October 10, 2025 • 24 mins
Ben Shortreed, the 2025 Supra Human Man of the Year, is a former infantry Marine and insurance business owner who lost his left hand in a 2020 fireworks accident. He battled relentless phantom limb pain, found relief with a Sprint PNS device, and rebuilt confidence through personalized coaching and a supportive community. What began as home workouts grew into gym sessions, turning discomfort into strength and a new sense of identity.
In this episode, Ben Olliver, Dr. Taylor Waters, and Ryan Stevens talk with Ben about mindset, simple nutrition that actually works, and the role of accountability and community in real transformation. They discuss how to move through trauma without excuses, why sustainable structure beats complexity, and how a clear goal can change everything for people with demanding lives.
Chapters
(00:00) Introduction
(01:40) Marine and Entrepreneur: Life Before Supra
(04:06) The Fireworks Accident and Amputation
(07:28) Phantom Pain and Hitting a Breaking Point
(10:15) Sprint PNS Relief and Renewed Hope
(12:37) Finding Supra and a Personalized Plan
(17:17) From Home Training to Confident Gym Sessions
(21:23) SHX, Big Goals, and Identity After Trauma
What’s one moment you thought would define you forever, and how did you turn it into strength? Share your story below to help someone else keep going.
To learn more about Supra Human programs: https://www.suprahuman.com
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suprahumanofficial
Interested in joining the team? We are always looking for high performers to join our mission to achieve elite level performance in fitness, nutrition and mindset. View our current career opportunities: https://www.suprahuman.com/careers
Connect with Ben on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ben_shortreed/?hl=en
Results may vary depending on your condition, starting weight, and commitment to the program.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
And the winner of the 2025 Superhuman Man of the Year is.
In 2020 is when I lost my hand. The first month of me in a gym.
I was banging my head with bars tailored.
(00:21):
He wanted to learn about me. You were quite stern and like,
you tell me what to do and I'll do it where you're like, look,
basically I'm not going to the gym.
So now somewhere, well, I I can't get you out of a gym.
I have found that with Supra, I started seeing changes, getting
stronger, getting more comfortable.
In my mind, I was like, let's gofor the top spot.
I'm Ryan Stevens. Doctor Taylor Waters, I'm Ben
(00:43):
Oliver. Welcome to the Superhuman show,
Yeah? So now we have Mr. Ben Short
Reach on the podcast. So before we get stuck in, we
should probably address the rather large elephant in the
room. You have more tanned than all
three of us by a significant margin.
(01:07):
We've been out in Scottsdale allweek.
What's the secret? Melanin 2.
Don't necessarily recommend it, but it works wonders. 20.
Percent off discount code Ben Ben.
Always looking. Make money, Yeah.
So you you probably have one of the most interesting back
stories, you know, that we've that me and Ryan have heard
(01:28):
because obviously you work, you work with Taylor.
But you know, I would love to, I'd love for you to start from
the beginning so our listeners can kind of just really
understand the journey that you've been on prior to
Superhuman. And then you're kind of journey
with with Supra. Because I honestly just think
it's, it's, it's such an awesomestory.
I appreciate that. So 20 years in the insurance
(01:50):
industry of which the 12 prior to supra was as a business
owner. So we had a insurance agency
that we started at 0, built it up to the top 300 United States,
there's 40,000 agencies in the US and sold that big.
But prior to that, I was an infantry Marine in the United
(02:10):
States Marine Corps, and I specialized in demolition and
rockets. So anything that went boom, it
was a lot of fun. The only thing that goes boom is
is in our pants and. We're good at that.
All three of you smiled, so keepthat in mind.
I was an infantry Marine, then went into business, and we'll
(02:32):
Fast forward a little bit. So in 2019, we hosted a little
girl from Columbia with the premise that, hey, we'll show
her hope, inspiration, There's more to the world than what she
knows. This was during Christmas, and
my wife and I at the time were single, made a good, decent
amount of money and said, all right, hey, let's do this.
So we brought this girl home andright around Christmas Eve, she
(02:54):
asked us to be her parents. We had never talked about being
adopted or adopting a child before.
And without hesitation we said, yeah, we're going to do it.
So this was 2019. What happened in 2020?
COVID, COVID hit. So that delayed the process a
little bit. And that's part of my story
because everything closed down and particularly public pools.
(03:17):
Now we like to go to the pool. So we put a pool in at our house
and above ground. Nothing, nothing fancy like
that. But then during that time, June
hit and in Wisconsin, it was really hot.
It was in the high 80s that day.And the buddy that helped me put
in the pool said, hey, can I come over with my kids?
You know, he came over and I said, absolutely, you help me
(03:40):
out. He came over and then the
neighbors came over and next to no, we had a little party.
Then around 9:00 that night, he's like, hey, I brought some
fireworks. You mind if we let him off
again? Back to the boom?
I'm like, yeah, let's, let's letoff some fireworks.
He lit one off. I lit one off and then he
brought out the mortars. So these were the little round
(04:01):
mortars that you drop in the tube, go up in the air, things
go big and I and I go, what whatshould I load this in?
I've never, never fired one before.
He's like, hey, let's grab one of these tubes we just used.
So we grabbed the tube and I'm walking it over, getting ready
to light it and boom, my life changed forever.
It in that moment, all I remember is the flash.
(04:21):
I remember the concussion, I didn't feel any pain and it
wasn't until I was walking back towards my friends, the
expression on their face, they're like man, it's not good.
And I looked down and my left hand was was gone, absolutely
gone. So at that moment I stayed calm.
Shock kicked in and on the way the hospital is thinking about 3
(04:44):
things. I was like man, my life just
changed forever. I was like, will my wife still
love me? And then will we be able to
adopt our little girl because this girl was banking on us.
Got to the hospital and it's allkind of a blur.
The last thing I remember is laying on the table to cut my
pants off. And I'm thinking to myself, I
hope it's not too cold in here. You guys know where I'm going, I
(05:06):
hope. It's not cold.
I hope it's not cold. It's like a.
Strange, Doctor, I just put my hand off.
Put your pants down. And next thing you know, I woke
up and bandaged up. Now I had a pity party for
myself for about 1/2 an hour after the surgery.
I was like, poor me, why did this happen?
(05:28):
Oh, what am I going to do? And I remember to this day, one
of the technicians came in. It wasn't a doctor as a
technician. And he said, hey, listen, it was
along these lines. Accidents happen.
They happen to good people that happen to bad people that happen
to all people in between. It's your attitude moving
forward. And I was like, damn, you're
right. Nobody wants to listen to me
(05:49):
bitch. Nobody wants to listen to me
complain. From that day on, I got thinking
about a three legged dog runningaround.
You guys have probably seen videos or seen 3 legged dogs.
They're happy, they're playing, life is good as like I can do
that. You know, I'll make this work.
The tough part during COVID was nobody could see me one visitor
a day. I was literally in the hospital
(06:09):
for 3-4 days and they're like boom, here's your discharge
papers, see you later, no therapy.
It's like go figure it out. It's interesting.
I was 41 years old at the time. So you get home and you know,
first thing you get in the shower, you're like, OK, how am
I going to wash my hair? Or you know, it's not so bad.
(06:31):
I'm a right hand dominant, thankGod.
And I lost my left hand. So you think about it, the left
armpit pretty easy. All of a sudden you're like, how
am I going to wash my right armpit?
You know, things like that, justlittle things.
Get out of the shower, towel off.
Just picture how you towel off 2hands typically on the back.
Everything else I try to get dressed.
How am I going to put a sock on my belts, my pants?
(06:53):
Like everything changed. So it was it, it was a puzzle,
which was it's taught me a lot of patience, a lot of patience.
The first week was, you know, the learning process and I had
euphoric feelings. The the feelings I had was the
only way I can describe it is like a newborn that touches
(07:14):
things for the first time. Everything was hypersensitive
and I could still feel my hand. I could still move my hand even
though the hand wasn't there. That's called phantom feeling.
So I could have these sensationslike wind on the fingers and
water on the fingers and just again, hypersensitive.
And then after the first week, phantom pain hit.
(07:36):
And phantom pain has been and probably will be the most
torturous pain experience I've ever had my entire life.
And I had four distinct feelingsout of the gate.
And I'll go through to them because it's, I do my best to
visualize these for people. But the first one was my
fingernails. I'll keep in mind I don't have
(07:56):
fingernails. At first it started being tugged
up like somebody was pulling on them, and then they started
being ripped off. And this wasn't just once, this
wasn't twice. This was constant minute after
minute, day over day. So that's pain #1.
The second one was my pointer finger and my ring finger.
(08:17):
Picture a pin going straight down the bone and both of those
fingers, That one was sharp, intense, not as constant as the
fingernail pulling, but it was there.
The third one was picture a fistbeing in your knuckles, being
dragged across gravel, just swinging over gravel and getting
rubbed off. The 4th 1 was I could actually
(08:38):
feel my palm being blown or ripped or tore away from my
hand. So I lived with these 4 pains
for four weeks, 24 hours a day. Then at week 4, I started
getting electrocuted and I couldfeel the electricity going all
the way up my arms and it's just, it was an intense shock.
In addition to these 4 pains, during this time I was on
(09:02):
opioids, so I was on Oxycontin, I was on morphine and it was so
intense that they sent me Narcanand that's how high of a dosage
I was on. In addition, I was on nerve
drugs, muscle relaxers, and around week 4 is where I was no
longer been. I was somebody totally
(09:23):
different. I was at a point I was getting
close to a breaking point. So week 4 through week 6.
So those last two weeks I started getting my wills ready.
I started getting my life insurance policies out.
I had my passwords out like I was ready to end it.
And that's, that's not me because I love life.
(09:46):
But I was thinking myself, there's no way I can go forward
with this. And the only thing that held on
or kept me, kept me hanging on was my little girl.
I like, I can't let this girl down.
And fortunately one night I broke at midnight and I was
like, I'm done. Like this is it.
My wife called the physician gotme in and fortunately there was
(10:08):
an experimental device called the Sprint PNS, which is a
electrical 90 day device that sends electricity down my arm
and it killed my phantom pain, my phantom feeling immediately.
It was a lifesaver for me. So that was that was a win.
That was a big win. Fast forward, we ended up
(10:31):
adopting our little girl. So Congrats, one of the
highlights of my life. But that's when Supra, you know,
started coming into the picture in 2020 is when I lost my hand
through 2024. It was very hard to look in the
(10:52):
mirror, you know, at 41 years old when I lost my hand.
As you lose a body part, you're not the same guy.
And I in my mind, the equalizer was money, all right, I can't be
physically fit. I can't look like, you know, you
3 in the room right here. But I'm going to trump you with
money. So I made the most money.
And and you do? Yeah.
(11:13):
You've done that, Yeah. So I, I made the most money I've
ever made in my adult life from that point from 20/20/20 to
20/24 and, and I crushed it. And on paper everything looked
good. But this will all stick out,
always stick out to me. The first time I went public, I
was very hidden. You know, COVID helped me
(11:34):
because I got to work at home. Nobody got to see me.
When I went out in public. I had my arm wrapped or long
sleeve on, so people weren't really paying attention.
But we're at the fountain blue in Miami.
And that's the first time at a pool party.
I didn't want to go, but I had to go for work.
And man, it was the first time Ihad to get out at the pool,
(11:54):
shirt off, expose everything. And it was, it was extremely
uncomfortable. I mean, it was very mentally
tough for me to do that. And got back home and John
caught me on a Monday morning and with us get you ad, his
eight minute, his nine minute get you ad.
(12:15):
And I've never heard of Superhuman before.
Didn't have a clue who John Matson was before, you know, the
ad was confident but cocky, borderline arrogant.
And I like that. And I watched that whole 8-9
minute video and I said to myself, all right, if he's going
to lay it out there and he's that confident, I'm going to,
(12:36):
I'm going to take his word for it and, and go for this.
So. So that's why I did.
Amazing. It's yeah, I've I've just been
sat in all like that for that whole that whole story.
Yeah, so now let's go from superonwards.
You you get lumped with with Mr.Taylor the doc.
Really high. He's unfortunate.
(12:57):
Yeah. Unfortunately all the other
coaches were full at the time. But no, I mean, because you, you
guys have a fantastic relationship and you know,
you've been in the program now over 2 years.
Well, it's going on two years, so February of 24.
Yeah. And so how, you know, how was it
first kind of initially working with Taylor and kind of how was
that? I, I guess like blossomed into
(13:18):
the kind of like the friendship that you guys have now.
You know, it, it's the progress that, you know, we've seen your,
your before and after pictures and things and, you know, we've
seen you at the events in the past, But just how, how is that
kind of friendship helped you from a coaching standpoint?
You know, aside, I mean, you look fantastic.
Like we could, we could talk about that all day, but just
the, I guess, like the, the psychology side of it and having
(13:41):
someone in your corner kind of guiding you throughout this
process. How?
How has that been working with working with Taylor?
Yes, I'll start from the beginning a little bit.
You know, at first I like you have Doctor Taylor Waters and
I'm like doctor and you get on the first Zoom call with him and
him and I are, you know, we're doing this.
He's gauging me, I'm gauging youhim.
We're trying to read each other and.
(14:03):
He can't read. But but it was interesting
because Taylor didn't come into it saying you need to do this,
you need to do that. He wanted to learn about me.
Hey, talk to me about your lifestyle, Talk to me about what
you do. He he was learning how he was
going to customize his plan for me and how we were going to work
together. And we talked about my mental
(14:26):
struggle at the time. I wasn't comfortable going into
the gym. We talked about amputation and I
said, have you worked with an amputees before?
And he had, he had limited, you know, experience, but some
experience with it because upperlimb amputees, which is what I
am is only 2% of the amputation prop of population.
Most amputees are are lower limbs.
(14:46):
So everything is a lot of materials designed around lower
limb amputees and diabetes is the number one cause of that.
But the fact that he took the time to learn who I was and
understand what I was and then built a program around, you
know, my lifestyle, my needs, mycapabilities was extremely
(15:11):
important. And the other thing that really
resonated with me was he could have jumped into macros right
away. Now, keep in mind, they don't
teach macros. And why they don't teach macros
to anybody in the United States blows my minds because at 41, I
didn't understand macros or excuse me at the time I was 45,
didn't understand macros. And he made it simple for me,
(15:35):
calories, protein. Had he gone technical like into
the fats, into the carbs, I probably want to stuck with it.
So I'm very appreciative of him understanding my needs, working
within my needs. And then to answer your question
about the, the friendship and inthe bond we have, I've, I've
commented on the forms about this like coaches should sign an
(15:57):
NDA because Taylor could write abook about me.
He knows more about me than 99% of people.
That's the trust, that's the relationship we have right now,
and friendship. We have I actually remember one
of the early fly insurance I believe, and it may have been
the first time you guys met in person and you spent like a good
hour in the gym figuring out like what exercises worked I.
(16:19):
Remember that glory gains. Glory gains.
Yeah, I should remember that. Well, that was it.
It was, I think, because you areuncomfortable going in a gym and
understandably as well. It's like, well, I haven't like
if I lost my hand now, I'd feel uncomfortable now doing it and I
know it all now, but just going in and having to read it.
But almost I'm to start from scratch where you don't feel
(16:41):
comfortable about being in shapeand just have to go in and get
it done. But like you trained, one thing
you've always been able to do iswork hard, like all over your
business life. And then you're through your
career, you've shown the abilityto commit yourself and work
hard. So what I had to do was put a
plan in place that you could do and you were going to graft
doing it. So like you were doing body
weight stuff from home, like whatever, whatever you are, like
(17:02):
the the treadmill from home we were doing.
We were just sort of changing movements.
We could get them done. You had the weighted vest and
things. And then when we met in person,
obviously my job was to deal with a lot of the clients.
But luckily you guys, I was like, can you guys deal with the
rest of them And let me just go with, with Ben and just let's
see what he can do. Almost like the confidence
(17:22):
building, like give me an hour just to get his confidence up.
I can see what he can do. He can see what he can do.
And then that allows me to go away and now build the program
even more. And then now it's like, I can't
get you out of a gym, right? It's gone from somewhere where
like, I don't even want to step foot in one to now somewhere
where like you don't miss sessions, like it's become a key
part of your life. So tell me a little bit as well
(17:45):
about how that mindset shift from where you were to where you
are now, because I've seen it inyou as well.
Not so much. Just like.
Even on our first. Call like you're quite a
stubborn, for lack of a better term, stubborn fucker and I
appreciate that. I think that as a compliment,
excuse my French. And but I remember you were
saying you were like, you were quite like stirring and like,
(18:06):
you tell me what to do and I'll do it.
And we hear that a lot. But more often than not, I'm
like, we'll see, see. Because a lot of a lot of people
who say that don't they, they, they say it because it sounds
cool, but they don't do it. But so I know.
And then you go out and you are one of those guys who does do
it. But what was it like starting
from summer where it's obviouslya vulnerable will to enter given
(18:26):
the position that you were in? Whereas now you know, you are a
an inspiration for a lot of people, even myself.
Like I see something that you'redoing, like you send me the
video over doing weighted dips. I was.
I wanted to bring that up because I've seen it as well.
I'm like, man. Like what a savage.
Like that's such a badass thing to do.
So talk to me about like the mindset change you've had from
(18:49):
that first call where you're like, look, basically I'm not
going in the gym because I don'tfeel comfortable going in.
I'm just going to build 1 from home to now.
The guy who's doing weighted dips in front of a whole gym of
people, Yeah. I think phase one was extremely
important for me and that I had to shed the fat off.
So I was at 2O3 we got down to 158 ish 156 and that was all at
(19:12):
home. And then I saw a muscle gain
just doing the stuff we were doing at home which is body
weight, push ups, weighted vest and it got.
So we did that from February to October and in my mind, I was
like, there's no way I'm going to be able to bulk at home or
put on the muscle that I want toput on.
I'm like, I need to turn the dial and, and do a gym.
(19:35):
And frankly, it was a little intimidating for me at first,
which I don't use that word a lot because there's very little
that I'm not afraid to fail. That was just a different game
for me. And the first month, the first
month of me in a gym, it was, itwas, you know, I was banging my
head. You don't with bars.
(19:57):
You know, I was a monkey fucker.Football, excuse my French.
I mean, you forget. When you're a beginner, it's
like, even when you see guys tryand take the, the plates off
like a bar on the ground. Yeah.
And they're trying to, like, drag it because they haven't
learnt the lifting. Yeah.
And you, you forget all of thosethings that it's like, you put
me on a building site and I'll smack my head on everything.
Yeah. But in the gym, it's kind of
you, you, you learn it. So yeah, I guess, I guess so.
(20:19):
It took me. It took me a month to really get
acclimated. And, you know, people at first
wanted to help me and I'm like, no, don't help me.
And I was working out with Owen yesterday and he was trying to
help me. I said quit helping me.
Like I don't. I told Taylor like don't treat
me any different than anybody else in the program.
Like I don't want any special. Now the time you spent with me
to understand and learn my capabilities, that's different
(20:42):
than don't treat me different. And but then once that first
month came and I started seeing changes, getting stronger,
getting more comfortable, then Ijust started running with it and
it goes back to it's good seeingthe visuals on the forums, it's
good seeing the transitions. You know, SHX was my turning
(21:03):
point last year. So I would say I was 7075%
committed before SHX. And then it wasn't until I got
to SHX and I saw the Kirk Jones,the Barrett Pope's, you know,
the, these, these people hittingthe Hall of Fame and seeing what
they started at, what they achieved.
I'm like, I can do that. I will do that.
(21:25):
It's not I can do that. Like I'm going to do that.
And it just totally changed my mindset and made the gym even
more of a focus. And I went in 25 thinking to
myself, and this was in my head and maybe it's a little
arrogant, maybe it's it's cocky.But I was like, I'm going to be
a Hall of Famer. Now I want superhuman of the
year because that is the top of the top.
Like I have the best coach or one of the best coaches, not to
(21:47):
knock you 2 down. Like if I follow his plan to AT
execute heavily, go with intensity, I was like, I'm going
to hit Hall of Fame. It's like now it's like, let's
go for the top spot. If it happens, great.
But at least I put it on the table.
Yeah, it's. Incredible.
So just to wrap it up, if there was, if you could say to some
(22:10):
someone who you know, maybe has had a life changing injury, you
know, or something that's reallyjust it.
It's going to change the way that they that they have to live
now moving forward. And maybe they're in a similar
position where it's, you know, painkillers and things, you
know, fitness is the least of your concerns because you're
just figuring out how to do the most basic things.
(22:31):
What would your advice be to someone like that?
You know, and this could even beoutside of, you know, this
doesn't have to be a plug for Supra, but just because your
story is so powerful, just you know, what would you say to
someone that's that's going through something like that?
There's so many. There's a couple different
lessons here. 1 is people will only listen to sympathy in a
pity party so long. At the end of the day, the world
(22:54):
keeps moving and you have to as well.
So what happened happened. Stop, assess, pivot, move
forward. Like that's that's all you can
do Mental outlook, positivity. You know what I look at this
way, I could be dead or I could have been even more severely
(23:17):
injured than what I was. So I also look for the the
positives in the situation. So just have the end and be
surrounded by the right people. You do need that positivity
around you. One thing about Super that
really resonates with me is there's three times in my life
where I felt like I didn't have an identity. 1 was graduating
(23:40):
high school and I didn't know what I was going to do after
high school, so I didn't know what path I was going to go.
I end up joining the Marine Corps.
The second time I lost my identity was after being
discharged from the Marine Corps.
It's like what's next for me. And then the third time was when
I exited my, my last company, sold that company.
It's like what's next for me. I have found that with Supra,
(24:01):
with the the community, that identity and it's been very
helpful and strong for me. Incredible.
Ben, thank you so much for jumping on the call.
Congratulations. Thank you, Can't wait to see
your. Checks this year.
If you love this. Show please like, share and
leave us a five star review so that we can help more people.
I'm John Matson, reminding you to always go get what's yours.
And the winner of the 2025 Superhuman Man of the Year is.
In 2020 is when I lost my hand. The first month of me in a gym.
I was banging my head with bars tailored.
(00:21):
He wanted to learn about me. You were quite stern and like,
you tell me what to do and I'll do it where you're like, look,
basically I'm not going to the gym.
So now somewhere, well, I I can't get you out of a gym.
I have found that with Supra, I started seeing changes, getting
stronger, getting more comfortable.
In my mind, I was like, let's gofor the top spot.
I'm Ryan Stevens. Doctor Taylor Waters, I'm Ben
(00:43):
Oliver. Welcome to the Superhuman show,
Yeah? So now we have Mr. Ben Short
Reach on the podcast. So before we get stuck in, we
should probably address the rather large elephant in the
room. You have more tanned than all
three of us by a significant margin.
(01:07):
We've been out in Scottsdale allweek.
What's the secret? Melanin 2.
Don't necessarily recommend it, but it works wonders. 20.
Percent off discount code Ben Ben.
Always looking. Make money, Yeah.
So you you probably have one of the most interesting back
stories, you know, that we've that me and Ryan have heard
(01:28):
because obviously you work, you work with Taylor.
But you know, I would love to, I'd love for you to start from
the beginning so our listeners can kind of just really
understand the journey that you've been on prior to
Superhuman. And then you're kind of journey
with with Supra. Because I honestly just think
it's, it's, it's such an awesomestory.
I appreciate that. So 20 years in the insurance
(01:50):
industry of which the 12 prior to supra was as a business
owner. So we had a insurance agency
that we started at 0, built it up to the top 300 United States,
there's 40,000 agencies in the US and sold that big.
But prior to that, I was an infantry Marine in the United
(02:10):
States Marine Corps, and I specialized in demolition and
rockets. So anything that went boom, it
was a lot of fun. The only thing that goes boom is
is in our pants and. We're good at that.
All three of you smiled, so keepthat in mind.
I was an infantry Marine, then went into business, and we'll
(02:32):
Fast forward a little bit. So in 2019, we hosted a little
girl from Columbia with the premise that, hey, we'll show
her hope, inspiration, There's more to the world than what she
knows. This was during Christmas, and
my wife and I at the time were single, made a good, decent
amount of money and said, all right, hey, let's do this.
So we brought this girl home andright around Christmas Eve, she
(02:54):
asked us to be her parents. We had never talked about being
adopted or adopting a child before.
And without hesitation we said, yeah, we're going to do it.
So this was 2019. What happened in 2020?
COVID, COVID hit. So that delayed the process a
little bit. And that's part of my story
because everything closed down and particularly public pools.
(03:17):
Now we like to go to the pool. So we put a pool in at our house
and above ground. Nothing, nothing fancy like
that. But then during that time, June
hit and in Wisconsin, it was really hot.
It was in the high 80s that day.And the buddy that helped me put
in the pool said, hey, can I come over with my kids?
You know, he came over and I said, absolutely, you help me
(03:40):
out. He came over and then the
neighbors came over and next to no, we had a little party.
Then around 9:00 that night, he's like, hey, I brought some
fireworks. You mind if we let him off
again? Back to the boom?
I'm like, yeah, let's, let's letoff some fireworks.
He lit one off. I lit one off and then he
brought out the mortars. So these were the little round
(04:01):
mortars that you drop in the tube, go up in the air, things
go big and I and I go, what whatshould I load this in?
I've never, never fired one before.
He's like, hey, let's grab one of these tubes we just used.
So we grabbed the tube and I'm walking it over, getting ready
to light it and boom, my life changed forever.
It in that moment, all I remember is the flash.
(04:21):
I remember the concussion, I didn't feel any pain and it
wasn't until I was walking back towards my friends, the
expression on their face, they're like man, it's not good.
And I looked down and my left hand was was gone, absolutely
gone. So at that moment I stayed calm.
Shock kicked in and on the way the hospital is thinking about 3
(04:44):
things. I was like man, my life just
changed forever. I was like, will my wife still
love me? And then will we be able to
adopt our little girl because this girl was banking on us.
Got to the hospital and it's allkind of a blur.
The last thing I remember is laying on the table to cut my
pants off. And I'm thinking to myself, I
hope it's not too cold in here. You guys know where I'm going, I
(05:06):
hope. It's not cold.
I hope it's not cold. It's like a.
Strange, Doctor, I just put my hand off.
Put your pants down. And next thing you know, I woke
up and bandaged up. Now I had a pity party for
myself for about 1/2 an hour after the surgery.
I was like, poor me, why did this happen?
(05:28):
Oh, what am I going to do? And I remember to this day, one
of the technicians came in. It wasn't a doctor as a
technician. And he said, hey, listen, it was
along these lines. Accidents happen.
They happen to good people that happen to bad people that happen
to all people in between. It's your attitude moving
forward. And I was like, damn, you're
right. Nobody wants to listen to me
(05:49):
bitch. Nobody wants to listen to me
complain. From that day on, I got thinking
about a three legged dog runningaround.
You guys have probably seen videos or seen 3 legged dogs.
They're happy, they're playing, life is good as like I can do
that. You know, I'll make this work.
The tough part during COVID was nobody could see me one visitor
a day. I was literally in the hospital
(06:09):
for 3-4 days and they're like boom, here's your discharge
papers, see you later, no therapy.
It's like go figure it out. It's interesting.
I was 41 years old at the time. So you get home and you know,
first thing you get in the shower, you're like, OK, how am
I going to wash my hair? Or you know, it's not so bad.
(06:31):
I'm a right hand dominant, thankGod.
And I lost my left hand. So you think about it, the left
armpit pretty easy. All of a sudden you're like, how
am I going to wash my right armpit?
You know, things like that, justlittle things.
Get out of the shower, towel off.
Just picture how you towel off 2hands typically on the back.
Everything else I try to get dressed.
How am I going to put a sock on my belts, my pants?
(06:53):
Like everything changed. So it was it, it was a puzzle,
which was it's taught me a lot of patience, a lot of patience.
The first week was, you know, the learning process and I had
euphoric feelings. The the feelings I had was the
only way I can describe it is like a newborn that touches
(07:14):
things for the first time. Everything was hypersensitive
and I could still feel my hand. I could still move my hand even
though the hand wasn't there. That's called phantom feeling.
So I could have these sensationslike wind on the fingers and
water on the fingers and just again, hypersensitive.
And then after the first week, phantom pain hit.
(07:36):
And phantom pain has been and probably will be the most
torturous pain experience I've ever had my entire life.
And I had four distinct feelingsout of the gate.
And I'll go through to them because it's, I do my best to
visualize these for people. But the first one was my
fingernails. I'll keep in mind I don't have
(07:56):
fingernails. At first it started being tugged
up like somebody was pulling on them, and then they started
being ripped off. And this wasn't just once, this
wasn't twice. This was constant minute after
minute, day over day. So that's pain #1.
The second one was my pointer finger and my ring finger.
(08:17):
Picture a pin going straight down the bone and both of those
fingers, That one was sharp, intense, not as constant as the
fingernail pulling, but it was there.
The third one was picture a fistbeing in your knuckles, being
dragged across gravel, just swinging over gravel and getting
rubbed off. The 4th 1 was I could actually
(08:38):
feel my palm being blown or ripped or tore away from my
hand. So I lived with these 4 pains
for four weeks, 24 hours a day. Then at week 4, I started
getting electrocuted and I couldfeel the electricity going all
the way up my arms and it's just, it was an intense shock.
In addition to these 4 pains, during this time I was on
(09:02):
opioids, so I was on Oxycontin, I was on morphine and it was so
intense that they sent me Narcanand that's how high of a dosage
I was on. In addition, I was on nerve
drugs, muscle relaxers, and around week 4 is where I was no
longer been. I was somebody totally
(09:23):
different. I was at a point I was getting
close to a breaking point. So week 4 through week 6.
So those last two weeks I started getting my wills ready.
I started getting my life insurance policies out.
I had my passwords out like I was ready to end it.
And that's, that's not me because I love life.
(09:46):
But I was thinking myself, there's no way I can go forward
with this. And the only thing that held on
or kept me, kept me hanging on was my little girl.
I like, I can't let this girl down.
And fortunately one night I broke at midnight and I was
like, I'm done. Like this is it.
My wife called the physician gotme in and fortunately there was
(10:08):
an experimental device called the Sprint PNS, which is a
electrical 90 day device that sends electricity down my arm
and it killed my phantom pain, my phantom feeling immediately.
It was a lifesaver for me. So that was that was a win.
That was a big win. Fast forward, we ended up
(10:31):
adopting our little girl. So Congrats, one of the
highlights of my life. But that's when Supra, you know,
started coming into the picture in 2020 is when I lost my hand
through 2024. It was very hard to look in the
(10:52):
mirror, you know, at 41 years old when I lost my hand.
As you lose a body part, you're not the same guy.
And I in my mind, the equalizer was money, all right, I can't be
physically fit. I can't look like, you know, you
3 in the room right here. But I'm going to trump you with
money. So I made the most money.
And and you do? Yeah.
(11:13):
You've done that, Yeah. So I, I made the most money I've
ever made in my adult life from that point from 20/20/20 to
20/24 and, and I crushed it. And on paper everything looked
good. But this will all stick out,
always stick out to me. The first time I went public, I
was very hidden. You know, COVID helped me
(11:34):
because I got to work at home. Nobody got to see me.
When I went out in public. I had my arm wrapped or long
sleeve on, so people weren't really paying attention.
But we're at the fountain blue in Miami.
And that's the first time at a pool party.
I didn't want to go, but I had to go for work.
And man, it was the first time Ihad to get out at the pool,
(11:54):
shirt off, expose everything. And it was, it was extremely
uncomfortable. I mean, it was very mentally
tough for me to do that. And got back home and John
caught me on a Monday morning and with us get you ad, his
eight minute, his nine minute get you ad.
(12:15):
And I've never heard of Superhuman before.
Didn't have a clue who John Matson was before, you know, the
ad was confident but cocky, borderline arrogant.
And I like that. And I watched that whole 8-9
minute video and I said to myself, all right, if he's going
to lay it out there and he's that confident, I'm going to,
(12:36):
I'm going to take his word for it and, and go for this.
So. So that's why I did.
Amazing. It's yeah, I've I've just been
sat in all like that for that whole that whole story.
Yeah, so now let's go from superonwards.
You you get lumped with with Mr.Taylor the doc.
Really high. He's unfortunate.
(12:57):
Yeah. Unfortunately all the other
coaches were full at the time. But no, I mean, because you, you
guys have a fantastic relationship and you know,
you've been in the program now over 2 years.
Well, it's going on two years, so February of 24.
Yeah. And so how, you know, how was it
first kind of initially working with Taylor and kind of how was
that? I, I guess like blossomed into
(13:18):
the kind of like the friendship that you guys have now.
You know, it, it's the progress that, you know, we've seen your,
your before and after pictures and things and, you know, we've
seen you at the events in the past, But just how, how is that
kind of friendship helped you from a coaching standpoint?
You know, aside, I mean, you look fantastic.
Like we could, we could talk about that all day, but just
the, I guess, like the, the psychology side of it and having
(13:41):
someone in your corner kind of guiding you throughout this
process. How?
How has that been working with working with Taylor?
Yes, I'll start from the beginning a little bit.
You know, at first I like you have Doctor Taylor Waters and
I'm like doctor and you get on the first Zoom call with him and
him and I are, you know, we're doing this.
He's gauging me, I'm gauging youhim.
We're trying to read each other and.
(14:03):
He can't read. But but it was interesting
because Taylor didn't come into it saying you need to do this,
you need to do that. He wanted to learn about me.
Hey, talk to me about your lifestyle, Talk to me about what
you do. He he was learning how he was
going to customize his plan for me and how we were going to work
together. And we talked about my mental
(14:26):
struggle at the time. I wasn't comfortable going into
the gym. We talked about amputation and I
said, have you worked with an amputees before?
And he had, he had limited, you know, experience, but some
experience with it because upperlimb amputees, which is what I
am is only 2% of the amputation prop of population.
Most amputees are are lower limbs.
(14:46):
So everything is a lot of materials designed around lower
limb amputees and diabetes is the number one cause of that.
But the fact that he took the time to learn who I was and
understand what I was and then built a program around, you
know, my lifestyle, my needs, mycapabilities was extremely
(15:11):
important. And the other thing that really
resonated with me was he could have jumped into macros right
away. Now, keep in mind, they don't
teach macros. And why they don't teach macros
to anybody in the United States blows my minds because at 41, I
didn't understand macros or excuse me at the time I was 45,
didn't understand macros. And he made it simple for me,
(15:35):
calories, protein. Had he gone technical like into
the fats, into the carbs, I probably want to stuck with it.
So I'm very appreciative of him understanding my needs, working
within my needs. And then to answer your question
about the, the friendship and inthe bond we have, I've, I've
commented on the forms about this like coaches should sign an
(15:57):
NDA because Taylor could write abook about me.
He knows more about me than 99% of people.
That's the trust, that's the relationship we have right now,
and friendship. We have I actually remember one
of the early fly insurance I believe, and it may have been
the first time you guys met in person and you spent like a good
hour in the gym figuring out like what exercises worked I.
(16:19):
Remember that glory gains. Glory gains.
Yeah, I should remember that. Well, that was it.
It was, I think, because you areuncomfortable going in a gym and
understandably as well. It's like, well, I haven't like
if I lost my hand now, I'd feel uncomfortable now doing it and I
know it all now, but just going in and having to read it.
But almost I'm to start from scratch where you don't feel
(16:41):
comfortable about being in shapeand just have to go in and get
it done. But like you trained, one thing
you've always been able to do iswork hard, like all over your
business life. And then you're through your
career, you've shown the abilityto commit yourself and work
hard. So what I had to do was put a
plan in place that you could do and you were going to graft
doing it. So like you were doing body
weight stuff from home, like whatever, whatever you are, like
(17:02):
the the treadmill from home we were doing.
We were just sort of changing movements.
We could get them done. You had the weighted vest and
things. And then when we met in person,
obviously my job was to deal with a lot of the clients.
But luckily you guys, I was like, can you guys deal with the
rest of them And let me just go with, with Ben and just let's
see what he can do. Almost like the confidence
(17:22):
building, like give me an hour just to get his confidence up.
I can see what he can do. He can see what he can do.
And then that allows me to go away and now build the program
even more. And then now it's like, I can't
get you out of a gym, right? It's gone from somewhere where
like, I don't even want to step foot in one to now somewhere
where like you don't miss sessions, like it's become a key
part of your life. So tell me a little bit as well
(17:45):
about how that mindset shift from where you were to where you
are now, because I've seen it inyou as well.
Not so much. Just like.
Even on our first. Call like you're quite a
stubborn, for lack of a better term, stubborn fucker and I
appreciate that. I think that as a compliment,
excuse my French. And but I remember you were
saying you were like, you were quite like stirring and like,
(18:06):
you tell me what to do and I'll do it.
And we hear that a lot. But more often than not, I'm
like, we'll see, see. Because a lot of a lot of people
who say that don't they, they, they say it because it sounds
cool, but they don't do it. But so I know.
And then you go out and you are one of those guys who does do
it. But what was it like starting
from summer where it's obviouslya vulnerable will to enter given
(18:26):
the position that you were in? Whereas now you know, you are a
an inspiration for a lot of people, even myself.
Like I see something that you'redoing, like you send me the
video over doing weighted dips. I was.
I wanted to bring that up because I've seen it as well.
I'm like, man. Like what a savage.
Like that's such a badass thing to do.
So talk to me about like the mindset change you've had from
(18:49):
that first call where you're like, look, basically I'm not
going in the gym because I don'tfeel comfortable going in.
I'm just going to build 1 from home to now.
The guy who's doing weighted dips in front of a whole gym of
people, Yeah. I think phase one was extremely
important for me and that I had to shed the fat off.
So I was at 2O3 we got down to 158 ish 156 and that was all at
(19:12):
home. And then I saw a muscle gain
just doing the stuff we were doing at home which is body
weight, push ups, weighted vest and it got.
So we did that from February to October and in my mind, I was
like, there's no way I'm going to be able to bulk at home or
put on the muscle that I want toput on.
I'm like, I need to turn the dial and, and do a gym.
(19:35):
And frankly, it was a little intimidating for me at first,
which I don't use that word a lot because there's very little
that I'm not afraid to fail. That was just a different game
for me. And the first month, the first
month of me in a gym, it was, itwas, you know, I was banging my
head. You don't with bars.
(19:57):
You know, I was a monkey fucker.Football, excuse my French.
I mean, you forget. When you're a beginner, it's
like, even when you see guys tryand take the, the plates off
like a bar on the ground. Yeah.
And they're trying to, like, drag it because they haven't
learnt the lifting. Yeah.
And you, you forget all of thosethings that it's like, you put
me on a building site and I'll smack my head on everything.
Yeah. But in the gym, it's kind of
you, you, you learn it. So yeah, I guess, I guess so.
(20:19):
It took me. It took me a month to really get
acclimated. And, you know, people at first
wanted to help me and I'm like, no, don't help me.
And I was working out with Owen yesterday and he was trying to
help me. I said quit helping me.
Like I don't. I told Taylor like don't treat
me any different than anybody else in the program.
Like I don't want any special. Now the time you spent with me
to understand and learn my capabilities, that's different
(20:42):
than don't treat me different. And but then once that first
month came and I started seeing changes, getting stronger,
getting more comfortable, then Ijust started running with it and
it goes back to it's good seeingthe visuals on the forums, it's
good seeing the transitions. You know, SHX was my turning
(21:03):
point last year. So I would say I was 7075%
committed before SHX. And then it wasn't until I got
to SHX and I saw the Kirk Jones,the Barrett Pope's, you know,
the, these, these people hittingthe Hall of Fame and seeing what
they started at, what they achieved.
I'm like, I can do that. I will do that.
(21:25):
It's not I can do that. Like I'm going to do that.
And it just totally changed my mindset and made the gym even
more of a focus. And I went in 25 thinking to
myself, and this was in my head and maybe it's a little
arrogant, maybe it's it's cocky.But I was like, I'm going to be
a Hall of Famer. Now I want superhuman of the
year because that is the top of the top.
Like I have the best coach or one of the best coaches, not to
(21:47):
knock you 2 down. Like if I follow his plan to AT
execute heavily, go with intensity, I was like, I'm going
to hit Hall of Fame. It's like now it's like, let's
go for the top spot. If it happens, great.
But at least I put it on the table.
Yeah, it's. Incredible.
So just to wrap it up, if there was, if you could say to some
(22:10):
someone who you know, maybe has had a life changing injury, you
know, or something that's reallyjust it.
It's going to change the way that they that they have to live
now moving forward. And maybe they're in a similar
position where it's, you know, painkillers and things, you
know, fitness is the least of your concerns because you're
just figuring out how to do the most basic things.
(22:31):
What would your advice be to someone like that?
You know, and this could even beoutside of, you know, this
doesn't have to be a plug for Supra, but just because your
story is so powerful, just you know, what would you say to
someone that's that's going through something like that?
There's so many. There's a couple different
lessons here. 1 is people will only listen to sympathy in a
pity party so long. At the end of the day, the world
(22:54):
keeps moving and you have to as well.
So what happened happened. Stop, assess, pivot, move
forward. Like that's that's all you can
do Mental outlook, positivity. You know what I look at this
way, I could be dead or I could have been even more severely
(23:17):
injured than what I was. So I also look for the the
positives in the situation. So just have the end and be
surrounded by the right people. You do need that positivity
around you. One thing about Super that
really resonates with me is there's three times in my life
where I felt like I didn't have an identity. 1 was graduating
(23:40):
high school and I didn't know what I was going to do after
high school, so I didn't know what path I was going to go.
I end up joining the Marine Corps.
The second time I lost my identity was after being
discharged from the Marine Corps.
It's like what's next for me. And then the third time was when
I exited my, my last company, sold that company.
It's like what's next for me. I have found that with Supra,
(24:01):
with the the community, that identity and it's been very
helpful and strong for me. Incredible.
Ben, thank you so much for jumping on the call.
Congratulations. Thank you, Can't wait to see
your. Checks this year.
If you love this. Show please like, share and
leave us a five star review so that we can help more people.
I'm John Matson, reminding you to always go get what's yours.
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