The Blind Warrior, Brad Snyder - Gold Medalist Paralympic Swimmer

Hear the story of how Brad Snyder became a gold medalist swimmer despite losing his sight as a naval officer in Afghanistan. His mindset of gratitude and continuous growth helped him persevere as he relearned how to live without sight. In this episode, you’ll discover how Brad beat the odds to pursue his passion, found ways to balance life as a new father, and continues to push himself to succeed. Listen to his story and choose which action fits your needs best.

Action Principles 

Pick one to do this week: 

1. Discover your unique advantage. What is something you can do well that doesn’t come easily to others? Use that to build a successful career. ACTION: Contemplate ways your unique skillset can be used in a business setting and create a plan of action.
2. Practice gratitude. Find ways to be grateful every day. Make it a habit to share those positive thoughts with those around you. ACTION: Share one thing you’re grateful for with a loved one each day.
3. Be adaptable. Let go of past expectations for optimal growth. Be the best version of yourself today. ACTION: Give yourself permission to adjust expectations as your needs and abilities change.
4. Get inspired. Follow people who inspire you to do better in life. ACTION: Pick one person you admire in your field and follow them online. 

Guest Resources

Follow Brad Snyder on LinkedIn and learn more about hiring him as a speaker by visiting bradsnyder.us. 

Suggested LinkedIn Learning Courses

Discovering Your Strengths

Dave Crenshaw develops productive leaders in Fortune 500 companies, universities, and organizations of every size. He has appeared in Time magazine, USA Today, FastCompany, and the BBC News. His courses on LinkedIn Learning have been viewed tens of millions of times. His five books have been published in eight languages, the most popular of which is The Myth of Multitasking—a time management bestseller. As an author, speaker, and online instructor, Dave has transformed the lives and careers of hundreds of thousands around the world. DaveCrenshaw.com

Transcript

Brad Snyder: 0:00

I'm still learning many things. You know, for example, I have a two year old now. And so I'm learning how to be a dad but be a dad blind and I've never been a deadline before. So

Dave Crenshaw: 0:11

yeah, with a two year old, that's especially challenging speaking from experience three times. In this episode, you'll get to know Brad Snyder, the blind warrior, and you'll hear the story of how he became a gold medalist swimmer, despite losing his sight as a naval officer in Afghanistan. I'm Dave Crenshaw, and this is my success Show. Welcome back friends to the Dave Crenshaw Success Show. This is where I speak to some of the most successful people I've met in my life's journey, and you get to come along for the ride. In case it's your first time here. I'm a best selling author. I speak around the world to Fortune 500 companies, and I've taught millions of people how to be successful through my online courses and my books. With this show, I wanted to create something a little bit different. I was thinking about a way to help my children succeed. And I thought interviewing these people would be great ways to learn universal principles of success, and I thought you'd enjoy learning along with them. I interview people who have achieved multifaceted success in many areas of their life, not just career or financial success. And my goal is to find actions that anyone you included can take right now, not a month from now, not a year from now. But something you can do immediately this week to make my guest success story, a part of your success story. And today's guest is while he is somebody you really want to make a part of your life. Brad Schneider is an American professional swimmer and triathlete on the USA Paralympic team who competed in London, Rio and Tokyo, Brad won five gold medals and two silver medals while representing Team USA, and he broke a world record in the Rio Games. What makes him unique is that he lost his eyesight from an IED explosion while serving in the US Navy in Afghanistan, among fully blind swimmers. He is the current world record holder for the 100 meter freestyle event. Today, he's pursuing a PhD in public policy. He speaks at corporate events, and he spends his free time enjoying life with his wife and his daughter, Brad, it's an honor to have you on the

Brad Snyder: 2:28

show. No, thank you so much for inviting me, I appreciate it. And I

Dave Crenshaw: 2:32

mentioned before we were getting started, it's a special honor, because we're kind of a swimming family. I guess everybody but me is this summer, my wife swam collegiately. She's this head coach for our high school swim team. So when I told them that I was interviewing you, everybody was thrilled. They're all going to be listening to this. So it's a special treat for us. All right, so let's dive into this. And Brad, I'm going to ask you a really unusual question, because I kind of want to get your journey, your story from the very beginning. And the first question I like to ask everyone is when you were young, let's talk about in your teenage years. What did you want to be when you grew up?

Brad Snyder: 3:09

It's not an unusual question at all. And I think I asked myself that question pretty much constantly since I was little all the way until now. I'm gonna give kind of a goofy answer. Sure. I think I wanted to be a GI Joe, like, Oh, wow. Not like the abstract GI Joe. But like, I literally wanted to be a GI Joe. I mean, when I was little, I had the little figurines and I watched the cartoon. And I just thought, then I want to be on that team. That seems so awesome. And so I remember I definitely had this very palpable moment. In Afghanistan. One night, we were doing an Overwatch over a village, we were up in the mountains, we were hiding away. I had my helmet with my night vision goggles on it. And I actually had these thermal imaging devices and I had a rifle and I had my metal detector and I had my buddy, a Navy SEAL guy over to my left wearing his gear and all that. And I kind of smiled to myself thinking take away all the superficial stuff. I made it like yeah, I'm living my dream. I'm a GI Joe. And if my 12 year old self could see me now, holy cow, would my 12 year old self be impressed,

Dave Crenshaw: 4:20

but fantastic. Um, you know what, I'm going to do something I never do. I'm going to tell you about a surprise that we're sending. So every guest that I have on the show, we make them accustomed bobblehead. It's quite amazing. And I just made a note to tell Victoria my assistant to make you a GI Joe bobblehead. Very excited about that for you. Okay, so that's, that's really cool. And the interesting thing too about GI Joes, I'm thinking about where you are now is they all have a special quirk about them. Yeah. And that's really that's really the part it wasn't when you were wearing all that equipment. As great as that was. You have been amazing. easing in what you've accomplished in your life and your career with this challenge that you had of blindness. And to me, that's what really makes you a GI Joe is how tough and resilient you are in the face of that and how you've almost turned it into a superpower. I think that's absolutely amazing.

Brad Snyder: 5:18

No, I really appreciate you saying that. I think that goes way back in my background, maybe through swimming, you know, my swim dad, when I was 11, or 12 years old, I remember maybe expressing some frustration to my dad that I was, you know, and I didn't even make the constellation heat or whatever the finals were, my dad was pretty quick to point out, there are only nine people signed up for the 200 Fly, period. Because it's a hard event, there just aren't a ton of people swimming it. And my dad was like, if you just finish the 200 Fly, you could get 10th. And that was way higher that place than I had ever been before. And I realized, well, my dad was saying was, even though I'm one of the littler guys, I can raise my placing just by being tougher than everyone else, my sort of asymmetric advantage would be my toughness, I don't need the size, I can make it up for my willingness to jump in and do the heart event. And I think that lesson has kind of proved itself time and time again, in my life, you know, you got to spend some time thinking about what what is my unique advantage? What do I have that other people don't have? And how do I exploit that? How do I maximize that strength? And maybe blindness was like that, too. You know, blindness can be a disability, or it can be a superpower. You know, as a blind person, there was a lot of things I couldn't do. But as a blind person, there are things I can do that you can't you can't compete in the Paralympics as a blind person I can. So how do I make the most of that? Does that make sense?

Dave Crenshaw: 6:45

It absolutely makes sense. And I love that phrase, asymmetric advantage. I've never heard that. But it really is thinking strategically about things. And again, here's the the swim side of it, I understand that what your dad was saying is exactly what my wife does, she looks at the numbers, she looks at everything that's going to happen and goes to a kid and says, You should compete in this event. And they go well, that's not my event. So you're gonna win if you compete in that event. So let's take that for a moment. And let's move forward with your story to When did you join the Naval Academy? What were you thinking about when you joined that? What led to that process?

Brad Snyder: 7:19

I think the Naval Academy was the intersection of a lot of things that were bouncing around in my head at that age. You know, I was a sophomore in high school, I think when I started to think about what am I going to do after high school? What is my career going to be? How do I how am I going to earn a living, I was very focused on swimming and believed in if I couldn't make the Olympic team, I could definitely be good in the sport. And at a minimum, it was a way that I could have a great collegiate career and maybe get some scholarships. So I was looking around at where could I go to swim, where it's going to set me up for success. What's the best school I could get into. Around that time, my uncle was serving active duty in the Navy on a visit up to him in Virginia, he suggested maybe we should go check out the Naval Academy. And it seemed to be the perfect fit for everything I wanted out of life that unite career and service, an institution that's revered prestigious, great education, all the things I could possibly want the Naval Academy fit. And I'm happy to say that fell true, there was never really any buyer's remorse or anything along those lines. Like it was just an incredible experience. And definitely very formative in the person that I would eventually become speaking

Dave Crenshaw: 8:30

of that formation of who you would become. I know there are so many lessons and so many mentors you worked with. But what's one mentor perhaps that taught you a great lesson that you still remember to this day, someone that you met and worked with in the Naval Academy.

Brad Snyder: 8:47

I could not call this individual a mentor, but their legacy definitely served as an inspiration and an example of who I want to be with my life. And that's John McCain. That first visit to the Naval Academy. I really didn't know what I was getting into. I didn't know what the service cabins were all about. I didn't know anything about it about its history. So I was really taken aback when I first got to walk the campus and really kind of experience it for myself. And I remember this to this day, when I walked into the main office of the Naval Academy, there was a big picture of him on the wall. Senator John McCain, the survivor of the POW camps in Vietnam, who had then, you know, after getting out of the military had run for Congress had run for president was an admirable guy. I thought if this institution shapes a man like him, then I want to go to this institution and I want to become a man like him.

Dave Crenshaw: 9:41

That's remarkable. Okay, so let's move forward in your story. Talk to me about your first assignment, your deployment after leaving the Naval Academy.

Brad Snyder: 9:52

So while I was at the Naval Academy, I had a really hard time deciding what I wanted to do after the Naval Academy and I kind of dialed in on that. The navy seals in the EOD community because it goes back to that asymmetric advantage sort of thing. I was trying to figure out what am I uniquely suited to do? And one strength I definitely had was aquatic competency. I was good in the water. So what kind of Navy specialties need somebody who's good in the water? Well, Navy Seals and then someone suggested this EOD thing to me and I didn't really know much about it.

Dave Crenshaw: 10:24

What is God for those who are not familiar EOD is explosive ordnance

Brad Snyder: 10:28

disposal. So it's a mouthy acronym. And you know, the military is very, very heavy on all of its acronyms. But explosive ordnance disposal is a fancy way of saying the bomb squad for the Navy.

Dave Crenshaw: 10:37

Wow. That, from the beginning, takes a lot of courage. And maybe just a little bit of bravado to do that, right to say, I'm the guy that's going to come in, I'm going to I'm going to defuse the bomb so that everyone else is safe. What a what a remarkable mindset to have.

Brad Snyder: 11:00

You know, it's funny how you stumbled on the right word. I think it's it's difficult to put your thumb on the word. It is courage, and but a part of its bravado and part of it's kind of like this. When you're young, I think you think you're invincible? I certainly did. I thought there was nothing like no challenge I can't overcome. I'm invincible I can take on the world. And I definitely have a different outlook on it now at 40 than I did when I was 19. But yeah, it was exciting back then. And I set out to do that after the Naval Academy spent about a year in training. And then I deployed to Iraq in the fall of 2008. Through that winter into 2009. When

Dave Crenshaw: 11:40

was the moment that you learned you weren't immortal, that it was truly risky. I

Brad Snyder: 11:49

made it all the way through that deployment and back. And shortly after I got back from that deployment, a really, really, really good friend of mine who I had gone through training with Tyler Trahan was killed in Iraq. I think that was the moment where many of my ideal aspects of being a quote unquote GI Joe went away. And I was really profoundly and deeply impacted by that loss. And in a sense, I lost my own immortality on that day as well, I knew that the gravity of this task was real. It wasn't a game, it wasn't cool guys doing cool stuff. There were real, real consequences to this line of work. And I was an officer, you know, I came through the Naval Academy and I was an officer, my job was to oversee anywhere from eight to a dozen other EOD technicians in the field, making sure that they had all the training equipment and everything that they needed to successfully do their job and navigate this really risky profession. And I took seriously my responsibility is to make sure that all of these folks come home from deployment to their families, because I didn't want to see another Tyler happen. And I'm happy to say, everyone made it home from my second deployment, including myself, despite how close I got to maybe not coming

Dave Crenshaw: 13:08

back. That's amazing that you were able to put that aside for yourself and say, Okay, I'm going to help others, I'm going to make sure that this tragedy doesn't happen again, and steel yourself, strengthen yourself to do that as a leader. And I just wanted to highlight that because all of us, as leaders have moments where we start to doubt, or start to feel that maybe we're not adequate to it. And to a much lesser degree, I'm going to say this, but it's important for us to recognize other people are depending on us. So we may be having a bad day. And we need to deal with that we need to do whatever we need to do the therapy, the work, whatever. But the people that are depending on us, we need to be there for them and recognize that we do need to figure out how to be strong.

Brad Snyder: 13:55

Yeah, 100%. And doubt is very contagious. Doubt and cynicism, these are all things that can really corrupt or corrode any organizational element, whether you're on deployment in Afghanistan, or, you know, working in the tech space, you absolutely need to kind of curb these notions of doubt and cynicism and all that. And being a strong leader, being someone who can kind of inspire people through those difficult times is really critically important. The only notion I'd push back on a little bit is I do think it's okay to be vulnerable as a leader and to show that sometimes you're affected by these challenges and things like that. I think, on one hand, it's really important to show strength and show inspiration. But if you're constantly strong, constantly inspirational, I think people might think that you're an autonomous or that you're not really impacted the same way they are, and it's hard for you them to relate to you. So I think there really is a delicate balance in art. You know, leadership is an art in many ways to be able to kind of preserve that delicate balance between between being vulnerable and showing that you really are connected to the mission and to the people, but at the same time, doing your best to all times live that example of strength and inspiration. Oh, that's

Dave Crenshaw: 15:12

beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Okay. Please talk to us about the events that occurred that changed your life forever. Can you just sort of paint a picture? What occurred how that happened? Sure.

Brad Snyder: 15:23

So the threat of IEDs at that point in deployment in 2011, in Afghanistan was so high, that we decided that the only safe way for us to get from point A to point B was for me to walk out in front of our assault team with a metal detector to clear the path. Wow. Thankfully, I don't bear that burden alone. There's always two EOD technicians with every assault team and my partner Adam, and I took turns guiding our patrol from one place to another. On the morning of September 7 2011, I was taking a break at back in the middle of our patrol and Adam was leading our patrol. And up at the front of our patrol, there was a big blast. I ran up to the front thinking that Adam had been hurt. It turned out that two of the Afghan partners that we had within our assault team, Afghan good guys working with us, they had stepped on an IED there was two really badly injured Afghans that we were trying to get aid to. And in me running around trying to help the medic get to these other casualties. I stepped on another AED that was about a metre and a half away from the first blast. Thankfully, no one was around me when I got hurt. But I remember waking up right after that blast. And in that moment, was very convinced that I had died. And I could just barely see out of my left eye. And I didn't see any damage. I didn't see any blood. And I really felt that that had meant that I had died. So I spent a moment sort of in that reality. And in that moment, I thought across everything that that had happened to me that point and you know, I achieved a sense of peace with my death, I was okay with it. In fact, part of me was a little excited to find out what happens after you die. Wow. But this magic thing happened where I came back, you know, my team picked me up, dusted me off, got me on a helicopter and I went to the hospital. And I came back to the US very shortly thereafter and began this new life I have as a blind individual. So in many ways, I feel incredibly lucky to have come back from the brink of death.

Dave Crenshaw: 17:27

What was your family's reaction or your friend's reaction around you? When that occurred?

Brad Snyder: 17:33

There was a really stark comparison between what my experience was through that whole episode and what my family's experience was. My family I think, was really devastated by thinking about what my life would be like as a blind person. And I think this is reflective of some schema we have in society about disability that's pretty profoundly negative. I think we think of a disability as a death sentence. How can you meaningfully have a job? How can you meaningfully have a relationship? How do you fit the mold that we all think is very common if you don't have the use of your legs or don't have the use of your eyes? And so I think my family and friends were all really kind of angsty about what's the rest of life going to look like with no vision? And I think that's why we were all lucky that there was the Paralympics there as a way to kind of break through that uncertainty.

Dave Crenshaw: 18:21

Where did that gratitude come from? Was that because of what you had seen happen to other people, perhaps losing your friend? Or was gratitude already a part of who you were prior to that? Was that a skill you have already practiced a lot?

Brad Snyder: 18:37

I think the answer is a little bit of both. Okay, I think that I had always been a person that would focus on the bright side of things. I think training as an endurance athlete, as a young person really helped me a lot. I always wanted to be the person in the lane that was helping us get through the set as a person, as opposed to the person who's, oh my gosh, I can't believe this is so long, and that kind of thing. That mentality really carried through many of the things I would do in the rest of my life. Leading up to my incident in 2011 was a year or two characterized by immense loss. I lost my buddy Tyler, a girl I was very serious with at the academy. She lost her life. And then I lost my dad in 2011. Shortly before I lost my vision, there was just a year or two worth of loss after loss after loss after loss. And so I feel like it would be a disservice to the legacy of all those people that I love. If I was for a moment to allow myself not to be grateful to overshadow a moment that I have here with negativity when and I don't know how many moments I'm going to have left. I want to make the most of every one of those moments. I'm so lucky to have them. I want to make the most of them. So the long answer to your question is I think it's a little bit of both I think I'm naturally inclined. To focus on gratitude and the positive, but also, the context of that matter, sort of set me up to really look on the bright side. Thank

Dave Crenshaw: 20:07

you for making that choice. And it is a choice, I want to highlight that, because you chose to say, Alright, I'm going to be grateful. And the reason why I'm thankful is your gratitude and the energy from that. I felt it the moment we got on the interview, I was like, oh, man, I see that is a really helpful form of positivity, because it helps me think, oh, you know, what I am, should be grateful that I'm able to interview Brett right? It just makes me start thinking about how I can be more grateful. So so thank you for making that choice and setting that example. Okay, so that occurred, and not long after you started swimming for team USA. How did that occur? How did that start the idea of doing this?

Brad Snyder: 20:54

I kind of framed out a little bit ago about the uncertainty of what does the future look like? To cut through that uncertainty. I think we just wanted to start by reclaiming who I am. I was lucky to do some of my rehab down in Florida where I'm from. And on one of my first weekends out of the hospital, my swim coach was at an event that I was at, and just recommended, hey, do you do you want to come by practice on Saturday, and just from a few laps in it seemed like a really natural way to just say, Yeah, that's me. I'm Brad, I swim. This is who I am. Blindness doesn't fundamentally change me. It changes sort of the outlook, I guess. But I'm still me. And I still want to be the same kind of person I want to be. And that person is a swimmer. Let me go back to practice. Pretty soon after that someone from the Association of Blind Athletes reached out and explored my interest in getting into competition as a blind athlete. That person said, Do you realize how lucky you are to be injured in a Paralympic year, which really resonated with what I was going for, like trying to look on the bright side and be grateful for everything. And it really was just incredibly fast.

Dave Crenshaw: 22:04

Okay, so we've talked about gratitude. We've talked about what's great for just a moment, let's talk about the struggle, what didn't work, what was the adversity that you felt, as you were trying to relearn how to operate.

Brad Snyder: 22:20

At the very granular level, there was a frustration with swimming in that 95% of swimming felt exactly as it had before. In fact, sometimes it would feel so smooth, that I would forget that I was blind for a moment. And so I would go crashing into the lane line. And I'd come out of the water with my elbow, bleeding and bruising up and down my arms. And it was really frustrating to feel like I have the capacity to go really fast, but I just can't stop crashing into the left hand or the right hand sign Lateline. And I thought, If only I could stay in the middle, I would crush this. So it took a lot of patients to step back for a moment. And actually intentionally slow things down, change my stroke a little bit so that I could learn how to not only stay straight, but in the event that I do creep right or left, I can catch the lane line with my my hands as opposed to just kind of rumble stripping in with my chest or my shoulders. Meanwhile, while I was going through all of that process, there was a lot of difficulty in life, just adjusting to the idea that things that didn't used to be all that challenging now are nearly insurmountably difficult things like washing the dishes. It struck me that washing dishes blind is really challenging. You've got all these ceramic plates and wine glasses. And there was a bunch of those sorts of like menial episodes that just felt so frustrating because this didn't used to be a problem. And now it's so challenging and so frustrating. And you know, how am I ever going to achieve greatness if I can't even wash the dishes, there was that kind of feeling. But again, I had to step back and be patient and realize that much of my frustration stemmed from this comparison of my current reality to either a previous version of myself or this aspirational, future version of myself. And I had to let go of those past and future versions of myself to really embrace who I was, what my current capabilities were, and adjust and adjust intentionally and adjust in a sustainable way. And that process took a long time. And in fact, you know that that process is probably still ongoing today. And I've been able to figure a lot out but I'm still learning many things. You know, for example, I have a two year old now and so I'm learning how to be a dad but be a dad blind and I've never been a dad blind before. So

Dave Crenshaw: 24:49

yeah, with a two year old that's especially challenging speaking from experience three times. So, you entered this path of becoming a The Paralympic athlete. What do you need to do? Or how do you pay the bills in between? Because, right, that's not enough income from just that. So what did you have to add to your life in addition to this, to provide for a full life?

Brad Snyder: 25:18

That is the question of the day. And that's what I spent so much time trying to figure out, I went through this really dramatic transition both in life, but then also in terms of profession. And I, what I liked about the military was this very steady, streamlined firms static version of employment. And then I went into a paradigm where my revenue sources are all over the map, I do all kinds of things, and I very, very much struggle, you know, on like LinkedIn to say, what's your tagline? And what's your profession? I don't know.

Dave Crenshaw: 25:53

That's a great point.

Brad Snyder: 25:55

Yeah, I do a variety of things. Almost all of it is, what I would say is gig work. You know, it's it's temporary. I think for a long time, I struggled with that. But I've actually embraced that. And I fancy myself kind of a polymath like I can do a lot of different things. And my skill set is useful in a variety of places. And I've become comfortable with that, I'm never going to have a nine to five, I don't think I'm ever going to have a clean way of describing what I do. But I have a whole bunch of projects on my plate that are all extremely rewarding that push me to think about new things and learn and grow, but also take my unique set of experiences and perspectives, and leverage that in a way that's beneficial for the organizations and initiatives I work for. So from a raw revenue standpoint, as an athlete, I'm really fortunate in that there's a lot of sponsor interest for big corporations involved with the Olympic and Paralympic movement. I have relationships with big corporations that I do some sustained speaking with them, but they also sponsor me and utilize my name and likeness for their their own advertising and marketing initiatives. I do a ton of corporate speaking. And I find that to be rather rewarding. And then engaging in more intimate sort of consulting arrangements with anybody who's interested in me giving you a little bit more dialed in approach on how do we incorporate some of this leadership? Or how do we incorporate some of this teamwork? Or how do we incorporate some more of this resilience in the mindset of our employees or our organizations?

Dave Crenshaw: 27:23

I love that. And I have not had the privilege yet of seeing you speak on stage. But as a public speaker, I can tell you've got all the tools and the gifts to be a fantastic speaker. So I just want to give a plug for people to look you up, if they're interested in hiring you to have you come on stage speak to the corporation, I can tell you would be absolutely amazing. I definitely appreciate that. Yeah. From a practical standpoint, you're still an athlete. So how much time do you have to spend training daily, weekly to keep those skills up to speed?

Brad Snyder: 27:58

I'll tell you, I'm an athlete, and I'm training right now. But the amount of training I'm doing right now is really very minimal, because we might, when my daughter was born in 22, I had a really hard time balancing everything. And I couldn't be the athlete I wanted to be while being a dad of an a young child, I couldn't be the dad I wanted to be to my child while trying to be an athlete, I certainly couldn't be the student I wanted to be or any of these other things that I'm trying to do at the same time. And so I had to take a step back and say, You know what, for right now, to be the dad I want to be, which is the most important thing to me, I've got to step back from training. So I took about a two year hiatus, I will miss Paris as a result. But that's okay, I'm really quite content with the relationship I have with my daughter and the amount of time we've been able to spend with each other. But she's sufficiently at a point now, where she doesn't need me as much as she did when she was an infant say, and I've been able to step back into training right now, I'm doing about an hour a day, five days a week, which is certainly not enough to be elite, but it's certainly enough to lose about eight of the 15 pounds I gained over the last few years. That's to set a platform for me to try to get back into full time training later this year, which is anywhere from three to six hours a day of really dedicated time training. Now, I use the word training a little bit more liberally than some folks were probably imagining training. Sometimes it's not necessarily always hammering on the bike or sprinting on the treadmill or, or going back and forth in the pool. Sometimes training is visualization. Sometimes training is mobility, you know, stretching or doing yoga or those sorts of things. I think a really well rounded athletes, a really good athlete and for me, as an older athlete, I really do need to spend some time with the mobility and with the visualization and all those sorts of things to round out my training. So out of a six hour training day, you know, only maybe two hours of that is really what we would say high intensity, but it's really important to have a diverse set of things. is that you're trying to go for and rounding out your sort of athletic capability.

Dave Crenshaw: 30:03

So practical question, how does that work on the bike? Yeah, great

Brad Snyder: 30:08

question in para triathlon for visually impaired athletes, we ride a tandem bike. So I do the whole triathlon, literally arm's distance away from my guide. In fact, we're tied together for the swim in the run, we ride 20k on a tandem bike as fast as we can, my guide can pedal, so it's really important to find a really good cyclist as your guide. And then we hop off and run a 5k at the end of the triathlon. So the Para triathlon takes us about an hour. My guide, Greg Billington was a member of the Olympic team in 2016, and is an incredible athlete and an even better guide. Now I

Dave Crenshaw: 30:43

love it. I want to go back just briefly to where you mentioned, balance being there for your daughter, can you talk about some practical things that you do, perhaps with your wife, to maintain balance with all of the things that you have going on? So

Brad Snyder: 31:00

I'll be the first to tell you, I don't think I achieved the balance optimally. Okay. But I think that that's just a reality that I've adjusted to. And a little bit of advice that I'm trying to give to myself is, I've realized that this notion of work life balance, or just balance more broadly, is never a set it and forget it type of thing. I think it's something that requires constant time and attention, like your yard, or your house or whatever else. So to achieve that, my wife and I are in constant contact, we have a shared calendar, and we have time set aside. And our life is constantly chaos. There's never a day that looks like the previous day, there's always a ton of things going on. And we just really have to have had had to accept the idea that we just need to be a team constantly to address all the things that we're doing, make sure that my daughter is set up for success. And so that both of us can achieve whatever we're trying to do in our professional lives as well.

Dave Crenshaw: 31:58

That's a great perspective to have. It always needs tending to, and attention and creating those reminders. For instance, I have a reminder that says Have I been on a date with one of my daughters? And if I haven't done that for a while, then I go okay, what do I need to do? All right, Darci and I are gonna go grab a burger together tonight or something like that. It doesn't have to be a big thing. But that reminder does make me go, oh, wait, this is a priority. And I need to adjust my schedule to keep it a priority. I

Brad Snyder: 32:27

love that. I'm gonna take that as well. Yeah.

Dave Crenshaw: 32:31

Talk to me a little bit about your future. What do you see ahead for you over the next five years,

Brad Snyder: 32:36

the most important thing that I've got going is like you just said, making sure that my daughter is set up for success and checking in with her and being a constant point of contact for her to answer any questions she has big be the guidance and the example that I want to be. The second thing I'm trying to wrap up here is I'm about a little less than a year out from defending my dissertation at Princeton. So that's really critically important to me, I wanted to really before this call, I was putting together some paperwork I need to do to get approvals for my survey design and all that. Once that's all wrapped up, I'll write this really, really, really, really long paper, and then present it next June and then hopefully, I will then have a PhD to my name, which will be great. And then beyond that, I'm really focused on La Paris is going to happen this later this summer. And I'm really excited to be Team USA is number one fan. But once Paris comes and goes and they pass the torch to LA, I'm back in the game. And I'm really looking forward to getting back into racing and training at an elite level to set myself up for joining Team USA for one last go around in 28. That's

Dave Crenshaw: 33:41

exciting. I know we're all going to be cheering for you. I'm looking forward to that for you, Brad. All right. So here's the moment in every interview where I like to pause and call out some action items. So as a as an educator, as a teacher, what I want to encourage people to do is to do something, not just listen, not just be inspired, but apply something that they've learned from you. So what I'm going to do, Brad is I'm going to highlight three tangible actions that someone might take this week to make your success story a part of their success story. And then I'd like you to wrap up by choosing one additional action, something practical, something that someone can do today or this week. Sounds good. Sounds good. Okay, so that first one, I want to go back to that phrase, asymmetric advantage, what is your unique advantage? And anyone listening to this? I want you to pause for a second and say, Where is the place where what I do is rare, or is precious or unusual. Try to go to that place and share that go to people where they go, Wow, that's amazing that you do that because not many people around them do it. From a business standpoint. From a practical standpoint, that's a great strategy to build a career and carve out a niche So just something to consider. The second one is choose to be the grateful one. I love that example of you being in the lane, right and being the person's like, hey, we can do this, let's keep going. Boy, my wife talks about that all the time on the swim team about how she wants the kids that are encouraging other ones to do it, rather than being the one that's like, this is terrible, I can't do it, choose to be the one who's grateful. That doesn't mean that you have to be perfect. Like we said, it's okay to be vulnerable. But you can still choose to talk about gratitude and exude it to others. And that's a great way to lead and lift up others. And then the last one, I'm going to go with the idea of let go of the past version of yourself. There was that moment where Brad had to say, these were my skills in the past, maybe I don't have my site anymore. So I'm going to reinvent myself, I'm going to reinvent the way that I do things and become strong with who I am now. And I it's so easy for us to say, you know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I was able to do this. Well, okay, but you're not there anymore. What are you going to do now? and become the best version of yourself that you are today with the skills that you have and, and adapt to it. So maybe consider a way that you can do that? Brad, what's one more practical action that you would suggest to someone listening to this interview,

Brad Snyder: 36:29

we started the interviewer talking about, you know, my aspiration to be a GI Joe, which is a fictional thing, but as an aspirational character and a hero in a sense. Then we talked a little bit about John McCain, one of my heroes, Yeah, buddy, Tyler Trahan, who's was a he's a hero, in a sense. So I think one of the themes I've seen as while I've been able to achieve some things, I've never been able to do it without at least the ideas or the inspiration of people who are near and dear to me, mentors, heroes, or whatever else. So maybe a takeaway could be reach out to somebody like that, who's had a profound impact on your life, and thank them and express your gratitude for the example that that they've been able to have on your life. And I think that allows us to achieve both putting our minds in a frame of gratitude, but also giving that person the gratification to say, you know, you what you have done has inspired me or is an example I'd like to follow or maybe I can continue to follow you or at a minimum, let me just express my gratitude for, for the example that you've set for me and others. And I think that would be a great takeaway.

Dave Crenshaw: 37:34

I love it. Yeah. Even if you can't communicate directly with someone like that, they can still mentor you from afar, you can still follow them. And in fact, that leads to my last question, Brad, what's the best way for people to follow you to stay in contact with you so they can continue to be inspired by you.

Brad Snyder: 37:51

LinkedIn is a great place that you could reach out to me and connect, send a message or whatever else. My website, Brad snyder.us is a great landing spot for that sort of thing. And then my email is just Brad Schneider usa@gmail.com. If you want to reach out and share your thoughts, or you've got a question, I'm happy to engage with anyone who's listening to the podcast. Yes.

Dave Crenshaw: 38:13

And please hire Brad to come speak at your corporation. He'll be amazing for you. I know it. Brad, thank you so much for your generosity and for spending time with us. I really appreciate it.

Brad Snyder: 38:23

I appreciate the plug. But I definitely appreciate the conversation. It's been really enriching. Thank you very much for having me.

Dave Crenshaw: 38:28

Yeah. And thank you, everyone for listening. Remember, it's not so much about what you heard or how you were inspired? It's about the action that you take on that. So do one thing today to make Brad's success story, a part of your success story. Thanks for listening.

Darci Crenshaw: 38:47

You've been listening to the Dave Crenshaw success show hosted by my dad, Dave Crenshaw, and produced by invaluable incorporated research and assistant production by Victoria Bidez. Sound Editing by Nick writes, voiceover by me Darci Crenshaw, and the music is by Ryan brainy via pond five licensing. Please subscribe to the Dave Crenshaw success show on Apple podcasts, Spotify, wherever you like to get your podcasts. If you have a suggestion for someone my dad might like to interview, please send it to guests at Dave crenshaw.com. And please don't forget to leave us a five star review. See you next time.