Transcript for Nick Stantonastasso Interview on the Beyond Speaking Podcast
Nick shares his journey of overcoming the physical challenges of being born with no legs and one arm due to Hanhart syndrome. He discusses the importance of mindset, the impact of his parents' approach to his upbringing, his experiences with bullying and self-doubt, and how he transformed his perspective on life. Nick talks about how he found inspiration in Tony Robbins, pursued speaking as a career, and his passion for helping others overcome obstacles through understanding neuroscience, personal development, and effective communication.
Podcast Episode · Beyond Speaking · April 4, 2024 · 20m
Nick: To be fully honest, when I was 20, 21 years old, I got into speaking for money. I'm a guy with no legs or an arm. I'm like, I don't know how I'm gonna feed myself. I don't know how I'm gonna provide like a man. And I see people speaking, I'm like, maybe there's something here. And so I spoke a little bit, but it wasn't until I saw someone do it at the highest level where I said, it's not speaking, it's orchestrating. That man is orchestrating an audience to feel all these different things and provoke a breakthrough. I want to take this to that level.
And if I want to be relevant for 40, 50 years, because I'm 27, if I want to do this for a long time and impact a lot of people, I gotta become a well, and I gotta go all in on communication and psychology.
Intro: Welcome to the Beyond Speaking Podcast from Premiere Speakers Bureau, featuring in-depth conversations with the world's most in-demand keynote speakers.
Brian: Hi, I'm Brian Lord, president of Premiere Speakers Bureau, and welcome to the Beyond Speaking Podcast. Our guest today is Nick Stantonastasso, who, there we go, nice. It is Italian for “awesome speaker,” 13 letters in the name. And so Nick is somebody who speaks on overcoming obstacles, mindset. He's got a great neuroscience background with a lot of this on how you can apply it.
He's spoken all over the world, done tours in China, also all over the US here as well, and worked with Tony Robbins. So Nick, thank you so much for coming on and being part of the Beyond Speaking podcast. I'm glad you're here.
Nick: I'm fired up. Thanks for having me.
So we're gonna talk a lot about a lot of stuff, you know, mindset, you know, how you talk to sales groups, leadership groups. But first, can you just, in a nutshell, kind of give us the background of your story?
Nick: Yeah, I think that's most important, right? Because we could share some life-changing information here, but the whole time they'll be like, “What happened to that guy?” So we'll give them some context.
And so I'm twenty-seven years old, but in 1996 my parents went in for a light ultrasound. They sat them down, they pulled the baby up on a screen, and suddenly everybody started to freak out. And when they looked at the ultrasound, it said that my limbs weren't being developed, my arms and my legs and potentially my face was messed up. And they classified me with what we call Hanhart Syndrome. And hand heart syndrome either leaves the babies with undeveloped limbs.
So at the time of my birth in 1996, I was the 12th baby in medical history that they've ever seen this happen to. And out of the 12, eight of those babies have passed away due to undeveloped organs. And so they gave me about a 30% chance to live. And I popped out, the unicorn popped out. and all my organs were 100% healthy, and the only thing that was affected were my limbs. And so as you see, in my unicorn body, no legs, one arm, and one finger, and we're rocking and rolling.
Brian: Yeah, awesome. Well, so I really like one of the things you told me earlier, you know, talking about your parents. So like you have this mindset. What was the mindset that your parents chose in that moment?
Nick: Yeah. I think it's really powerful because most of our model the world, as we mentioned, most of our model of the world and our beliefs and the way that we see the world is cultivated between zero and seven years old, right? Because our brain was in what we call theta state, meaning you're very suggestible. They said, "That's a dog,” you're like “dog.” They said that's a cat, that's a cat, right? And so there's other things that we've been programmed, but the approach my parents took, I think, was very powerful.
And before I was born, they focused on the 30% chance of me living versus the 70% chance of me dying. But also when I was born, I was the baby. So I have, you know, all older siblings, older brother, older sisters. And so they threw me into the mix. But my parents would literally put my clothes in front of me at a specific age, not like a little baby, but here's your clothes, figure it out. Or here's a spoon and here's some food, figure it out.
And I didn't understand what they were doing at an early age, but what they were doing was two things. They were getting me very familiar with failure. You know, I think if we reflect back at our lives and even to the audience is like, where would you be if you knew you couldn't fail? Or where would you be if you were programmed that failure wasn't always bad? You know, because oftentimes we're programmed that failure is bad and we don't want to fail and we want to stay in a winning streak. But what if I were to tell you the only difference between you and the person that you want to become is time and they failed more than you did?
So I got very familiar with failure. I knew it was part of the process, but also one of the greatest things that I was cultivated at a very early age was I became solution oriented. And so I was forced to not focus on the problem, but I was forced to focus on the solution and how I was gonna overcome it. And so I think we can translate that into day-to-day life is like, are you spending the majority of your energy focusing on the problem? Are you focused on the solutions?
Because especially in this world, if you want to make more money, you gotta solve a bigger problem. But if you're always focused on the problem, that's all you're gonna see and that's all you're gonna get. And most humans don't think they should have problems and that's their biggest problem.
Brian: Yeah, I mean that is one of those things where it's it we do get preoccupied with what's wrong, not with what's right. So I love that approach to it. When did you start feeling like you needed it like you had your family you're growing up in, but you said it actually took you a while to figure out maybe things are gonna be different for you.
Nick: Hundred percent. Yeah. So when I'm a pure little child, I didn't know what's going on. And by the time you get into middle school and high school, I realize kids are taller. You know, I'm in a wheelchair. I get extra time in class. Like what's going on here? But I also mentioned that I saw my friends with girlfriends and boyfriends, and I felt like I wasn't receiving the love that I wanted or that I craved. And so by the time I got into middle school and high school, I was unconfident. I was depressed. I was a little chubby little Italian boy, and I was looking for a way out.
And I had a very honest conversation with myself internally. I said, Nick, you either take your life or you figure out how to make the most out of this because you can't change the vessel. You can't change no legs, one arm. And so it's like you either end it or you figure out how to leverage it. And I mentioned women were the biggest pain point for me, right? There was a specific moment where I was on a school bus and I got made fun of. And because of that specific experience, I developed beliefs that I was disgusting, that girls don't like me. I'll never have a wife, I'll never have a girlfriend, I'll never go to my junior prom or anything.
But as I've evolved and I look back at that scenario, we must understand that humans will change for two reasons. They either change for pain or they'll change for pleasure. But humans will always run away from pain faster than they'll run towards pleasure. That's why we don't start going to the gym until the doctor says you're obese. You don't leave the toxic relationship until it becomes physically abusive or emotionally abusive. So we've all hit a pain threshold. And so I think in high school I hit a pain threshold where I was like, I want love, you know, I want a girlfriend, I want to feel confident in my body.
And that pushed me to do wrestling. You know, I had to amputate five inches of my arm off, and that's a whole nother topic for a whole nother time. We'll tease you there, right? And then I became a wrestler and then I went into bodybuilding. But my pain was the catalyst to change.
And I'm pretty sure for those that are listening right now, the most painful moments are your biggest blessings if you look back and find the gift. But the truth is, humans aren't always ready for the gift, but it's always readily available. What's wrong about the situation is always there for you to get. But on the flip side, what's right about the situation is always there for you to get as well, but you get what you focus on.
Brian: How do you choose? Like what's your daily thing? Talk about what you focus on. Like what's the start of next?
Nick: Hundred percent. Well, our brain is the survival brain. It's thousands of years old, and your brain's sole purpose is to keep you alive from a saber-toothed tiger coming to kill you and your family. Well, the truth is, 2023, most of us watching this, if you're watching this, you probably don't have a saber-toothed tiger coming to kill you and your family. So now we have different fears. We have fear of rejection, we have fear of failure, we have fear of not being loved, fear of public speaking, right? People would rather die than public speak. And so there's so many different failures.
But understanding that your brain is like a software. So every day that you wake up, it's rebooting. And it wants to keep you safe. It wants to keep you certain and wants to keep you in a comfortable space. And so your brain doesn't want you to start going to the gym. Your brain doesn't want you to try to speak more. Your brain doesn't want you to start building a business because that's new and it's uncertain.
So what it will do, it'll focus on all the things that went wrong in the past. It'll focus on all the insecurities, all your failures, all the times that you screwed up. Why? To remind you of all the times you failed so you don't try it again. And so what's really important is understanding that we all have patterns, right? I don't care what level of business you're at, what level of life you're at, we all have specific patterns in the brain. And there's a few focus patterns that really screw a lot of humans and entrepreneurs up. And if you can become aware of them, you can then strip power away from them.
So I'll give you one. One of the biggest things that screws most humans up because they're not aware of it, is they spend the majority of their life focusing on all the things that they don't have versus all the things that they do have. And so you have to train your brain every single day to ground yourself and be like, what's right? What do I have?
Because take a man with no legs and one arm, for example, if I woke up every single day and I let the brain run the show and I didn't do any personal development, I didn't become aware at all. And I focus on all the things that I don't have, is my life good or bad? It's not so good. Right? And then I don't feel good, and then I don't take good action, and I don't get good results, and I don't have a great life.
And so there's people out there right now that are in a pattern of only focusing on all the things that they don't have. I mean, I could even spark it to you in the audience. It's like, how many of you know someone in your life that regardless of how great the vacation was or how good the business trip was, they always find the one thing that was wrong with it. And you laugh because you know someone like that. Or maybe it's yourself, right?
And so I think of how you said, how do I live my life? I think the foundation is reminding myself of what I have versus what I don't have is the foundation. Because when I focus on all the things that I don't have, whether it's in business, my bank account, my body, my mind, I become insecure. I feel inadequate. I don't feel like enough. And then I can't serve from that place. But if I program myself to focus on all the things that are right and all the things that I do have, I can serve from a place of like, I'm enough.
Brian: Where did that mindset shift kind of start for you?
Nick: That's a great question. Well, I'm 27 years old, and I would say with certainty, for 19 years of my life I was a victim. Meaning, like, why me? Why do I have to be born like this? Why did my creator make me like this? Why did the kids have to make fun of me? How am I gonna work a job? And for me, it wasn't until I was exposed to a coach. And for me, I call myself, my students call me little Baby Yoda, right? Because I'm short, but I got a lot of wisdom and I asked great questions. But my sensei, or, you know, Master Jedi was Tony Robbins.
When I first got exposed to Tony Robbins, and earlier in our private conversation, we talked about one of the most powerful laws is the law of exposure. What the law of exposure states is that the moment I'm exposed to information that can change the quality of my life, I can never be unexposed again. And so the most dangerous information is the information you don't know. And as humans, we only know what we know.
And so by the time that I was 21 years old, and I moved into a different environment, I got a new set of friends that were empowering, I was able to, with my partners, get into a room with a man who's been speaking for 40 years, and he transformed my life. That exposure to that level of transformation, I not only was evolving into a better version of myself, but I said, I wanna do what that guy did. Because there we would agree there's levels of speaking. You can speak with information and then you can speak with transformation. And I watched a guy who's been speaking for 40 years, teach for 13 hours in one day, make people laugh, cry, inspire them, break through. And I was like, whatever that guy did, I want to do that.
And that was the start of really falling in love with speaking. Because initially, to be fully honest, when I was 20, 21 years old, I got into speaking for money. I'm a guy with no legs or an arm. I'm like, I don't know how I'm gonna feed myself. I don't know how I'm gonna provide like a man. And I see people speaking, I'm like, maybe there's something here.
And so I spoke a little bit, but it wasn't until I saw someone do it at the highest level where I said, It's not speaking, it's orchestrating. That man is orchestrating an audience to feel all these different things and provoke and provoke a breakthrough. I want to take this to that level. And if I want to be relevant for 40, 50 years because I'm 27, if I wanna do this for a long time and impact a lot of people, I gotta become a well, and I gotta go all in on communication and psychology.
Brian: So tell me kind of your genesis when it comes to neuroscience and that research? What have you found and what do you feel is most impactful for you?
Nick: Yeah, for sure. So the background on neuroscience, and in no way, shape, or form, am I a scientist, right? But I've done a lot of studies studying Tony, and I've also done a lot of studies studying Dr. Joe Dispenza with unwiring and rewiring the brain. But also I am a practitioner in NLP, which is neurolinguistic. It's the language of the mind. And so I'm taught and trained on how to unwire and rewire different neural pathways for you to heal trauma, break through, get to the next level, whatever that may be.
And so, for example, like we mentioned earlier, is most people when they speak or when they teach, they leave the crowd in a passive state. There's no crowd interaction, there's no back and forth, there's no raising hands. And a lot of people think that's motivational rah-rah. But when you look at the neuroscience and you look at the studies that they do in the brain, when you sit there passively, you retain about zero to seven percent of the information. That's why when you're in school, if you didn't write anything down, you don't remember anything.
But studies show that when you physically write things down with your hand, if you're grateful enough to have a hand, pick up the pencil and start writing some notes, right, is that you can retain about 40 to 50% of the information just by ingraining and writing it. But studies show that if you keep the audience in an active learning state, meaning they're engaged, they're saying yes, they're doing all these different things, they can retain about 80 to 90% of the information.
And so it's one thing to attempt to get the crowd to raise their hand and call back at you, but it's another thing to reinforce it with this is why we do it. And when you can reinforce it with statistics and actual data, they're more inclined to do it.
Did that make sense? Did that answer the question? So all of that. But another example with neuroscience as well is let's look at trauma, for example. Like we've all experienced some level of trauma, some more intense than others. But what trauma is, is an emotionally charged event in the body. So for example, if you ever see animals in the wild, right, when they get into a fight, what do they do afterwards? They shake it out, they shake their body out because it's in their body.
And so with humans, for example, all the trauma, all the negative experience that you've had in your life is ingrained in the brain. It's embedded. But with NLP or neuroscience as well, if you go back to that event and you find the gifts and you find the learnings and you find the beauty in that event, you can actually emotionally neutralize the event and the trauma no longer affects you. So that's another example of neuroscience and unwinding and rewind.
It's like right now, everybody listening to this has a specific moment in their life that is holding you hostage that you thought was a loss. And if you go back and revisit that moment and you see it from other lenses and you're able to find the gifts and find the blessings and who you're able to become because you went through that, you actually disarm the trauma and it will no longer affect you.
Brian: Mm-hmm. Do you have an example of that that you're okay with sharing, maybe from your own life or kind of disarming the past?
Nick: Yeah, well, for the time being, I'll give an example. When I was 13 and I was on that school bus, right? And there was a girl to the left of me and she was making fun of everyone. And I'm like, man, you know, she's gonna really beat me up here. And I looked her in her eyes and she looked at me and said, I don't even have to start with you. You're already too screwed up anyway. Look at you.
Now with trauma, you may not remember their face. You may not remember what they're wearing, but you always remember how they made you feel. And I remember how she made me feel. And I felt insignificant, I felt inadequate, I felt like I was disgusting, I was a curse, like this whole body was terrible. And I started asking the question of like, what's wrong with me? You know, if that girl thinks that, then what's wrong with me?
And you know, what we teach our students is that your brain is a problem-solving mechanism. And it's always going to give you an answer to the questions that you ask it. What's wrong with me is a terrible question. Because even now, everybody that's listening, if you ask yourself what's wrong with you, your brain's gonna give you a whole bunch of reasons.
Why am I not a good dad? Why am I not a good leader? Why does, why doesn't, why does my culture suck? Like your brain's gonna give you answers all the time. And so I was about 13 and I went on for years believing that I was disgusting and I'll never have a girlfriend. And it wasn't until I was 19 years old where I asked myself a better question. Maybe I got sick of asking myself what's wrong with me, because I never got a good answer. And I was 19 years old, and instead of asking what's wrong with having no legs, one arm, I said, what's right?
And by the way, the brain didn't like that. It doesn't want you to change. And so I was like, what's right with having no legs, one arm? And the answer that I got was Nick, if a girl doesn't want to love on you because you have no legs and one arm, if someone doesn't want to do business or be friends with you because of your physical body, then maybe it's not a curse. What if it's actually a gift and it's acting as an authentic human filter and it's filtering out the type of women and men that you don't want in your life anyway? And then a snap of a finger, I changed my whole life by changing the story I had around my body.
And so I was able to disarm right. Disarm or neutralize that event by finding the gift and finding a better answer in it. But also, as I've evolved, as I've done personal development, because by the way, your success will always be capped by the level of personal development you have.
And so as I grew and I had more compassion and my level of consciousness rose, I went back to that event and realized I wish I could hug because if she had to take whatever she had going on out on a 14-year-old boy with no legs and one arm, she must have been going through some terrible things at home. God bless her. Right? So I had compassion.
And so understand that for everybody that's listening right now, it's like you may have people in your past that hurt you, they cheated on you, they done you wrong, they rejected you, they screwed you over. Understand that hurt people hurt people. And those people have to be going through something so deep and dark that they had to take it out on another human being. God, God bless them.
Brian: So I guess the last question here, you know, looking forward, like you're 27, you've got this big map ahead of you. What's one thing that you really, really want to accomplish between now like coming down that road?
Nick: That's a great question. I think speaking and communication is one of the most powerful ways to transform lives. You know, as humans we've been telling stories for, since we knew how to talk, we knew how to draw, right? And so stories and analogies are the greatest way to transform lives and to get people to break through.
And so I want to keep transforming lives, but I also want to equip others with the ability to communicate and articulate and be a transformational speaker because that will trickle on forever and I'll live forever. But I think my intention is and I mentioned to you this in a private conversation. By the way, if we had cameras on that private conversation it was gold, but you don't get that one. You don't get that one, right?
Brian: Just become an agent, that's what you gotta do.
Nick: Right. I understand that I am an offering, right? And that this human experience isn't for me, it's for all the lives that I'm going to change and all the people that I'm going to transform as I walk or hop through my journey of life. And so my intention at 27 years old is every single day to build myself within the greatest version of myself and give that version to the world.
There is someone out there right now who is suffering because they don't have your story yet. I'm not gonna be able to break through everybody. I'm not going to be able to change everybody, but someone out there needs your story, your testimony. They need the things that you've overcome.
And so I want to create more Baby Yodas. You know, I want to transform lives and I'm going to wave the flag and speak and continue to speak because I know one day there ain't going to be a crowd clapping for me. So I want to continue to speak until I can no longer. And then I also want to turn around and equip others with the ability to communicate so they can go transform lives, and make some impact, and make some income.
Brian: Awesome, awesome. Well, cool. Well, Nick, thank you so much for joining us here. And for those who are watching and listening, make sure to go to premierespeakers.com and check out Nick Santonastaso. And also make sure to subscribe, rate, and review the Beyond Speaking Podcast. So, Nick, thank you again so much for coming on and being part of the Beyond Speaking Podcast.
Nick: Thank you, my friend. Send love.
Outro: Thank you for joining us for the Beyond Speaking podcast. To learn more about today's guests, visit PremiereSpeakers.com. Make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen.
