Imagine your child getting hit by a truck and losing their legs. That is what happened to the parents of Kacey Mccallister. What the doctors told them, was a gift. Today he takes part in the Spartan Para-Olympics -- as a sidenote Spartan = more than 16-hour trails, with military obstacles in between that bring every person to their edge. Kacey doesn't just finish, he continues to push forward. But what does a parentpreneur like Kacey do, when things get a bit to tough? Where you can find Kacey: Rise Up. https://riseupwithkacey.com/
When you are at the Spartan para Olympics and you're at a tough spot where you figure, how do I go on? What does Casey McAllister say to himself? A man where I see an entrepreneur with a heart of fire and gold at the same time. He loves his family. He's an athlete. Even though he has no legs that does not hinder to live a fuller life than most people do.
When I was six years old, I was hit by a semi-truck and in the process of that loss lost both my legs. And when I was in the hospital and the first moment I was a young kid, you know, it was only six years old. And so I think that might've had part to do with how I reacted to it.
But when I found out I didn't have life because I, I took it in stride and, and, you know, decided to move on with my life. But one of the biggest points of that process came as we were leaving the hospital because the doctors turned to my parents and they said, make sure that you don't do things for him.
Make sure he does things for himself. He needs to learn to be independent. And, and so, you know, before I even got home, my parents were determined to make sure that I would be able to figure out how to do things on my own. I'd be able to be independent. And so from the very beginning, I had that when I do have to check myself and say, okay, can they do this?
You know, what can they do? Let's figure out what they're able to do and what I'm helping them do that they could do on their own. You know, people viewed me as disabled. They would treat me as disabled because they assumed that I couldn't do things for myself. So I had to prove not only to other people, but to myself on a very regular basis that I could do things. And in fact, as I got older, you know, it became more about proving to myself what I could do. And, and that's kind of how I got into the Spartan runs. Because I was doing marathons, you know, I was doing stuff in my race wheelchair, but you know, it got too easy for me.
And so the only thing option was to find something more difficult or be more competitive in the mirror. And, and to be more competitive than in the marathons, we would take a lot of time to train and that's time away from my family that I wasn't willing to spend. So instead, I look around and I found this race and when I first looked at this race, I thought it was just stupid. You know what I mean? Who the heck would want to, you know, be crawling through mud and Kline and ropes, jump fire. And I was like, okay, that's stupid in itself, but that would be even worse for me.
That was kind of my first reaction to it. But after a while, and after watching the video five more times, you know, I started to get excited by the challenge of it, you know, and I told myself, you know, who am I to tell myself that I can do it? You know, how do I know I can do it? And so I decided that I needed to see whether or not I could accomplish one of these things.
And that's how it started. And I did the shortest one, the little, you know, three, four mile race, and I did it and it hurt and I was sore and I was so tired. But I had done it, you know, I finished this race and after that, it became even more of a challenge to see what I could accomplish and to see how far I could truly go.
And, and I found that, you know, that I could go and I did the beast, you know, which is a 13 grace, you know, it was incredible. This last race, this last piece race that I did last year, there was a point during the race where I really, really started kind of getting depressed.
You know, I started really, really not liking life and you know, I still knew that I wanted to do it and I wasn't going to quit that wasn't it. But I, I did have to find out, you know, I had to figure out how I was going to make it through. And, you know, it's like any tough thing in life. You know, we got to figure out how we're going to make it through that challenge.
And so you know, what I figured, or what I determined was take the little steps, you know, look at, you know, the next portion of the race. And, and a lot of times that was the next five feet, you know, I had to just get through that mixed five feet and then I would worry about what came next and then, you know. Or, hey, there's a hill up ahead. I can rest when I get to the top of that hill, you know, and so many times throughout our life, it's exactly the same way. It's especially with the young kids sometimes. Oh man. Sometimes the days are just, are just off and getting through the next hour, you know, as a child.
But as we look at those little challenge, which is the most little things in our lives, we're able to do, you know, a piece at a time. I quote this morning, I think on Instagram, Matt said, I have yet, or I have made it through every hard day so far. And that gives me courage to move on. True. Am I be tough, but I've made it through every hard day up till now.
So I will be able to make it through the party as well. I was having a hard time in life because I was training to basically be a better wheelchair racer. And for a long time, I mean, almost the whole entire year, I was really struggling with it because it was taking so much time away from my family and it was taking so much time to do something that, I mean, I wanted to do it, but the same time, it really wasn't fulfilling my goals in life, which of course my family, you know, is my priority.
And I realized after a time, that I needed to change what I was doing. And it was really, really hard for me. You know, a lot of times in life, it's really hard to change what we're doing and change. And what I was doing in life when I stopped pushing towards the Paralympics because after I stopped doing that, I was able to focus on my family, but not only that, I was able to find, you know, the Spartan races and what I didn't realize, finding those Spartan races was that it was set me on a path in life.
That I never could have predicted before and because of, because of these races and because of these things in life, I've been able to inspire, motivate and help, you know, millions of people throughout the entire world. And yeah. You know, and I don't say that to, to, you know, talk about myself, but to help people realize that if you're going through a hard patch in life, That it might be, it might be that, that there's something really great coming, you know, there's something that will totally change your life.
And as we push through those hard times and look for, look for those successes in life, you know, we really will change and we will really will feel our lives take on a whole. Whole different meaning and find purpose. But one of the greatest lessons they ever taught me was not necessarily really how to work well, lovely, nothing work.
And because my parents taught me to love to work, you know, it's still one of my greatest pleasures, even cleaning the house at night after the kids go to bed, I enjoy doing it. It, it relaxes me. And so I, I appraise my parents. For, for their diligence in helping me understand the joy of work. It wasn't.
Yeah. Always just cleaning the house. We would go and do things, you know, planning, planning, things he's in the yard, um, taking care of the yard, we're building things, uh, you know, cleaning up, you know, big messes. And so at the end, you know, you have the sense of and, you know, you feel like you've actually done something.
Um, many times we would either through our church or through our scouting program, we would go do service projects. And, and that, that really, he is an incredible thing to do because no longer is it about you no longer. Is it about, you know, cleaning the house, which is always. You know, um, knowing it, no, they hate cleaning the house, but if you go and you're serving somebody else, if you're helping somebody else right away, they have a sense of purpose and they have a sense of, uh, like they're needed somewhere.
And, and I think that helps out a lot. Uh, and so we, we try to, you know, do that as much as possible. Of course our kids are pretty young still, so it's. It's a challenge, but, uh, yeah, they feel needed, you know, if they feel like what they're doing, you know, has a purpose. You know, that makes all the difference.
Yeah. A root to all the sparks and fence to the athletes who go to their borders, to all those who scale up their family, their business, their life, and go to the edge who never stop. And that is what the influential parentpreneur podcast is all about. If you want to know more about Casey, go to rise up with Casey and you will find a lot of inspiration in that men.
Thank you for listening so much and leave a review or, or make sure to subscribe. So you will know when the next episodes are coming and they will just keep on coming from amazing, amazing entrepreneurs and parents have a magnificent day.