The Impossible Podcast

Matthew Hill and Austin Douglas
  • 4.7 (15)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Semiweekly

Welcome to The Impossible, the official podcast of Impossible Performance, where we explore humanity in the Face of Impossible challenge.  Our hosts Matt Hill and Austin Douglas are both cancer survivors who have faced The Impossible through near death experience, disease, PTSD, and addiction.  Since overcoming these challenges, they now use the principles they learned from these difficult experiences to Be Impossible and Do the Impossible in business and athletics.  Join us as we hear stories of those who have Faced the Impossible and learn how you can Be Impossible, building a version of yourself who is capable of overcoming any challenge you face...capable of Doing the Impossible! At Impossible Performance, we strive to build a global culture of strength, fostering a spirit of growth in constant pursuit of The Impossible. Thank you for listening and as always... Be Impossible

  1. 5d ago

    How Squatting 500 lbs is Helping me Battle Cancer - with Matthew Hill

    Some skills are built for years before you learn what they were being built for. Matt opens in the warm-up room of a meet last August: 402 pounds on the bar, a hundred under his opener, and a grinding, ugly rep that nearly did not go up. In minutes he had to walk onto a platform with a hundred people watching and put 500 pounds on his back, as an amputee athlete squatting on a prosthetic rated to hold less than the weight already on him. What he describes next is not confidence and not the absence of fear. It is the skill he had actually been training under that bar for eight years: building peace within fear. His argument is that the popular advice is simply wrong. Fear cannot be eradicated; it is woven into us the same way love and hope and faith are. There are no good emotions and no bad ones, only emotions, and every one of them carries power that will be expressed one way or another. Either it consumes you, or you build the trained capacity to stay in command of yourself inside it. He takes it through the whole meet, including the attempt he completely failed, and the turnaround minutes later that he counts among the proudest moments of his life. Then he turns to why it matters. There are chosen impossible challenges and unchosen ones, and the chosen ones exist to build the skill for the day the unchosen arrives. A year after that lift, Matt is facing a second cancer diagnosis; stage one, and in his own words a reality he is still working to fully accept. What is different this time, he says, is that there was no paralysis, no numbness, no not knowing how to move. He closes with the three practices he is using right now: recognize the emotion, take command of your narrative, and accept every possible outcome. Peace is not the absence of the storm; it is who you remain inside it. Shared in Matt's own words; his diagnosis and medical situation are his personal account, not medical advice. 🎧 The Impossible Podcast | Impossible Performance IG @impossible.performance · www.impossibleperformance.com ❤️‍🔥 0:00 The Skill I Did Not Choose to Learn 1:36 402 Pounds, and the Rep That Nearly Did Not Go Up 4:13 Why the Squat Was Never About Squatting 5:12 You Cannot Eradicate Fear 6:30 There Are No Good or Bad Emotions 8:33 What "Trained Capacity" Actually Means 10:03 Strong and Unwell at the Same Time 20:20 The Opener, and Then the Failure 21:11 Turning Around Minutes After Failing 26:33 Chosen Impossibles and Unchosen Ones 29:12 Facing It a Second Time 43:31 What Peace Actually Is 49:28 Step One: Recognize the Emotion 52:45 Step Two: Take Control of Your Narrative 54:29 Step Three: Accept the Outcome Support the show

    How Squatting 500 lbs is Helping me Battle Cancer - with Matthew Hill

  2. Sep 8

    This Mindset took me to the Olympics...and Beyond - with Amputee Sprinter Sydney Barta

    All links: https://impossibleperformance.com/ Some people survive the day that changes everything; a rare few decide, in hindsight, that it was the best day they ever had. At six years old, on a crisp and windy morning at a fun run, Sydney was standing exactly where her mother told her to wait when a race banner caught the wind and came down on her foot. Twenty-one surgeries, compartment syndrome, and four months in the hospital later, the decision was made that would define her life. She does not tell this as a tragedy; she tells it as the luckiest day she has known, because the banner missed her head, she kept her life, and in the loss she found a Purpose she is certain she would never have discovered otherwise. What she built from there is staggering: a Paralympic sprinter at seventeen, an American record holder, a Stanford bioengineer bound for Oxford and then medical school, with the aim of becoming the orthopedic surgeon she never had — one who is also an amputee. Along the way she and Matt trade hard-won lessons on being your own advocate in a system that too often talks past the patient; on the myth of the limitation you accept before you ever test it; and on the strange, uncomfortable courage it takes to rest when every instinct says push. As their shirt reads: Limitations do not exist; almost all of them are chosen before they are ever hit. Who's to say whether you can or cannot; but you can know, for a fact, that you can try. Shared in her own words; personal medical experiences and decisions are her account, not medical advice. With guest Sydney Barta · IG @sydney.barta  🎧 The Impossible Podcast | Impossible Performance IG @impossible.performance · www.impossibleperformance.com ❤️‍🔥 Support the show

    This Mindset took me to the Olympics...and Beyond - with Amputee Sprinter Sydney Barta

  3. Sep 1

    The Story You Think Doesn't Matter Is the One Someone Needs to Hear - With Matt and Austin

    The Story You Think Doesn't Matter Is the One Someone Needs to Hear A story untold is just potential energy at rest; the moment you tell it, that energy is released, and it never stops. In this one, Matt and Austin step back from the guests and talk about the thing underneath all of it: the power of a Story. Why sharing yours is one of the most cathartic acts there is; why three and a half years and thousands of hours at these microphones became the closest thing either of us has had to therapy; and why the story you're most convinced is insignificant is very likely the exact one somebody out there needs in order to take their first step. We get into the physics of it, honestly: a mug at rest holds potential energy until it's pushed off the table; a story works the same way, except once the kinetic energy is released, it keeps moving, keeps landing, forever. It's why a story like Ginger's still reaches people years later, though she's no longer with us; her story is still being told, still doing good. The Potential your story holds is your responsibility. You don't have to start a podcast; maybe you share it with a stranger in a cafe, or one close friend. But in whatever way feels good and true to you, telling it is what converts that potential into impact; on your community, on the people you love, and on the legacy you leave the ones who come after you. And it is the one asset no AI will ever replace: the story of a human life. Your passion is built from your story; your Purpose grows from your passion; and your impact grows from there. It all starts with telling it. The Impossible app is nearly live (built on our exact process across all four Domains of Performance); the link will be in the show notes and comments the moment it goes. 🎧 The Impossible Podcast | Impossible Performance Join our FREE Online Community to learn more about out Message ❤️‍🔥: https://www.skool.com/the-orion-collective-8700 For 1:1 Performance Coaching, click this Link 🏆: https://impossibleperformance.com/app Support the show

    The Story You Think Doesn't Matter Is the One Someone Needs to Hear - With Matt and Austin

  4. Aug 25

    From Addiction and a Stroke to One of the Strongest Adaptive Lifters Alive - With Arlyn Smith

    From Addiction and a Stroke to One of the Strongest Adaptive Lifters Alive She was broken all the way down; then she decided the story was hers to write. Arlyn Smith returns to the podcast after years away, now one of the strongest female adaptive lifters in the world and fresh off the USPC ParaNationals. Her road here ran through addiction, a stroke, ataxia, and profound battles with her mental health; and the turn came when she stopped letting anyone else define her and claimed her own narrative. This conversation is a masterclass in the Impossible mindset: why you have to hold unruly Faith in your own Potential; why the gift was never the 500-pound squat but the individual it builds; why all pain is relative, so your hardest thing counts as much as anyone's; and why the antidote to the hardship you didn't choose is the hardship you choose, on purpose, on a regular basis. And a reframe on fear worth the whole episode: stop trying to make fear disappear. Emotion isn't good or bad; it's your humanity speaking. Build peace within it, and aim it at something worth becoming. Nothing you've survived was wasted; it's the proof of what you can survive next. Make your worldview small; move forward, one manageable task at a time; and foster unruly faith in the impossible version of yourself waiting on the other side of the challenge. Arlyn's story is shared in her own words; not medical advice. If you're struggling: the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7, and eating-disorder support is available through the National Alliance for Eating Disorders. Arlyn is now a coach on the Impossible app (NASM CPT, adaptive and Parkinson's specializations); her landing page and our new "Limitations Do Not Exist" apparel are linked below. Follow us: @impossible.performance · www.impossibleperformance.com 🎧 The Impossible Podcast | Impossible Performance ❤️‍🔥 Join our FREE Online Community to learn more about out Message ❤️‍🔥: https://www.skool.com/the-orion-collective-8700 For 1:1 Performance Coaching, click this Link 🏆: https://impossibleperformance.com/app Support the show

    From Addiction and a Stroke to One of the Strongest Adaptive Lifters Alive - With Arlyn Smith

  5. Aug 18

    A Chemo Drug Nearly Killed Me; Then My Doctor Told Me to Take It Again

    A Chemo Drug Nearly Killed Me; Then My Doctor Told Me to Take It Again Resiliency is not never getting hit; it is how fast you return to baseline. One minute into an infusion, a chemo drug closed my airways without my consent; Matt hit the red button, the room filled with ten people, and IV Benadryl pulled me back. Thirty minutes later my oncologist sat down beside me, calm and direct, and told me the recommendation was to take that same drug again, the whole remaining dose, three more times. I stared out at the maples in that courtyard and met the person I had to become in that chair. This episode is what was running through my mind: Nietzsche's passive versus active nihilism, the weight you choose to carry up the mountain, and the flamethrower you take to the baggage that has no business coming with you. Because the Standard was never just to better myself; it is to better those around me. That is the overman, and that is the work. I am nineteen months into remission now, and the lesson holds: feel the emotions fully, refuse to let them run you, and return to baseline. That is resiliency, and it is a skill you can build. You have the same choice in your own chair; face the mountain, and climb. Shared in my own words; not medical advice. Follow us: @impossible.performance · www.impossibleperformance.com 🎧 The Impossible Podcast | Impossible Performance Join our FREE Online Community to learn more about out Message ❤️‍🔥: https://www.skool.com/the-orion-collective-8700 For 1:1 Performance Coaching, click this Link 🏆: https://www.skool.com/impossible Support the show

    A Chemo Drug Nearly Killed Me; Then My Doctor Told Me to Take It Again

  6. Aug 11

    I Was Just Diagnosed With Cancer for the Second Time

    I Was Just Diagnosed With Cancer for the Second Time Twelve years ago, cancer built the man I became; last Friday, it returned. In 2013, at eighteen, Ewing sarcoma took my leg and very nearly took my life; it also built the Be Impossible mindset from the ground up. I learned that you do not beat the impossible by staring at the mountain; you become, one ordinary day at a time, the version of yourself who can. That skill: building peace within fear rather than escaping it, is the one that carries me now, because I have heard those words again. Renal cell carcinoma, caught early, stage one. Good odds, and I am thankful for them; and still that same fear, that same reckoning with how precious and how brief our time truly is. I am sharing all of it here, in real time: the diagnosis, the prognosis, the reawakening to the beauty we go blind to, and, at the close, the most personal thing I have ever spoken aloud, an experience from that first battle that I was never certain I would tell. Not to convince you of anything, but to live out, plainly, what it means to be Impossible. Your potential is your responsibility; so is mine. If this reaches you in your own dark hour, that is the entire Purpose of it. Shared in my own words; not medical advice. Please help us carry the message: share this episode with one person who needs it. Follow us: @impossible.performance · www.impossibleperformance.com 🎧 The Impossible Podcast | Impossible Performance ❤️‍🔥 Join our FREE Online Community to learn more about out Message ❤️‍🔥: https://www.skool.com/the-orion-collective-8700 For 1:1 Performance Coaching, click this Link 🏆: https://www.skool.com/impossible Support the show

    I Was Just Diagnosed With Cancer for the Second Time

  7. Aug 10

    "You're Throwing Darts at No Dartboard"; Why You Can't Hit a Target You Never Set - Paul Oneid

    He knew before his chest hit the floor that he was going to be alright. Paul Oneid has built a life out of walking into rooms where he does not belong yet. A Canadian kid with no football background trying to coach Division I athletes; a lifter stepping into a gym holding four of the strongest men on earth; a coach who saved twelve thousand dollars to work three months for free. In this conversation he traces the whole arc: the burnout that ended his collegiate career, the mother's line that convinced him to bet on himself, and the meet where a third-attempt squat tore both quads and fractured both kneecaps. But the recovery is where the real teaching lives. Six weeks unable to care for himself; an ego dismantled entirely; and the lesson underneath it, that he was deserving of the love he was being given. From there the conversation opens into the questions Paul builds his coaching on: who are you if you cannot use your work, your hobbies, your faith, or your family to answer; why an identity attached to anything external is fragile; how self-efficacy is actually built, one manufactured win at a time; and the moment he asks Matt to objectively define success, and the silence that follows. Stop looking for answers. Start learning to ask better questions. 🎧 The Impossible Podcast | Impossible Performance 0:00 Robert Greene on vocation, and why this conversation 2:12 From basketball to football to a torn meniscus 3:44 Saving $12,000 to intern for free in Florida 6:38 15 teams, 600 athletes, and 120 hours of overtime 7:43 Burnout, and quitting coaching for a "real job" 8:04 Learning to talk to people, not just athletes 9:01 "Bet on yourself"; the call to his mother 11:20 "Why would they listen to a guy who never played?" 13:23 Walking into a gym with four world number ones 17:28 The third attempt that tore both quads 18:33 Rehab, and a bodybuilding win 13 months later 20:48 The arc of identity, from parents to friends to work 22:16 Who are you without your job, faith, or family? 23:20 "Doing hard things is easy"; so what's underneath it? 25:13 Hardship you choose vs. hardship that chooses you 26:39 A GI bleed at 1 AM, and driving himself to the ER 31:34 Uncompromised acceptance 35:08 Being a burden, and losing every bit of ego 36:16 "You are deserving of the love you're getting" 46:37 Sliding vs. deciding, in relationships and in life 54:46 Chasing achievement because it felt like love 56:06 Identity versus outcome, and full effort 59:15 Sisyphus is smiling; the next mountain 1:03:06 Bandura, micro wins, and building self-efficacy 1:04:19 The runway of progression, applied to nutrition 1:10:16 Becoming someone who could beat cancer 1:12:19 Curtis, the 500lb squat, and the message that made him mad 1:20:45 Priorities you can never invert 1:22:58 Satisficing: optimize, don't maximize 1:37:01 "Throwing darts at no dartboard" 1:42:41 Defining success, and going to bed saying yes 1:43:46 Raising the bar; asking better questions Support the show

    "You're Throwing Darts at No Dartboard"; Why You Can't Hit a Target You Never Set - Paul Oneid

  8. Aug 4

    She Beat an Eating Disorder and Built a Coaching Empire on Brutal Honesty - With Kaitlyn Kenna

    Some people are broken by the storm; a Powerhouse is the one it cannot stop. Kaitlyn Kenna grew up watching her father vanish into opioid addiction: the doctor-hopping, the withdrawals, the eviction, the slow erasure of the man he used to be. In college she fought a battle of her own and is still winning it today. Out of all of it came a refusal to lie: to herself first, then to everyone who follows her. She built a coaching practice, the Powerhouse Mentality podcast, and a following grounded in one rare thing online: brutal honesty. We get into what the opioid epidemic really did to good people; why an eating disorder is about Control long before it is about food; how to read fitness content without being fear-mongered into fear; the Standard that makes you chase a single pea across a hotel floor; and yes, the honest truth about energy drinks, ranked. This is challenge turned into Purpose, in her own words. Your Potential is your responsibility; hers became a mission. Shared in her own words; not medical advice. If you are struggling with an eating disorder, support is available through the National Alliance for Eating Disorders. Follow Kaitlyn: @kaitlynkennafitness · @thepowerhousejournal · The Powerhouse Mentality podcast  Follow us: @impossible.performance · www.impossibleperformance.com 🎧 The Impossible Podcast | Impossible Performance Support the show

    She Beat an Eating Disorder and Built a Coaching Empire on Brutal Honesty - With Kaitlyn Kenna
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4.7
out of 5
15 Ratings

About

Welcome to The Impossible, the official podcast of Impossible Performance, where we explore humanity in the Face of Impossible challenge.  Our hosts Matt Hill and Austin Douglas are both cancer survivors who have faced The Impossible through near death experience, disease, PTSD, and addiction.  Since overcoming these challenges, they now use the principles they learned from these difficult experiences to Be Impossible and Do the Impossible in business and athletics.  Join us as we hear stories of those who have Faced the Impossible and learn how you can Be Impossible, building a version of yourself who is capable of overcoming any challenge you face...capable of Doing the Impossible! At Impossible Performance, we strive to build a global culture of strength, fostering a spirit of growth in constant pursuit of The Impossible. Thank you for listening and as always... Be Impossible

Information

  • Creator
    Matthew Hill and Austin Douglas
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    165
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Impossible Podcast
  • Show Website
    The Impossible Podcast