I’m not saying I’m the perfect example for everybody. I’m just saying, hey. I figured out what worked for me and I’m trying to inspire and help you figure out what’s going to work for you.
Jack: Habits can be good things. Most people think of habits as bad habits. You know, you hear about bad habits. But developing those habits can be positive.
Jairek: Yeah. I’ve met people all the time who say, you know, I have a problem with addiction. What the hell’s wrong with addiction? Just get addicted to the right stuff.
Nothing wrong with addiction.
Jack: You’re addicted to helping others. And I don’t want to make that sound like as light as it is. But one of the things, when you mentioned about at the end of your life do you matter, one of those things that I think really comes to create that feeling that you have mattered is how you affect other folks.
And one of the things that you do and so much of what you do is not just about your growth. But your growth puts off that fruit like the trees that nourish so many others because of what you do. And that’s where the matter, if you’re going to matter, really comes into play.
And I want to make sure that I get you to talk about, before we wrap it up, that a lot of people, when they think about their growth and getting better and their ideal day, if they don’t think about it, they’re thinking about it’s all about them. It’s a very, my ideal day. My. What do I need? How do I need to do this?
But one of the things that you talk about in that book that seems to just change things exponentially is activating your why.
Jairek: Yes.
Jack: And I think it’d be a disservice if we didn’t at least touch on that because all of this stuff has been about “you.” How to better yourself and grow yourself and do this. But it kind of takes care of itself almost once you activate that why.
Jairek: It absolutely does. We share a beautiful, beautiful story of a father and son who, Dick and Rick Hoyt, if you haven’t heard of them. It’s a son who is born where his umbilical cord is wrapped around his head and neck. He was born where the doctors said he was pretty much going to be a vegetable. He wasn’t going to be able to talk and walk or do anything on his own.
And basically, they said why don’t you put him into a home and just leave him there. And the mom and dad looked at each other and said there’s no way we’re going to do that. We’re going to raise him and treat him just like all our other kids.
So when they went to the beach, they took him with them. When they played hockey, they stuck a hockey stick in his hand in a wheelchair and pushed him around like all the other kids.
And finally, I think it was Tufts University up in the Massachusetts area. They created a machine called the Hope Machine that allowed him through literally a little pad on his forehead to move a cursor and spell things out one letter at a time on a computer. To spell out a sentence and then hit a button and the machine would speak this sentence out loud on behalf of him, so that he could talk.
So imagine having to talk one letter at a time, where you sit there and bump a machine with your head to spell out an entire sentence and then hit a button and it speaks out loud for you.
And this young man, he went to high school. When he was in high school, he heard about a young boy who got in a car accident and he was paralyzed. And they were going to have a benefit run for him. And so he said, dad, I want to run in this. So his dad said, okay. I’m not a runner, but I’ll push you.
And that was the very first race they ever did. And he pushed him. And when they got home, he typed to his dad, “Dad, when you were pushing me in the race, I felt like a normal boy. I didn’t feel like I was disabled.” And that’s all his dad had to hear to know that it made his son feel alive and normal and healthy.
And all of a sudden, that was it. That was his inspiration. It’s his reason why.
Since then, they’ve competed in thousands of races. From marathons, triathlons and even iron man competitions, where he pushes, pulls and bikes his son, a hundred pound son, through the entire iron man.
Now, I know people in their 20s and 30s who barely finish, if not don’t even finish the entire iron man on their own. Imagine having to carry, push and swim, towing an extra hundred pound son of yours through the race. And it’s amazing.
And when you look at it, what’s fascinating about the story is it’s so beautiful to see how much a father is willing to do to give his son the ability to feel alive and to feel normal and to feel like he’s just human and full of life.
But the beautiful part is how it affected and how it’s literally saved his father’s life. Because now they’re in, I believe, their 60s and 40s, and his father’s still running the Iron Man. They just ran the Boston Marathon a couple of months ago and they completed it.
It’s keeping his father healthy and alive because he’s staying healthy to run and push and pull and drag his son through all these things. It’s keeping him healthy and alive, which is causing his life to expand. It’s beautiful how it’s a reciprocal giving that’s happening there, even though it feels like he’s just giving to his son. It’s really beautiful.
