm that guy that said let's make it a goal to get shot at.

You're like, wait a minute wrong approach. If you want us to get comfortable getting shot at, because look for anybody that's listening to is not been in the military. It's getting shot. It's not, not glory. It's not fun whatsoever. Uh, the [00:30:00] crack of a round going over. It brings you to the realization of your mortality.

It's not, it's not a joke and I don't wish it on anybody to go experience that. Again, there's only certain types of people that are built to do that type of work. Same thing when it comes to being a high performer in your life, not a lot of people want to do that challenge. You work to get there and that's okay.

You can go through the process so that you're going through and experience what you desire most. But yeah, that's, that's a good point is it's. Why are we, why are we approaching our life from this check, the box compartmentalized mindset. We have the eye here's, the badges. People were high performer. I've worked with hedge fund teams and I've seen that they're, they're considered high performers in their industry.

However, their lives are miserable. So what I look at it and I bring as definition to the table, which is what I was telling you about a little earlier on the show is defining the difference between high performer and high achiever. Understanding that when you check boxes and you get things done and you do it really quickly and you're able to make money and you're able to move companies and industries, et cetera, that's [00:31:00] achievement.

No, that's, that's not high performance. I look at high performance is how well you're living your life. Performance itself has everything to do with who you are. You are an eight, 10 pilot. You had to be focused. Clear-minded completely aware of your surroundings, your self, your intuition. It's not, it wasn't just mechanical.

There's so much more to be in a pilot, right? When it comes to your focus up in the sky and what you're doing, you're going so far beyond just thinking, you're going into your self feeling, paying attention to scenario your training kicks in all of those aspects. Well, when you're too, hyper-focused on just checking those boxes.

You forget all aspects of yourself as a human being and that part suffers, and that hinders your power potential. So if you want to be a high performer, you've got to bring all of those aspects into play and bring them to balance. 

Greg: Did you ever work with somebody who. You found just didn't want it. Like, it just came down to desire.

And you're just thinking, man, I, I can't figure [00:32:00] this out. Maybe this isn't free. Did you ever have a client where you, that you were just kind of perplexed by or that you weren't satisfied with how you did with them or how they did? Do you have, can you talk to any, any failures out there? Cause I, I get that sometimes.

Wylie: Yeah. Now let's talk about that for a second. Absolutely. Um, I don't, I don't end up working with people who don't want it. So the people that come to me, you know, again, before the pandemic I was behind the scenes had no digital presence. It was word of mouth. Only exclusively. I would go meet people. And this is the gentleman I was working with.

The results you see that I'm experiencing. I highly recommend you. You do the work with him. So when these people would come to me, they're like, look, I'm at a point in my life where I've accomplished the money, the notoriety, the success over here, but I still feel this is out of whack. And I, I, I don't want this anymore.

I want to be the best. I want to be elite in my life. Everything else that I've done. Doesn't work clearly. This is where I need to come. So I work with people that want it. Now, the experiences they have, there's a lot of resistance that comes up [00:33:00] and naturally as human beings, because they need to break through these things.

They need to eradicate the stresses that plague them. They need to face those demons because despite how many things you create in your life and how much money you make, those demons are gonna follow you, no matter where you go. And I've worked with some of these people who have done the Iowasca circles and done the psychedelics and done the, the shamans and the retreats.

And yet it's like, they come back and they still have their demons. And they're like, well, nothing went anywhere. I'm like, yeah, you you're trying to circumvent what it takes to actually battle through them. So I I've never had anybody go. I don't want this anymore in the middle of our work. I will tell you this though, given the fact that I am, I do say, and I talk about being the.

Right. Performance acceleration for those who really want to be elite in their life. That's why it's the proverbial Navy seal training equivalent is because there are people that are built that way that want this. They like, they want to be seals. Like they want to be pilots. They want to be combat.

They're built this way. However, when they get into the work, there's only so far that they can go [00:34:00] before I call a what I call the cap out point where we've squeezed out all of their potential. We've maximized, who they really are. We've gotten to where they want to be sustainably, and then we're done and they go off and they live their best life.

Some people it's six months, some people it's eight. You know, I work in upwards a maximum of 12 months with someone that's it. But I'm kind of like that, that special operator that comes into your life. And I, and I use this word not to sound cool, but because truly this is where people are as unfuck, the things that are holding you back and bring you to where you want to go.

And you get to the point where we can't do any more. You've gotten through. To the top of your game I'm done. And then that's where we find that I can't do any more with you. And that's okay. So I wouldn't say that it's a failure, so to speak. It's just finally getting people to where they belong based on their capacity to perform at everybody's different.

Well, 

Greg: yeah. And that's, um, I'm glad to hear you say that there's some sort of time limit because I have full disclosure, I've gone to therapy a couple of [00:35:00] times in my life and after whatever, six, eight times, I start to feel like I'm becoming dependent on my therapist and start building a relationship with them.

And then I'm just spending money. I'm going okay. There has to be some end goal here. And so I, I like how you say that you're, you're going to help you push through this goal or help you push through this obstacle and then hopefully we're going to be done and you can be off on your way. And so it's a, it's almost like a TDY mission or, or some deployment that you're going on with this.

Wylie: Well, it's you and I am. And thank you. Yes, I am. It's I'm in the battles with my clients. So this is not, again, I'm not a coach. Nothing that I do is anywhere remotely near coaching. That's why it's performance acceleration. It is holistic. I'm in it with you as your battle, buddy, if you will. And I'm right there by your side, at least 24 7 for at least three months, upwards of 12.

And I, I say that in just full disclosure, because people need to hear and understand, like you said, am I going to waste more time, [00:36:00] energy and money on another dependency? And that's what ends up happening is we have a multi hundreds of billions of dollars spent in personal development bank, their efforts on people wanting to copy what someone else has done instead of finding out who they really are.

And what ends up happening is people, especially leaders get caught up in that rat race of dependent on coaching and consulting for more. They don't understand that you don't need all of that. You can get to the top of your game right now. Why wait, if you're built and ready to go? There is a resource that is out there available to you.

You just have to be willing to step towards it. And it's like you said, I get that. I've talked to some, some clients who have worked with therapists for 20 years, they're like, I'm still in the same mess 20 years later, what have I been doing? Like, okay, you know what I mean? And then I had a, a colleague of mine who was like, Hey, look, I, I got rid of my alcohol dependency and I didn't go to AA because AA just serves as another addictive source for people that you need.

They replace alcohol with AA and he goes, and they never get [00:37:00] anywhere. I wanted to break free from the dependency of these things and get to who I was. And that's what it's all about. 

Greg: Yeah. I, I, and so you do, when you help somebody, you're, you're doing physical things. You're physically with them. You're not just in a room talking to them like a, like a therapist, like you're out there in the field going through things with them.

And so, okay. 

Wylie: Yeah. And this, yes. And it's, it's really about. Me being part of experiencing what they're experiencing and it's real time consider what a public figure a high-powered individual needs as things are happening for them. It's like the military in real time in real challenge is where things can evolve quickly, not a coaching call once a week.

You're leaving people to their own devices. Unfortunately, I'm not saying that coaching doesn't have its place. It does serve a purpose like medication we talked about earlier, but when you're the type of person who's listening, going, wow, I really, I that's [00:38:00] me. I want to be at the top of my game. It is where we encompass your life together.

I have a network of specialists across the board from the naturopathic doctors to, you know, even the, the meditation coaches to my martial arts instructors. I bring them in tandem with me as needed, based on where that leader or the high IQ. So that we can consistently accelerate them constantly every single day.

The results that we're able to create are astronomical and highly sustainable. I mean, I'm getting things happening in 24 to 48 hours. It's just turnaround is because we are in real time together watching and witnessing and experiencing them, actually evolving and accelerated and resolving stress and finding out where more of their power is and the chips that they're leaving on the table what's been missing.

And you're not going to get that when you get pulled through. Unfortunately, one of these marketing programs that are offered to people that say, Hey, do these tactics and you're going to have more, well that there's limitation in that you need holistic approaches to your performance. 

Greg: Yeah. It's um, [00:39:00] I, I agree with all of that.

I think having somebody there with you going through some sort of physical activity with your coach, or I shouldn't say coach a performance accelerator 

Wylie: um, we're so indoctrinated into that, man. And that's why it's, I mean, I don't say these terms. This is legitimately where you know, what's missing. And I found this is what's missing in our world of leadership.

We're not, we don't have resources that come into someone's life or are willing to go into the spaces that I go. I go into these places. These clients go, man, how come my therapist? Didn't go there. How come my other coach? How come so-and-so Mr. Big, big shot, you know, guru, didn't go into these places with me.

It's because they don't want to, or they can't. So I go into those places with you because when we get there and we had fucked that stuff, you know, I'm not saying your life is messed up. I'm not, when I say that word, people go, I've had someone ask me, say, does that mean my I'm completely jacked up? I'm not necessarily, but consider what you've been doing.

You've been following other people. You've been reading books, you've been doing the programs [00:40:00] you've been bringing on strategies. You've been bringing the adviser advisers on it. What ends up happening is you take on what I call is transference. You take on all of their limitations on top of what they're trying to teach you or give you.

And that hinders who you are. And I'm coming to the table saying, I don't w this is not about hindering you. This is about optimizing you. I optimize leaders. I don't help them helping is getting people down the road, optimizing them as putting them at the top of their game. 

Greg: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So now for, for you personally, you, you said you were just so tell the obvious you're sort of a Renaissance man in a lot of ways here.

So you've got a bull riding and, and, and you're a great baseball player. And you said in baseball, you were going through and. Something happened at that really messed up your career. And I wasn't able to dig too far into that. It was a, it was a seemed like as a pretty pivotal moment in your life or a pivotal time.

Can you describe what happened there? Where, what sort of screwed you and what you learned from it? [00:41:00] 

Wylie: Absolutely. Um, I grew up around, um, pro ball players and my father was a semi-pro ball player back in the day. And, um, you know, recognize the talent that I had as, as his first born with an arm. So we cultivated my arm.

I became a pitcher and that was all my focus was, was pitching year-in and year-out played baseball every single year, all season long, whatever I could do. And if I wasn't, I was knee deep in baseball card trading and going to games and learning and constantly reading and perfecting that skill set. Um, but I found out as I got older, that when I would take them out, I felt more pressured.

That w it felt like it was outside of me than it was inside of me. There was this idea that I need to stay perfect in what I did so that when I would pitch, and if I did not throw 12 strikeouts 13 strikeouts, if I was not performing perfectly, always, constantly the best I was, I would say, I use this word lightly, but punished for in a certain way, there was always just [00:42:00] you weren't good enough.

You need to do more. Uh, I would get the coaching from the pros. You know, I had a staff teaching me how to build my arsenal as a pitcher. And I, I had a path where I could have gone to the pros and I felt excited as a young man for, but as I got older, when you get older, you start to become more aware of these things.

What started to feel inside was dissatisfaction while they played the game. I started to notice my behavior change. I started to realize that I was not as fulfilled in playing the game for the love of the sport. I was doing it for the expectation of those outside of me, my coaches. You know, the pros around me, I met Mickey mantle when I was a kid through my dad.

I met rod, my dad's friends, rod crew, Bo Jackson. So I had all of these big time people around me that I looked up to that I wanted to make proud of me. So I found as I got older, that mindset started to fracture me inside and broke my focus and it pissed me off. And it drove me to that world of bull riding.

I started to seek out these more, I would say, radical environments, pure intensity, [00:43:00] right? More intensity. I didn't feel alive. And I started to, I would cry sometimes at night. I would feel like the pain inside me and I just didn't feel satisfied. I'd look at my glove and my four gloves in my bag and I would call it, I don't, I don't want this anymore.

This is not fulfilling for me. And I started to rebel against that in the rebellion, ignited that fire inside me, the bull riding started to bring me more alive to the, to the world of my senses simultaneously that holistic, you know, intuition mindset and focus with that animal, connecting to the world of the unknown.

That pivotal moment was when I stepped into that wild, unknown in bull riding and rodeo. And I yielded to the fear that I experienced every time I got on the back of a bull. And when I yielded to that fear, I didn't try to overcome fear or I didn't try to get rid of it because you can't. I fell on my ability to become more powerful ignited.

Naturally. I didn't have to try so hard. It's like, I just sense the shift in my life. And that to me is where I got turned on and wanted to find out more real-world challenge and to keep stretching myself and become more [00:44:00] of a master over my life versus being something that I was expected to be in society.

Greg: Yeah. It sounds like an I'm trying to just capture a few themes here that it's okay to feel fear. We're all going to feel it and you shouldn't just fight it and say that I'm, there's something wrong with me because I'm afraid and it's more like, you're like, Hey, I'm afraid and acknowledge it. That's okay.

And we're just going to 

Wylie: use powerful military, right? Don't don't tell me that one moment. You have not felt fear. Well, we've gone to combat. We all have it. What we do is we yield to it and then we trust our instincts. We trust our training and we become focused and we're able to perform in those environments, despite the fear we might be holding onto.

Greg: Yeah. I sort of, when I, whenever I had those moments, I would sort of picture it like a big wave it's coming. I can't stop it. I'm just going to ride it. Right. And [00:45:00] eventually it's going to slip slide. So it's like, you want to go with the wave. You want to ride the wave. It's going to be over eventually, but you still need to stay on your feet.

So you still have to focus. So you still kind of have to narrow your focus a bit, still focus on what you're doing, but just realize that the fear is there and that's okay. And that it's going to be over and you're going to eventually be okay, but you still got to stay on her feet. So it's almost, it's a, it's a balance.

Like you, you can't very much. I can't, I can't hold the wave. You can't 

Wylie: control, you have to yield. Then you like writing. It is yielding to it. Consider traffic on a highway when you're getting on, on a busy freeway or highway, right. LA you know that very well. If you try to rush your yield, you could cause a problem.

If you are too slow, you could cause a problem. If you do it just right. And you yield just smoothly and just allow that feeling of discomfort that comes up with trying to get onto that crazy freeway in LA you'll notice how everything just naturally. Together, even the people that are in front of behind you start to back off a little bit.

It just becomes this experience that your [00:46:00] energy is creating because you're able to yield properly. So if you ride that wave, you'll find that there's so much more solution oriented performance that comes from it. You're able to stay focused on, on your feet. And we have a world that's built, especially in the west on the idea that we can overcome fear.

It's not about overcoming it. It's about accepting it in realize that it'll always be a part of who we are as humans we are built with it. Fear is actually a really good tool and power source for us to become more. If we know how to yield, like you said, All the way through, no matter what experiences we are facing, and then you can control your inner volatility because of that.

Greg: Well, actually you brought up a great point too. The traffic. So most of us are not going to ride a bull. Most of us are not going to fly an airplane or surf, a big wave, but damn near all of us are going to drive a car and go on the, on ramp into some traffic that could be very thick or very thin that's going 90, or it could be going five, who knows.

Right, right. But we all instinctively do this. And if you think about it, you've got, you have [00:47:00] hundreds of hunks of thousands, of pounds of metal going down the freeway at 80 miles an hour. And very few of us are afraid. We're controlling a machine. We know that if you stop and think about it, if you make a wrong move, you could kill dozens of people.

But for some reason, the average person just does it without thinking about it. So. Think about that. You're going onto this, this freeway and go with the flow of traffic, a real job to do. And go ahead. Yeah, go 

Wylie: ahead. No, no, no. I wanted to add too, cause I know you're in your listeners are going to hear this point go.

Okay. Yeah. I'm driving on a freeway. We instinctively just do it naturally. However, if you consider watching people's performance in their car, when they're getting on their. Most people are, are, are, are not privy to the fear. That's still there while they're merging. They think they're not feeling fear, but watch their erratic behavior.

When people try to cut each other off and getting angry, you slammed on their brakes as they're trying to yield. That's because of what they're feeling is fear of that, that merge. They're just not aware of [00:48:00] it. So their actions, uh, depict what they're truly feeling on the inside. And that is the thing I wanted to make sure that there was a theme linear with that is this is also what's happening with people when it comes to business and achievement and becoming the best in your life personally, and professionally is you're unaware of those blind spots.

That fear that's still there and your behavior is doing things based on that, but you're not aware of it. So what you do is you chalk it up to external volatility. You say, that's somebody else. That's just part of business. This is just cost of being human. And I'm bringing this new insight to say, no, it's not.

There's so much more going on inside you and you need to be optimized. So you become aware of it and utilize that for your second. Because you're a personal professional success are not mutually exclusive. So you might be yielding to that highway. And you might think that that guy behind you is not letting you in, but consider maybe how you feel or how you're approaching the merge into the highway.

And if you're actually out of control inside or you're in a rush or you're panicked, or you had a bad day, and maybe that's why you're [00:49:00] drawing in those experiences that people are showing up based on what you think, you know, is. Yeah. 

Greg: Yeah. I want to get a little bit, I'm changing topics here because I've never actually talked to a person who's written a bowl.

Okay. I sure. The only experience I have, because this is more just my selfish part of this conversation, because I'm curious I've I've uh, I've run with the bulls in Spain. Yeah, I did that. That was pretty crazy. I'm these crazy animals near you, but never thought once getting on top of one. In fact, when I saw a bull looking at me square in the face, that was one of the most fearful moments of my life.

I just jumped over the wall very quickly. Um, what, how do you just explain the process to me? How do I know he got into it, but you get on the bowl, kind of explain me the process, the equipment, the rules. I mean, how does that 

Wylie: work? So I remember my very first ride. And you talked about looking at and looking at your [00:50:00] face to face with that bowl.

It's stereo. Um, I had my first experience with that, my very first ride. And I remember that cold rainy Saturday afternoon, and I driving to, it took an hour and a half to get to the, to the place we were riding at. So the drive was, I was nervous. I was sweat, palms are sweating. I had bought my gear. So you have, you know, basically you have an entire setup where you a rope, you have a gear rope.

Now they have different size handles that it depends on your style of riding, et cetera, where you put your hand into. Now, this sport is one handed sport because you use the opposite hand to create balance. When you're on this bull, this animal and the rope is designed for you to put your hand in and actually tie around the, the, uh, bulls, I would say, midsection or chest to hold you onto the animal.

Now, these animals are raised to do. Bowls that you see Cowboys riding are raised to buck that's their job. So when they're put in that pen, they know my job is to do this. Cowboy gets on. I try to get the cowboy off. So when I got to this first place, you know, my first time riding, I was nervous and I put my, [00:51:00] uh, tied my rope against the fence where you start to create, what's called a rosin, uh, bird, you take this sticky rock and you crush crush into your hand, and then you rub it up against your rope.

And it creates this really sticky compound. That's like super glue. So it helps you maintain that grip all your on the back of this animal. I mean, you're writing a 1500 pellet, 2000 pound beast, so you need to make sure you've got everything ready to go. That can keep you open as long as possible. Now I remember climbing on the back of the shoe.

And getting ready for my ride. They were like, you're up next? You can hear it. Some of the other Cowboys, you know, there's four shoots in the arena, some of the other Cowboys that going, okay, let's go. The gates are opening up and they're writing their eight seconds. And I remember getting on that shoot climbing down to the back of that bull and feeling this like nervous, excitement, this power starting to ignite inside of me, what I was connecting to the warmth of that body underneath me, that's 1500 pound bull that I drew was leading, rocking, swayed, back and forth.

And this little shoe you're inside this like close enclosure, feeling the pressure. And I remember we got the [00:52:00] rope ready. I'm sliding up onto my rope a little bit. He leads on my leg and I remember these guys will all push this bowl to get them off my leg. And I thought, oh my God, I got to go now or he's going to do with this again.

I remember him shifting around and he looked back at me a little bit. And then the opened the gate. He blew out of that gate. I think I lasted two and a half seconds on this ball hit and I hit the ground. And when I hit the ground, I, he slipped and he fell on my leg and he turned on, on my leg and gave me this Charlie horse.

And when he's spot around, like you said, His eyes locked eyes with me for that brief second. And I tell you the fear, excitement, the joy, the panic, every emotion you could feel. I felt all at once in that split moment, when he locked eyes with me, it changed my life forever. It was just this unbelievable experience with this wild animal.

And it turned me on to it and I wanted to do it again. And I was running out of that arena with this Charlie horse, climbing the fence to get away from this bull. And I remember falling on the other side, laying on my back and my buddies were laughing, you know, and we were joking and they're like, how do you feel like, can I do that again?

That was [00:53:00] most exciting thing in my entire life. I want to do that again. There are really, yes. So the process really is. Go experience something that scares you. If you like what it does to you. That's great. If you don't that's okay too, because some things like that, or you're either going to like it, you're not period, which is what a skydive is the same way.

You're either gonna love skydiving or you're not writing bowls though, was it was such a real world challenge. It was every time I didn't know what I was going to get. Yes, they all buck, but you don't know how the bowl is going to behave. They all have their own personal, uh, personal, uh, way. They w they, they take cowboy for a ride.

They might turn out, you know, to the left or the right, a certain way. They might blow out, you know, and throw you their hind legs behind you. I mean, they're all have their own personalities and you start to. To these, these types of experiences that you go, you know what I'm writing a white widow today is the name of a bull I wrote.

And white widow has a tendency to throw his head back a lot when he bucks. So when you're on a bull, Greg, you know, just to kind of finish this thought here, [00:54:00] you're taught that when the bull is coming down on his front legs and back legs are above you, you sit down on the back of that bowl and you lean forward more.

What he's jumping you post up often means you squeeze your legs together and you create a gap between the animals. So you can prepare for which way they're going to turn. And that bowl loved when he'd come down on his front legs that throw his head back to see if he could catch you coming down forward.

Yeah, thrashy and some of these animals will do it. Absolutely. And I've had friends get knocked out doing that because they weren't paying attention to the fact that that bolt does that. So it's a wild world full of unknowns, but I'm telling you that was the place that really turned me on to go to the military.

It turned me on to the self-mastery course to realize the more I can keep myself in these challenges, more uncomfortable, I can stay the more power potential I could ignite in the lesion. The more I can experience those results that I really want in my life and experience a peace and freedom with my successes so that I can go out and do some really powerful work with other people that are looking forward to writing serve for me.

Greg: What, what is the, have you seen Yellowstone? The, the Netflix? I think it's [00:55:00] Netflix. Maybe it's HBO. I don't know. Yellowstone's a TV series. Yeah. There's this kid on there that he's, he's a cowboy and he's not respected by the group. And he's sort of this guy, who's had a lot of trouble in his life, but he finds that he's very good at bull riding.

And so he gets in that and then, um, uh, uh, spoiler alert. Get severely injured in one of the episodes. And I was just wondering, like, what is the rate of injury in that or death? I mean, it just seems so unpredictable. 

Wylie: Exactly. Uh, not as bad as you might think. I don't, I don't know the statistics, excuse me, off the top of my head here with that.

But it's when somebody gets hurt, they get hurt. I mean, it's one of those environments where you get wounded in bull riding, you can get severely damaged. I mean, we had the famous lane frost who was an old school cowboy, which was that, you know, that movie eight seconds was made from and Tuffy demon was his best friend who was eventually the owner of the PVR, which is the professional bull riders association.

And I remember it's like tough Heaton road bodacious. It was one of the baddest bulls on the [00:56:00] pro rodeo circuit was like Arnold Schwartzenegger bowls. I mean, I'm telling you this beast and it, it threw his head back and he did that a lot too. When he would come out, he blow hard and he would throw his legs up and he'd throw his head back and catch the cowboy coming forward.

And it tough. Yeah, we call it a dashboard at man. And when he hit, he shattered his entire face and he has plates in his face now because of it. So when you get injured, you get injured, but people don't do those things with the fear of what could happen. See it, I've been asked that, why did you go to the military?

Were you scared of death? You go to war. No, if anything, I was looking for more of what I was capable of. I, despite the environment I was putting in, I remember getting shot up for the first time at a very young age. I thought, Ooh, that was your mortality kicks it, but you realize that's not what I'm worried about.

I want to be the best. So I don't care what environment I'm willing to do it. Any military guy will say that or gal skydivers of the same way, bull riders, people that are in these real world, challenging environments, they're the most vulnerable because they feel so connected and so alive in those environments, they don't care about could I get [00:57:00] hurt?

Could I get injured? Could I get killed? Of course you can't. But if we go into that from a timid standpoint, we are going to hinder our potential and our power and we will in fact create. What it is, we're afraid of we're going to manifest injury or death. 

Greg: Yeah, that's true. You know, I think for me, I think there is a, there is a line where I would not do something if I legitimately felt that it was very dangerous in my potential of getting severely injured was high.

There is certainly a line that I think we all have. But I think for me, I want to know where that align is. So when I do these things and I would say I'm more of like a, um, probably on the, the above average, in terms of my risk tolerance than, than most people, maybe not Navy seal elite, special forces type person, but I'm probably more than average.

And I think, but I think I try to dig into what motivates me. And I think it's more just a curiosity about who I really am. And you never really know unless you put yourself in situations that you're. [00:58:00] You just don't, you don't really know who you are. And I think we're, we're born a certain way. We, we have been given certain talents and I feel like it's incumbent upon me.

It's almost a responsibility for me to realize how much those talents are for me. It just, it's a curiosity. And it's like, you never really know where the line is until you, till you cross it or at least. 

Wylie: Right. And here's the thing we have unfortunate. And again, there's nothing wrong. We're all built with different capacities.

We all have different genetics. We are all different mindsets. Not everybody's going to hear this and go, I want to go do that work. And that's okay because at the end of the day, you're probably not. And again, there's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't mean you can't create, you can't succeed and have the things you want in your life.

It is for those types of people who say, I want to be elite in my life. I built to go into those, those challenges and experience. What were the line is? And I'm glad that you said that, Greg, because I really want your audience to hear this as well as because if you don't. If you were not challenged that stretches you and scares [00:59:00] you.

And that's, you're never going to know truly what your limits are, let alone be pushed past them. You're never going to understand you said it. Who am I? Because what ends up happening is we take the inherit part of us as kids, which is that learning copy, right? When we're young, zero to six is usually that age grades.

We start to mimic our environments so we can grow into these human beings, but eventually we need to evolve, create our own personalities, find out who we are, but we don't really get that far. We ended up watching and emulating these big name people and go, I want success like that. So I'm going to go through whatever thing they did to try to figure out how to do it for myself.

And then we get lost in trying to be like them. And we don't know who we are. We don't have. Resources that go into the nooks and crannies that need to challenge us and stretch us. So we understand that, like you just said so well, who am I without all the stress? What all, without all the blind spots, without all the trauma, where are my limits really at?

Do I believe that this is my limitation here? Or is this just a unfortunate, comfortable, preconceived notion so that [01:00:00] I can stay in my little bubble and I might think I'm growing, but I'm not really getting where I want to go. So you gotta be pushed and challenged and erupted and stretched. And it, it, you have to be in those environments that make you highly uncomfortable, but you have to do it right.

So that you are accelerated, you don't stay in those environments that you become dependent on. You're like, oh, why am I always feeling this way? I want to be in an environment that challenges me and makes me better. And then I noticed that that growth happens. And then I want to do it again. I don't want to do it again until I get to the point.

There's no more left for me to figure out I've literally living the life I want. And I'm experiencing the peace that I desire. And I'm experiencing success based on who I am not on what somebody else has created. 

Greg: Yeah. That's fantastic. Uh, well, wildly we're getting toward the end here. Any, any last semesters you want to convey to people before we sign off?

Wylie: Yeah. It's uh, I just want to reiterate what we talked about is these environments that are out there and available to you. Um, find if you're the type of high achiever who wants more for their life, it's like listening to us. Talk about it the entire [01:01:00] time. Greg is find the resources that, that challenge you and make you uncomfortable question yourself and whether or not you believe that something might, that feels awful is actually good for you or bad for you.

There's the discernment piece that's missing. People think that when something feels awful, it's bad for us. We, we run away from something that doesn't sound, you know, right. Or normal, right. The therapy does that and they go, well, if it doesn't sound this way, then don't, don't do that. That's dangerous. Why not, why aren't you willing to face something that feels dangerous and see what the result might be for you?

Because maybe it's not as dangerous as you have perceived it to be. So I want people to take that with them when they go forward and say, I want to grow and become more find resources that do that. If there are people that are enticed or inspired by what we've talked about, I'm always available for conversations with people that are looking to be elite in their life, both personally and professionally, because that's what I provide is the space and the environment for high achievers to become elite performers in both their business and in their personal lives.

And that's what I've been doing for leaders, high powered executives, [01:02:00] CEOs, et cetera, for a very long time is giving these types of people who are built that way, like us, the right environments to truly stretch and transform and experience the results at an astronomical. Great. That's what I leave him with.

Yeah. All right. 

Greg: Wiley McGraw. Uh, so people can get ahold of you@wileymcgraw.com. Is that correct? 

Wylie: Yeah. And you know, I created a website for them to, if they want to delve in deeper and more detail, I put it there. They can experience more, uh, understanding of what we talked about in more detail. I created that specifically for people that are inspired to do so.

And like you said, to read a couple of blogs and articles that I put on there. You know, diving into something that really turns you on. And despite what it might sound like or how it, you know, it shows up in your life. So if they feel inspired to do so, go for it. Yeah. All right. 

Greg: Wiley McGraw. Thanks so much for coming on the show, man.

We'll link up soon and maybe I'll be one of those people that you're jumping out of the airplane with sometime 

Wylie: be great. You never know brother. We can 

Greg: always do that. All right, Wiley. Thanks. I'll talk to you soon. Okay. 

Wylie: Sounds good. Thanks Greg. [01:03:00] 

Greg: That is it. My friends. Thanks for listening. If you liked the show, please consider a five star rating and friendly comment on your podcast app and share the great Greeno show on social media.

If you want to learn more about me and my guests, head over to Greg dot com and subscribe to the newsletter. And finally, if you have ideas for the show, please email me at Greg show@gmail.com. Take care and see you on the next episode. .