What if you didn't know it was impossible?

The Power of Not Knowing It's Impossible

What if the only thing standing between you and achieving the "impossible" is simply not knowing it's supposed to be impossible? In this captivating episode of The Building Better Humans Project podcast, host Glenn shares the remarkable story of George Dantzig, a graduate student who unknowingly solved two mathematical problems that had stumped the world's leading statisticians for years. Why? Because he thought they were just homework assignments. This powerful tale illustrates how our self-imposed mental limits often prevent us from reaching our true potential.

Glenn connects this mindset lesson to his experiences guiding people through the challenging Kokoda Track, where he's witnessed countless individuals overcome their own "impossible" barriers. The episode explores how we create invisible ceilings in our minds and offers practical strategies to break through them.

Timestamps & Key Takeaways:

**2:15** - The story of George Dantzig and how he solved "unsolvable" mathematical problems
* When we don't know something is "impossible," we approach it without mental barriers

**6:30** - Introduction to Glenn's new 12-month mentoring program
* Two levels available: "Light" (monthly sessions) and "Committed" (weekly coaching)

**9:45** - Real-world examples of overcoming perceived limitations on the Kokoda Track
* People of all ages and abilities have completed the challenging 100km trek

**13:20** - Three strategies to break through mental limitations:
* Check your stories - most limitations aren't facts but narratives we've internalized
* Start before you're ready - courage comes from acting while still scared
* Don't label difficulty as impossible - hard is just a sign something is worth doing

**17:40** - The power of approaching challenges with a beginner's mind
* Focus on one step at a time rather than the enormity of the whole journey

Ready to challenge your own mental limitations? This episode will inspire you to question what you've deemed "impossible" and take that crucial first step toward achieving it. Listen now to discover how shifting your mindset could unlock potential you never knew you had.

The Building Better Humans Project is brought to you by ADVENTURE PROFESSIONALS. Visit www.adventureprofessionals.com.au

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Apodje Production.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, team Gnesa here, Welcome back to the Building Better
Humans Project podcast. This podcast is designed to help you
get the best out of yourself in life, in business,
in adventure, and in the pursuit of becoming a better human. Today,
I want to share a story that I heard many
years ago and that really stuck with me. And it's
one of those stories that perfectly sums up what this
show is all about. Mindset, belief, and human potential. It's

(00:34):
not about luck, it's not about talent. It's about what
happens when you remove the limits in your own mind.
So I want to take you back to the late
nineteen thirties the University of California, Berkeley. There's a young
graduate student by the name of George Danty. Now, one
day George rocks up to his statistics class and he's
a few minutes late. He walks in quietly, trying not

(00:55):
to make a scene, and he sees two equations written
on the blackboard and he figures, all right, that must
be this week's homework. So he quickly copies him down
and then when he leaves, here's the class. He takes
them home to work on later. No big deal, except
there's one small detailed George doesn't know. Those two equations
aren't homework at all. They're famous, unsolved mathematical problems, probably

(01:18):
that the world's best, leading statisticians, people way smarter and
more experience than George, had been trying to solve for
years and they couldn't. But George didn't know that. So
he just started working on them. And he noticed they
were tough, way tougher than usual, but he didn't question why.
He just figured this must be a hard homework set

(01:39):
this week. Days went by, he poured over pages of
calculation theories formulas. Eventually he solved them, both of them.
He turned the assignment in thinking nothing of it. A
few weeks later, his professor, a man by the name
of Jersey Nayman, one of the leading statiticians of the era,
showed up at his door. He was stunned, and he said, George,

(02:02):
do you realize what you've done? These weren't homework questions.
These were unsolved problems that the best in the world
couldn't figure out. George's solutions ended up becoming part of
his doctoral thesis and later shaped new methods in statistics
and mathematical programming. But here's the takeaway. George didn't solve

(02:22):
the impossible because he was a once in a lifetime genius.
He solved it because he didn't know it was meant
to be impossible. And that right there, that's one of
the most powerful mindset lessons you'll ever hear. See. We
all carry around invisible ceilings, mental limits that we don't
even realize we've built. We tell ourselves stories I can't

(02:43):
do that, I'm not ready, I'm not that type of person,
or my personal favorite that's just not realistic, but realistic
according to who who wrote that rule. Because George didn't
have that rule in his head. He didn't walk into
that classroom thinking, all right, this equation is unsolvable. I
won't even try. He just got to work. And that's
the difference between someone who tries and someone who achieves. Now,

(03:08):
before we go deep into that, I quickly want to
let you know about something brand new that Milli and
I are incredibly excited about. We've just launched a twelve
month mentoring program that's designed for people who want real,
lasting challenge in their life. We've built two levels, so
you can choose how deep you want to go. The
first is called light. This one is for people who

(03:29):
are ready to grow but want to do a little
bit of this at their own pace, So you'll be
part of a private group. You'll have a monthly live
Zoom session with million myself, plus weekly videos to keep
your accountable learning. The second level, this is called committed,
and this is for people who are serious, and I
mean genuinely serious about making the next twelve months the

(03:49):
best twelve months of their lives. You'll be a part
of a small and more intimate group that meet with
us every single week on Zoom. This is high accountability,
real world coaching, and its application only because we want
people who are truly ready to level up. I've run
these programs before, We've got some fantastic results, but half
of the people in there don't show up. I don't
want those people. If this sounds like you someone that

(04:11):
wants to be committed to work on something like this
to work on yourself, then are headed over to Building
Better Humans project or message me personally and I'll send
you through all the details. All right, let's jump back
into it. When I first heard George's story, it reminded
me so much of what I see every single day
in my coaching work, people who could be doing incredible things,
but they're convinced themselves that they can't. I've had people

(04:34):
say that to me, Glenn, I could never track Kakoda,
When I say why not? Oh, I'm not fit enough,
I'm not young enough, I'm not strong enough. But here's
the thing, none of that's true. It's just the story
that they've told themselves. Over the years, I've had hundreds
of people across the Cocoda track with me, teachers, tradees, mums, dads, CEOs, grandparents,
double and single league amputees, eight year olds and eighty

(04:56):
year olds. People who didn't even believe they could finish
a local fun run. Now they're walking through the jungles
of pumping in a guinea for one hundred k's. You
know what made that possible? Not a magic training program,
not some elite athletic ability. It was just the moment
they decided to stop saying I can't or i'll do it.
When that's it. The second you stop labeling things as impossible,

(05:18):
you start acting as though they're possible, and that small
mental shift changes everything. I want you to think about
something in your life that you've labeled as too hard.
Maybe it's starting that side hustle. Maybe it's getting back
into shape. Maybe it's having a tough conversation you've been avoiding.
Whatever it is, I want you to ask yourself, is
it really impossible or do I just think it is?

(05:40):
Because the truth is, you've achieved things before that once
seemed impossible. You've been through pain, heartbreak, setbacks, challenges, and
you're still standing. So don't tell me you can't do
hard things. You've been doing them your whole life. See,
most people aren't stopped by what's actually in front of them.
They're stopped by what's going on inside of them. Fear, doubt,

(06:03):
self judgment, all of them that lives between the years.
You've probably heard me say this before. The most dangerous
place you'll ever go isn't the jungle or the mountains
or a boxing ring. It's inside your own head. Because
that's where people get lost. That's where potential dies, and
that's why mindset work matters so much. So let's talk
about how to break through that. How do we move

(06:26):
from thinking something is impossible to actually doing it. Here
are three things that I want you to remember. Number One,
check your stories, most of your limitations aren't facts. There's
stories that you've repeated so often that they become your truth.
So start challenging them. Ask yourself, who told me this?
Where did I learn it? Is it even true anymore?

(06:47):
Because maybe it was true once, maybe when you were younger,
less experienced, less confident, But you're not that person anymore.
Number two, start before you're ready. You're never going to
feel perfectly prepared for the next step. Neither did George,
neither did anyone who's ever done something extraordinary. Courage doesn't
come from waiting until the fear goes away. It comes

(07:08):
from acting while you're still scared. So whatever your version
of that math problem is, start working on it. Messy
action beats perfect inaction every single time. And number three,
don't label difficulty as impossible. Just because something is hard,
It doesn't mean that it's out of reach. Hard is
just a sign that it's worth it. You build resilience

(07:31):
through resistance, You build character through challenge, You build self
belief by proving yourself wrong. So when something feels hard,
lean in. That's your opportunity to grow. When I think
back to Georgia's story, what stands out isn't his intelligence,
it's his innocence. He approached a problem with a beginner's mind,
free from ego, free from limitation. He didn't have the

(07:53):
weight of expectation on his shoulders. He just saw a
challenge that was given to him and thought, well, that's
what I've been asked to do, so I'll give it
a go. Imagine how different your life could look if
you did the same. You stopped overthinking, stop predicting failure,
stop catastrophizing the outcome, and just gave it a go.
I see it all the time on Kakoda. People at

(08:14):
day three or four, their legs are tied, their backs
are sore, the humidity can be a bit tough, and
they start thinking, I don't know if I can do this.
It is a thing. Their body can keep going, it's
their mind that's trying to quit. Once they shift the story,
once they focus on one step at a time, they
always make it through. Always. And that's not about fitness,

(08:34):
that's about mindset. So maybe right now you're facing something
that feels too big, something that scares you, something that's
been putting you off. What if, just for today, you
stop seeing it as impossible. What if you just started
working on it like it's homework. No emotion, no drama,
just work. Because once you remove the mental ceiling, you

(08:56):
start realizing that most of your limits are made up.
So this is my challenge to you. Take one hour
of your life, personal, professional, or physical, and ask yourself,
if I didn't believe this was impossible, what would I do?
And then go do that. Start with the first small action.
Send the email, book the session, apply for the job,

(09:17):
have the conversation. Take one step, because that's all George did.
He didn't set out to change mathematics. He just set
out to do his home work, and in the process
he changed everything. And that's exactly what we want to
help you with. That's what we help you do. Inside
our mentoring programs. We remove those limits, we rewrite your stories,
and we build the systems that allow you to step

(09:38):
up and actually live it. If you're ready to grow,
just join the like group. If you're ready to go
all in, apply for the committed group, because sometimes all
you need is the right environment and the right people
around you to remind you what's possible. Team. Thanks for
tuning in. If this story hits home for you, share
it with someone who needs to hear it because you

(09:59):
never know your words, your encouragement, your belief could be
the spark that changes someone else's life. Remember, it's not
the size of the problem that stops you, it's the
size of the story that you tell yourself about it.
You are capable of more than you think, you are
stronger than you believe, and it's never ever impossible until
you decide it is. That's your team. I'm Glena's art.

(10:21):
This is the Building Better Humans Project podcast. Keep striving,
keep believing it as always build the human become the champion.
Head over to www Dot Adventure Professionals dot com dot
au and support our sponsors.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
Thanks for listening to this episode of The Building Better
Humans Podcast with your host Glennaser. For feedback. To stay
up to date or go back and find an old episode,
head over to oneady dot net dot au. Heah the
Building Better Humors Project Pacas.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Let's go