“One More Thing, One More Time”: The Power of Adaptive Resilience

Alana Muller:
Welcome to Enterprise.ing, a podcast from Enterprise Bank & Trust, that's empowering business leaders one conversation at a time. We'll hear from different business leaders about how they've found success in cultivating their professional networks and keeping them healthy and strong. I'm your host, Alana Muller, an entrepreneurial executive leader whose primary focus is to connect, inspire and empower community. We at Enterprise Bank & Trust thank you for tuning in to another episode.

Hello and welcome back to Enterprise.ing podcast. Listeners, you're in for a treat. Today, for only the second time in Enterprise.ing podcast history, I'm joined live by both my very special guest and by an audience of about 400 Enterprise.ing podcast enthusiasts, both here in the studio and virtually online. Suffice it to say the pressure is on. Know that I plan to get our audience members in on the discussion too, so expect to hear some new voices on today's episode.

Today's guest is one of the most upbeat, optimistic, positive humans I have ever encountered. He is Josh Sundquist, motivational speaker, bestselling author, Paralympian and Halloween enthusiast. At age nine, Josh was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer and given a 50% chance to live. He spent a year on chemotherapy treatments and his left leg was amputated from the hip. He learned how to ski while on chemo through an adaptive sports program at his children's hospital. After years of training, Josh was named to the U.S. Paralympic Ski Team for the 2006 Paralympics in Torino, Italy. Josh has since represented the U.S. in international competition as a member of the US Amputee Soccer Team. Josh Sundquist, welcome to Enterprise.ing podcast.

Josh Sundquist:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Alana Muller:
I am very happy you're here. I was privileged enough to hear you speak live on stage recently, and I feel so lucky to have the chance to sit down with you one-on-one. I'm so glad you're joining Enterprise.ing as a community today. Josh, take our listeners, if you will, through a brief tour of your personal and professional journey.

Josh Sundquist:
Well, I feel like you just took me through a brief tour of my own professional journey.

Alana Muller:
Did you know the things that I shared with you?

Josh Sundquist:
Some of them were shocking. But yeah, I was astonished that I lost a leg, even? I was like, wow!

Alana Muller:
I'm glad you're sitting down.

Josh Sundquist:
I was like, oh, man, I forgot about that.

Alana Muller:
I know. I know.

Josh Sundquist:
I mean, it's good to be reminded from time to time. But yeah, I grew up in a small town in Virginia, and I guess the shading I would add around that story is that I was always an athlete, or always a kid who wanted to play sports, and as you know from hearing me speak, I was into playing soccer, and that was my thing. And then in losing my leg, I thought, wow, I'm never going to play soccer again, and certainly I was never going to be able to play on this team that I really wanted to try out for locally in my town.

Indeed, of course, I was not able to try out for that team, but I learned how to ski and I got to be a ski racer, and then many years later, I got to play soccer on crutches with one leg, which has been... It's interesting, as an adult being on that soccer team, it's something I literally never would have imagined. There's things in life that turned out how we hoped or worse than we hoped or better than we hoped, but it's just like, I wouldn't have even hoped that that would be a thing that would happen.

Alana Muller:
Well, and it was a childhood dream, and yet as an adult, you're living out that dream. How amazing is that?

Josh Sundquist:
Yeah, I guess it feels very full circle, would be the way to say that.

Alana Muller:
Yeah. Really special. Well, I know you're the author of five books.

Josh Sundquist:
Yes.

Alana Muller:
Right?

Josh Sundquist:
Yes. Well, I've published five books. I'm the author of many other failed books that have fortunately never been printed. Alana Muller: Buddy, you and me both. You and me both.

Josh Sundquist:
Yeah.

Alana Muller:
Yeah, I get it. Well, you should know that in anticipation of our conversation today, I read your first book. It's called, friends, it's called, “Just Don't Fall: A Hilariously True Story of Childhood Cancer, Amputation, Romantic Yearning, Truth and Olympic Greatness.” That is a great title, by the way.

Josh Sundquist:
Thank you. Yeah, that's the whole book actually, is just that. She read it to you. You don't need to read it now.

Alana Muller:
Yeah, you've got it all, right? You've got it all. Well, so I have to tell you, I found myself laughing out loud, shedding more than a few tears. But you have such a funny, upbeat, candid way of communicating, and as I was sharing with some of our audience members before we sat down, you invite the reader in, and I really appreciate that, because you make it so digestible, just so easy to read and to sort of go on your journey with you. And so, thank you for that. I really appreciated that. Josh Sundquist: Thank you for reading the book.

Alana Muller:
You're welcome. One of the things that you talk about is that when you were going through chemotherapy, you were asked: “What keeps you going?” I think maybe a film producer asked you that question.

Josh Sundquist:
That's right.

Alana Muller:
And the question was: “What keeps you going? What gets you out of bed in the morning?” And your answer was: “I want to finish.” I want to know, if you would share with us, what did you mean by that and how does that still factor into your life today? Josh Sundquist: Because I was on chemotherapy for a year, and so I had 18 chemotherapy treatments. They were all inpatient, either three-day stays or five-day stays in the hospital. So essentially, I was in the hospital one week out of every three. I spent a hundred nights total in the hospital over this year. And as anyone listening or in the room knows, who knows people who have been on chemotherapy, it's just miserable. And so, I knew that there was this finish line on the other end of the treatment, this idea that I could finish the chemotherapy, that my hair could grow back, that I could not feel ill all the time, and that most importantly, that I could have energy again. And so I think the hope of that, of things returning to normal, so to speak, was that every day what I was leaning toward and thinking about and pushing toward.

And it's interesting, because I think now being an adult and thinking of the nuance of it psychologically... Because I know from my parents, it was actually the opposite. My parents, if you ask them, "How are you getting through this?" Or if you ask them today, "How did you get through it?" It’s literally the opposite. It was like, "One day at a time. We can't think about, it's too overwhelming to think about all the stuff that's coming and all the things on the whole, it's just like, let's get through today." So I think it's interesting that in a situation like that, that there could be potentially different adaptations or responses that a person might have. But for me, at that particular age, that was the one that kept me going.

Alana Muller:
Well, it's interesting. It's almost like the way you're describing it now, you had a sight line to the finish line, literally. And it's almost like an analogy for your ski career, that you were thinking with the end in mind. You were kind of, “how do I get there?” Because that feels a lot better than how it feels right now. And for your parents, it was kind of an “eat the elephant one bite at the time” approach, right? So it's interesting that that is the approach you took. Do you say that kind of thing now? Is that reserved specifically for that time in your life, or is there something now where you say, “I want to finish, I'm ready for that finish line so I can move on to the next thing?” How does that work for you now?

Josh Sundquist:
Well, I think, as you know from reading the book, and those of you who have seen me speak, you know I am a very goal-oriented person, and I think... I had a therapist once that had a really profound idea, which was that most of the problems that we cause ourselves in life don't come from our weaknesses, but from the overuse of our strengths, which I found to be such a deep insight. And so, I think the ability to project into the future, to use the word you used, and to work toward a specific goal is an incredibly powerful tool to have in your tool chest, or maybe a gear to shift into.

For me, it is a great strength. By great, I don't necessarily mean positive. I mean, it is a very large and dominant aspect of my personality, so I'm not as good at shifting out of that. So I wouldn't necessarily suggest that everyone emulate me psychologically, because I still see therapists to try literally, like I say, I'm like, "How can I achieve less, and feel better about it?"

Alana Muller:
I get it, I get it.

Josh Sundquist:
But to return to the root of your question. So it's like, yes, of course, that is absolutely still a part of my personality, and I always have too many goals and things I'm trying to work toward. But I guess as an adult, what I'm trying to do is not find my identity in where I want to go and where I imagine myself to be in the future, nor to find my joy and satisfaction in that, but rather in the present, while also doing one more thing one more time, and getting better and working toward, often for me, it's often writing a book, or making the next Halloween costume, or making a TV show, or any number of things. But it's still the same idea, same process of imagining, having a very clear vision and working towards it and breaking it back from, “here's the end point.” Okay, what's the step before that? What's the step before that? What's the step before that? To where you are now, and then you have a path to get there. Yeah.

Alana Muller:
Well, okay, so two things along those lines. When I talk to clients about the things that energize them, we also talk about what I call energizers or strengths in overdrive. And I think that's what you're describing, is kind of too much of a good thing is not necessarily a good thing all the time, right?

Josh Sundquist:
Yes.

Alana Muller:
But you also just mentioned that, my next question has to do with your personal motto: “One more thing, one more time.” What is that? Share that with us, and how can we begin to apply that concept in our own lives?

Josh Sundquist:
It was actually a motto that… There was a Swiss ski racer. He's still alive. I think he's in his 80s now, that I read about him when I was ski racing, and he had this motto, I assume for him, I assume it was in German, and probably thus the words are probably slightly different, but I read it translated as, "One more thing, one more at a time." And I was like, “Wow, that's what I want to do.” And in fact, I was speaking to an Enterprise executive about this just now, this idea that when I was a ski racer, I honestly was not that talented at ski racing. There were people who were way more gifted as ski racers than I was, and that was very obvious from the beginning.

But what I thought was, and what I felt confident was, that I felt sure that I could work harder than anyone else in the world. I was like, I know I can outwork anyone, and maybe that can be enough to compensate for the natural talent that other people might have more of than I do. And doing that, the way to do that, or the way to encapsulate that or break that down was: “One more thing, one more time.” I found, since retiring from being a ski racer, that of course, that's not just a ski racing motto. It's a motto that I think we can apply to really any endeavor or anything that we're focusing on in life. Alana Muller: I love that. I want to shift gears on you for a moment. In preparation for our conversation today, I was stalking you.

Josh Sundquist:
Thank you.

Alana Muller:
A little bit. You're welcome. Okay, so one of the things that struck me, though, is that I find in today's polarized world, that in some ways we're almost walking on eggshells, where we're so afraid to say things to people. We're so afraid. But you haven't had that problem. People seem to feel free to just say any old thing to you. And so, there have been several that I've quite liked. I'm sure you have many, many more, but one of the things that I really liked was the time that the nurse was trying to find your pulse in your prosthetic leg. Yeah, that was a good one. There was the other time where somebody asked you if the foot was fake, too?

Josh Sundquist:
Regarding the prosthesis.

Alana Muller:
Or the time that the airline upgraded you, so you'd have more legroom.

Josh Sundquist:
Yeah. Right.

Alana Muller:
So my point in bringing up-

Josh Sundquist:
Well-meaning, obviously.

Alana Muller:
Well-meaning. I know.

Josh Sundquist:
I just…legroom is not the problem. I have too much of it already.

Alana Muller:
Indeed, indeed. So, okay, my point in bringing up all these sort of oddball, awkward human moments is that you seem to have a knack for laughing it off and embracing them. And I don't know if maybe you're seething a little bit on the inside, but you have a way of, I think, giving people grace. And I think there's a lesson to be learned on that, especially as I said, today in a world where we're so afraid of each other, we're so afraid of one another. So talk to us a little bit about, how do you handle these things with such grace? How have you been able to almost welcome them in again, and laugh them off into something that we can all laugh about?

Josh Sundquist:
Yeah, I think sometimes in these sorts of situations, there's a choice where I can perhaps get incensed or stressed or angry, or I can laugh about it, and it just seems to me way better to laugh about it. Clearly there's a threshold beyond which a situation would be upsetting and only upsetting, but very rarely do people cross that threshold. People, I find, are really well-meaning, and when they do weird things, it's generally out of trying too hard to be nice, or something like that. So I think in that sense, yeah, it's better to, when possible, assign people better motivations, as opposed to thinking like, oh, this person is, they're insensitive, they don't care, whatever. Rather, I think often a better interpretation and an accurate interpretation is, no, this person is trying to be helpful and doesn't quite know how to do so, and maybe is trying too much to do it, or feels awkward and doesn't know what to do. And interpreting their behavior through that more positive prism, it just makes it less upsetting. And then I just make a mental note and I'm like, oh, cool, and also, I'll make fun of this person on stage in the future.

Alana Muller:
So really, they're just feeding you content.

Josh Sundquist:
Yeah, yeah. It's like great content. I'm like, oh, thank you for saying this weird thing.

Alana Muller:
So good.

Josh Sundquist:
When people, generally, people will just come up to me at an airport or whatever, and part of me it's just like, “Oh, no, what are they going to say?” But part of me, I'll also like, “Oh, this is…”

Alana Muller:
This is going to be good.

Josh Sundquist:
Let's see what they say. Let's see what's… see how weird this one gets.

Alana Muller:
Let me ask you one more question before I ask for some audience participation here. There is so much pressure on people to be the best in their craft, and it's all about succeeding and making money. And when you were training for ski racing on your quest to become a Paralympic skier, when you did, I know that you were in conversation with a counselor of yours, and that you shared with him that you didn't have time to fail. That was your quote, "I don't have time to fail." And after unpacking that, he went on to ask you, "What if you did your best, and that was enough?" And from my reading, that seemed to be sort of a mind-blowing concept to you, that if you did your best, what if that was enough, that that was the thing that you needed? Can you kind of walk us through that situation, your mindset and how it shifted your perspective so that you could go on to join the Paralympic team?

Josh Sundquist:
Yeah, I think I was, initially, “I have to make the Paralympics.” And anyone honestly who is trying to go to the Olympics or Paralympics, people might be sometimes like, well, what does it take to make the Olympics or Paralympics? I would say it takes some kind of borderline personality disorder. You have to be pretty delusional to think that this makes sense. Things are going to be so good if I win the medal, that all of this is worth it. And so I think that I was sort of in that mentality, and I think that maybe that moment released me to some degree from that and the idea of, okay, well, actually, what's more important is that I do one more thing, one more time, and that even if I don't make it, I can at least feel satisfied in the performance doing my personal best. Now, learning that is a lifelong process, and I would think my current therapist would probably be, "Really? Josh learned that 20 years ago? I don't think so. I feel like that's what we're still looping on today." But yeah, I think that that's a profound idea that is applicable, again, in any situation, athletic or business or otherwise.

Alana Muller:
Excellent. Excellent. Well, friends, if anybody has a question for Josh, I'd love for you to approach one of the microphones. For those of you watching with us virtually, if you want to, and even those of you here in the room, if you'd like, you can scan the QR code and enter a question for Josh. So I'm going to invite you to come forward now. I see we have somebody coming up. If you would, when you get to the microphone, if you would say at least your first name and where you're from, that would be helpful.

Shaun:
Thank you, Josh. Shaun, I'm here in St. Louis, over at our [inaudible 00:17:53] location. My question for you is, for most of us, independence is huge. When do you know when it's time to ask for help?

Josh Sundquist:
You said for most of us, independence is huge…

Shaun:
Is huge, and obviously, you not wanting to fail, how do you know when it's time to ask for help?

Josh Sundquist:
Yeah, that's a good question. I think I don't mind asking for help. I mean, you mean, let me ask you, Shaun, a clarifying question. Do you mean in sort of everyday physical activities like, “Oh, if I can't carry this box…” Or do you mean a broader sense of like, “Oh, I need help and support from people?”

Shaun:
I think using just that metaphor in general, “I can't carry the box…” Just in general, what do I need to do to get to the next step to lift that box, or what do I need to do and when am I willing to ask for help, instead of doing it on my own?

Josh Sundquist:
Yeah, I think I probably deal with situations where I need to ask for help by avoiding those situations at all costs. Yeah, there's few things that physically I'm particularly limited by. I'm actually, I think, much more able than would appear from the outside. But yeah, I can't carry real heavy boxes, so moving is very stressful to me. But anything involving just carrying large things, which I can't do, it's stressful to me to be unable to do it, and so I have a tendency to try to avoid those situations. That's not a super healthy behavior, but I guess any therapist would tell you that identifying the behavior and being aware of it is the first step towards mindfulness, which I think is good.

So yeah, I think for me, knowing that and seeing that, and then for me, my main support system being my wife, Ashley, her knowing that and being aware of it, too. So if we're moving, or just moving stuff from one room to another, we both know this is going to be kind of a stressful thing for me, and we are both aware of that, and aware that asking for help might be hard. But I'm also aware that I can't do everything, and I do need other people's help in that situation. So I don't know that there's a clear answer to your question, but that's some of the thinking that would go into that from my perspective.

Shaun:
That's great. Thanks, Josh.

Josh Sundquist:
Thank you. Thanks for that question.

Alana Muller:
Josh, we have a question from our virtual audience. The writer asks, “What is the most unexpected lesson you've learned from your experience with adaptive skiing, and how has it impacted your perspective on life's limitations?”

Josh Sundquist:
What is the most unexpected lesson you've learned from adaptive skiing? So in ski racing, in adaptive ski racing, there's these things that I use that are called outriggers, and they are, they look like forearm crutches with ski tips on the end. If you've ever seen someone ski on one leg or in what's called a monoski or a sit ski, they would have some form of outriggers. The idea being that you're skiing primarily on your ski, but as you lean into turns, you have the outriggers there to sort of catch you if you're getting off balance.

After I had raced for a number of years, I realized that outriggers are useful to have and good to have in racing, but they allow you to be a little sloppy in your form, because you can use them to compensate for yourself, for your body being off balance or out of position from where it should really be. So after a couple of years of training, what I started doing is spending a lot of time training on regular ski poles. So rather than the outriggers, it's just my one ski, and I have poles. So if I am going to not fall, my balance has to be exactly right, because there's not room for error anymore with the outriggers.

So, that's really hard to do, but it really revolutionized my skiing, because it forced me to correct a lot of bad habits and errors that I'd been making. So I suppose maybe then, the lesson in life would be something similar, or if I could adopt it broadly, it would be, well, number one, it's a weird thing to do in the world of adaptive skiing. People would be like, “Why are you doing that? Why would you do this?”

Alana Muller:
It's almost like you were working, it was like precision molding. It was like you were improving that precision. You talk about, “One more thing, one more time.” It was like, one more twist to make it even more precise. Is that accurate?

Josh Sundquist:
Yeah, I think that that's a fair way of saying it, and knowing that, okay, this is maybe the traditional way of training, but for me, for my needs as a ski racer, I need to add this extra thing and I need to do it this way, and that's what's going to make me better. And also the idea of sometimes making it deliberately harder on yourself in training, so that in the real thing, in game time, so to speak, it's easier, right? Because you've removed the limitations. Because then when I would race, I would race with the outriggers. But I tried to train under, add extra difficulty to the training, I suppose.

Alana Muller:
Excellent, excellent. As we're beginning to wrap up our conversation, there's one question I ask of every guest. So I've asked many, many people, more than 80 people, this question, and you get the question here. So here it is: If you could sit down for a cup of coffee with anyone, it can be living, not living, fictional or non-fictional, who would it be and why?

Josh Sundquist:
Wow, fictional included.

Alana Muller:
Oh, yeah.

Josh Sundquist:
All right. If I could sit down with anyone living, non-living, who would I choose? Maybe Shakespeare. I think I would be, that would really...

Alana Muller:
Nobody's ever said Shakespeare. Why would you choose Shakespeare?

Josh Sundquist:
Well, I just think it's like, there's a lot of conspiracies about like, oh, he wasn't really one person, he was like 20 different people writing under different... So first, I want to sort that out.

Alana Muller:
Get to the bottom of that one.

Josh Sundquist:
And see like, are you the guys that wrote these, or are you a pseudonym consolidated as one person? I would be curious to learn that. But also, somebody was writing those things. And I think iambic pentameter, this idea of being able to construct the right number of syllables and make it all mean something and have this perfect rhythm. I just would be curious to talk to him and hear the way he talked, and hear how fast his brain worked. I think it's analogous to, not exactly the same person necessarily, or significance as a writer, but Aaron Sorkin, right?

Alana Muller:
Yeah. Very specific style.

Josh Sundquist:
Who has this very specific style, and I always thought like, man, how does he write this dialogue? He wrote famously West Wing and things like that. How does he write this sort of specific dialogue? And then I read an interview with him where he was just speaking, and I was like, “Oh, he just talks like this. He's just a genius who just says these genius things.”

Alana Muller:
And when you get to know somebody, you can hear them in the way they write. You can hear a person. If you're listening as you're reading, you can hear a person, and that's kind of what you're describing.

Josh Sundquist:
Yeah, and so I just want to talk to Shakespeare and just see, does he just talk like this? Is it just genius words constantly coming out of his mouth that have this perfect rhythm scheme?

Alana Muller:
Well, maybe you should come back for another episode and we should only talk in iambic pentameter. What do you think?

Josh Sundquist:
That seems really hard. I would have to study up on some Shakespeare…

Alana Muller:
Get ready.

Josh Sundquist:
…Or people writing as Shakespeare, so that I would have the ability.

Alana Muller:
I'm your gal.

Josh Sundquist:
You seem very confident about it. You think you can do it?

Alana Muller:
Yeah.

Josh Sundquist:
Okay.

Alana Muller:
I mean, who couldn't, right?

Josh Sundquist:
Of course. Yeah, absolutely. You're a podcast host.

Alana Muller:
I'm a podcast host, yeah. Yeah, I've got this nailed. It has been a privilege to talk to you. So fun. One of the things we didn't get to talk about that I want to make sure our listeners know is that, not only are you a Halloween enthusiast, but your costumes are unbelievable. So we'll include a link in the show notes so that people can check out your incredible costumes. But talk about, what's your favorite costume that you've ever done?

Josh Sundquist:
Well, thank you for all the kind words, Alana, and my favorite costume... And podcasting being an auditory medium is not great for describing costumes that are hard to imagine, but I dressed as Tigger one year, and the costume is like, my leg is Tigger's tail. And, well, for one thing, it's just a very comfortable costume. Some of my costumes are really uncomfortable or really hot. The Tigger one is like pajamas. It's like a onesie that just happens to have these extra legs hanging off of it. And so as costumes go, it's very comfortable, but I also just think the appearance of it is very uncanny and funny.

Alana Muller:
Well, our listeners can check out the show notes for this link. And so in fact, Josh Sundquist, where can our listeners go to learn more about you and about the work that you do?

Josh Sundquist:
Well, it sounds like the show notes would be a great place to start.

Alana Muller:
That's a good first step. What would you say, if you were saying this out loud, for example, on say a podcast, what would you say?

Josh Sundquist:
I'm pretty easy to find, as you've discovered on the internet. But I think I rank very well if you Google: "Josh one leg." I have a really high search result for that.

Alana Muller:
Just for the record, I did not Google "Josh one leg," just to be clear. Just to be clear.

Josh Sundquist:
“I can't remember his last name.” Yeah, so my name is Josh Sundquist, and people can find me on every social media platform, I'm there as Josh Sundquist. I make a lot of videos, literally thousands of videos that I've put out over many years, and my website is joshsundquist.com.

Alana Muller:
Easy enough.

Josh Sundquist:
All that stuff is out there.

Alana Muller:
Joshsundquist.com. Thanks for being on Enterprise.ing podcast.

Josh Sundquist:
Appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Alana.

Alana Muller:
Thanks for joining us this week on Enterprise.ing. Be sure to visit our website, enterprisebank.com/podcast to subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. If you found value in today's program, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or telling a friend about us. Enterprise.ing, powering business leaders one conversation at a time.

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