18. All Hope Is Not Lost - Nick Maniscalco & Dani Granier

This was such a special episode for me to do because it is with two people who have become very close to me as we have worked towards one common goal of inspiring people through Nick Maniscalco’s story. For those of you who have heard Nick’s previous episodes, this episode should be especially exciting because Nick is officially announcing his bike ride date this year, along with sharing some of the struggles he has had along the way to reach this point. I really hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed making it.

Before my wreck, I was very athletic. I could do a backflip off the ground. I went from 1 second being able to do a backflip off the ground to the next second, not even being able to breathe from that, I had to relearn how to to walk. We learn how to talk. Nick is different. Nick is continuing to push, trying to better himself in every way possible. And he has a passion for helping other people. And I'm honored to know Nick and to be a part of Nick's life and Nick's journey. I really think that there is a lot of power in telling your story, having a community in this time of the world where we're on our devices so much and we're so disconnected from each other. I really think that Knicker Cycles could be a place that you could stop and consider, I guess, what we're doing and also what you could be a part of because this is a movement like it's a movement within a movement. Hey, what's going on, everybody? It's Erin. It's another episode of the Simply Overcoming Podcast. Thank you for coming back. Hey, if this is the first episode that you're listening to, I encourage you to go and listen to some other episodes. Trust me, you won't regret it. The last episode was actually with a gentleman who was mauled by a grizzly bear, and so you can hear his story and how he survived. That incredible, just rare experience because it just happens to so few people in the world. Here at the Simply Overcoming Podcast, we believe in changing your mindset, cultivating a positive mental attitude will change your life. And we really hope that this podcast can help motivate you and give you a sense of appreciation for your life. Now, today's guests have been on the podcast before, and Nick actually was the very first episode of the Simply Overcoming Podcast. He is back to talk about his bike ride across the United States this year. He's going to be riding from Cordulane, Idaho, to the West Coast and back again. We're going to have him and one of the partners of the bike ride. Danny, we're going to be talking today about the ride and how things are going. You guys are leaving June 6. Is that correct? That is correct? Yeah, we're coming right down to it. We're recording this podcast May 27. It's like a week and a half away. That's crazy. How are things going on, preparing for the trip? I know when we jumped on the Zoom call it's actually fairly early in the morning. You guys are the first people I've talked to today, so I don't know how long you guys have been up, but I'm glad we were able to make this work. Breakfast is at six or 630. Yeah. I mean, there about 645, 650. That's why I was late. That's fine. I was slightly late, too. I've been trying to pack for this trip. We're actually traveling to Iowa for a wedding immediately after we get off the call here. From what I've heard, you guys are super busy getting ready. When we came on the Zoom call, you guys were opening some boxes and prepping some bags. So, Danny, talk to us a little bit about the process of getting ready. How packing is going, preparing for this, how you guys are going to carry your equipment, too? I'm curious about that. Well, I've just got to say, first of all, thank you to Nick's parents who have let me stay on their floor. As I've been a little bag of bond and wanted to come from Dallas and work on this project. I had a big bowl of millet this morning, and they make the food that lasts and it feels good. Whenever you're done in your day, it sustains you. So I just wanted to say that we might be having some. We're going to eat a lot of Melot on the road. Oats, you have that diet for the trip dialed in then? Yeah. So it's not just going to be Taco Bell, Nick. Well, that's available. If Danny has anything to say about it, I have a feeling it's not going to be Taco Bell three times a day, though. Yeah, we're only eating twice a day. Oh, smart. Let's make some real bean burritos eating twice a day and then, like, endless snacking. And, Aaron, it's very sad that you're not going to be with us. So I made this pop up popsicle stick version of you. Wait, what photobomb our pictures. So for the people who are listening to the podcast, Danny, she has cut out my face and stuck me on the end of a poopstick is what this is. One photo bombing during the day, whenever we need you. Danny, you are so cool. This is fantastic. So I will be with you in spirit, as well as my face taped to a stick that says poop stick. Look, we want to leave no trace here. You want to have a sanctioned place to poop so that we don't cross paths while the other person is pooping. You don't want to sneak up on your riding buddy on the road. You just can't live that down and it changes things. I see we're trying to avoid that. So you plant the poop stick before you head into the unknown to do your business. Yeah, well, we'll have a sanctioned spot for it at camp. Unless if it's gone and that means that you're at the hole. Excellent. We're going to have this at camp, but we're going to have a different camp every night. Oh, my goodness. Where did you get that photo? What is? I got it from your YouTube channel. Oh, my goodness. Aaron travels world. You really put some time into this? Oh, my goodness. Yeah, that was back when the beard was just a young beginning stage of a beard back when it was less unruly. I just have to say, Nick and Danny, you guys are so awesome to get together with and spend time with. Whenever we hang out, we have a really good time. Kind of hard to get stuff done a lot of times because we just enjoy ourselves maybe a little too much. Yeah. We're doing therapy. We're spending time together. It's a debriefing. Having fun. Bouncing things off of each other is really important. So I'm not complaining. I have a good time whenever we hang out. That's exactly why we're going to come see you. First. We're going to be going from Cordulane to Spokane with the F Five crew, and then we're going to stay at Nick's brother's house. And then that next day we're going to head down to Wallawala. So by the time we get to Aaron's house, which is outside Walla, we'll be on the Pacific or not the Pacific, but one of the venture cycling routes. So we'll probably see riders more. And then we'll also be headed to the coast from there, headed west. Okay. So Nick, explain to us about who F Five is and they're joining you for the first leg for the first day of the journey, or at least from Corda Lane to Spokane. How did you make that work? How did you line that up? Do you know how many people will show up? No. F Five. I think you introduced me to them. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. So basically a group, specifically a religious group that encourages people to get outside exercise, move their bodies. Religious athletic group? Yes. When I did the average challenge back in 2019, the director of the group actually flew out from Seattle just to spend like, 3 hours on the mountain with me before he had to fly back. He flew all the way out just to do a couple of reps with me. And then he went right back to the airport. So a really supportive group, a community of people who love the outdoors, love exercising, love bettering themselves, cultivating a positive mental attitude. I don't know if they're an organization or not. I don't know that they are. Are they any type of organization? Nonetheless, I've tried to figure out, are they an organization? Are they like a foundation? They're a really big group. They have multiple get togethers every year, hundreds of people, probably thousands of people. They have a facility in Thailand, and I know the guy that runs it. They have a rock climbing gym there, and they have a place where people can come and eat like vegan food. It's a super awesome place. I'd love to go and spend a little time and volunteer at the F Five in Thailand. So F Five will be joining you for the first day. By probably the third day you will be coming through where we live, which is around Walla, Walla, Washington. And then you'll be heading off towards the coast. So I want to ask you, how are you planning on carrying your equipment? I don't think you're going to have a support vehicle for the whole journey. So you're going to have to carry your equipment with you. I'll have two paners on the front, two on the back. And then I have my front racks so I could probably carry a sleeping bag and ten on each thought about carrying a trailer. But then I've had so many people like, I don't think so. You should like, you guys, I'm just going to be pedaling my back. So then they've scared me into not doing that. So I was like, Well, maybe I'll just extend my rack on the back so that way I could put more on there. I don't know, a big wing that hangs out on the back with all of your equipment. You put, like, a little flag, like, watch out. Well, yeah, you're definitely going to need a flag so that you don't get hit. That's a reality of riding bikes, especially as far as you will be going on roads like this. The possibility of having an accident is there. And so it's really important, especially for somebody like you riding your recumbent trike, you're down low, sometimes hard to see having some flags, letting people know that you're there is super important. Danny, you have an experience of almost getting hit by a vehicle while riding a bike. Talk to us about that. Yeah, it was dusk, and the left side of my handlebar grazed a Cadillac. I felt it, but it was just a brush, but one inch or millisecond. If you felt the brush, it wasn't touching. Yeah, that could have been it. Nick and I would have just been writing in a trait. You have been advertising this through social media, YouTube. You have a website. You've been in the paper. You've been attempting to get a hold of local news, television stations and to do something with them. I mean, work on advertising things from what is it in two, three years? Yeah. This has really been really this bike ride has almost been like a four years in the making. I think when we first started talking about it and you voiced his desire to do this, is it like, Christmas 2017? I think so. I really think so. This has been a long time in the making. I'm so excited to see this happening. And there's so many people that have contacted me through the podcast because they've heard your episodes and they're really excited about what you're doing. It's a lot of work. I've put in this much work. I'm going to do this the first day I decided I was like, I want to raise a million dollars and you're like, okay, you're probably thinking you are a net. Okay. I want to make it clear that when I said I want to raise a million dollars, this million dollars is not going to me, I'm not going to become rich off this ride. This money is going into a scholarship fund. We've made an account so that I don't touch any of the money. It's all going to a place that will set up scholarships for TV. I go to College, maybe for people who have not listened to any of your episodes before. Just a quick recap of Nick. Nick was in a car accident. It was serious enough that he was 13 years ago. He was in a coma for four months. He was in the hospital for eight. The doctor said he had a 50 50 chance of survival. And even if he did come out of the coma, the chances of him really being a normal human being in society was very unlikely. And so Nick's transformation in his journey has been incredible to watch. From not being able to get out of bed to now walking with a cane, riding a bike down the road and doing this bike ride for other TBIs to raise money for other TBIs. It's amazing. Like before my ride, I was very athletic. I could do a backflip off the ground. So I went from 1 second being able to do a back flip off the ground to the next second, not even being able to breathe. So that's the change in life that I've had, and it's just rebuilding from that. I had to relearn how to walk and I encourage you guys to go back and listen to some of the other episodes with Nick. The very first episode is with Nick. The second episode is with Nick. Yeah. And then there's also a short episode on the Instagram that's about ten minutes long. It's just like a full recap of what Nick is doing and who Nick is. But what's so inspiring about Nick and what he's doing is he will not quit. It's so easy, especially when you have something like this happen. It's so easy to just say, as Nick has said in the past plateauing, reaching a point and saying, I'm good enough. I accept where I am. I accept where I've made it and I'm not going to push and try any harder. But Nick is different. Nick is continuing to push, trying to better himself in every way possible. And he has a passion for helping other people. And it's inspiring to see I'm honored to know Nick and to be a part of Nick's life and Nick's journey. I second that hardcore, especially in these last couple of weeks. Nick has been training nonstop. He's been open with me about his knees, which he had he incurred an injury last summer. It's hard for him to gauge, like the knee pain in his left knee now after his accident. So the sensors aren't connected as well. So that was the next thing that I wanted to discuss. You did a bike ride last year that was just over 500 miles, sort of a prep ride, preparing for this bigger goal, which is to ride across the US next year, 2022. But you learned something very interesting on your last ride last year. And this is how things work in life and in a lot of things is sometimes you really have to just get out and do and learn from your experience. Yeah. Learn from your mistakes. If Nick hadn't done the 500 miles last year, he wouldn't know what to do on this ride to sustain himself to continue riding for the long term. So talk about your knee. Talk about what you have had to do on your bike in order to keep that knee from grinding back down and causing pain and ultimately stopping your bike ride short. Last summer, and I we are planning on riding across the state of Washington. We were getting things planned out. We're going to ride from Anacortis, Washington to Standpoint, then the Court Lane, the Coronavirus had been, and we found ourselves lacking a driver. So instead of going across the state, I decided to do 530 miles here in Corda Lane, two neighboring towns, cities all over. And it took me three weeks to ride 530 miles, and I would ride and I'd come home every night and sleep in my own bed. But when I would get home, my knees would be swollen, both of them. And I was like, What's going on and they hurt. I would ice them every night, and I would put it's called Deep Blue Rub. It's some cream that's supposed to help. It's difficult to tell you what all they do. Andrea rent an hour. She's definitely set us up. Her website is exquisite, and she can support and help you walk through whatever ailment you've been struggling with. Really? They have so many options. Doter is big, and she helps sell for them. Yeah, she's been able to help a lot of people with her knowledge and what she does. So you're struggling with pain in your knees at the end of the ride. What did you find out about what you had done to your left knee? Like the situation at the end of the ride. I found out that my bicycle because I ride a recumbent trike now because I have no balance. And at the end of the ride, I found out that I had my bicycle set up all wrong, but my feet were way too short that bent my knees up. They wouldn't fully extend. I am actually still in therapy before I even go into it today to therapy. I think the other thing, too, is your left leg pulls into your right leg while you're riding, it leans over, so it's not straight. It's not straight up and down. So when you see Nick riding and even in some of the videos, the earlier videos, you'll see his leg leaning to the left or his left leg leaning to the right. I think they're my adductors or my abductors. I'm not sure which ones, but it's ones on the inside of my thighs. And so walking it's been to a point where walking, I cross my legs, my feet wouldn't stay apart, it would crisscross. Yeah, I've had a lot of Botox, and so it's dead in the muscles so that I've been able to stretch them and I'm able to send my legs in the right direction. Well, on this bicycle, it has my legs in a different position, so they're not used to it, so that the tone kicks in and my left knee swings in and on to my right. And so I have a bungee strap to my or to the left side of my bike that pulls my left knee out. So you basically have a strap around your leg, and then you hook that up with a strap that has some stretch to it. And so it keeps your leg upright. And that has been a game changer in your riding experience that's going to save your knee. And so what's great about this is if you hadn't done the $500 last year, you wouldn't have known that this was an issue. So this is a learning experience you're learning as you go along. And I am confident that you guys are going to be successful in this year's venture, and it's going to propel you to next year, which is going to be riding across the United States. Danny, I want to ask you, first of all, for people who haven't listened to the podcast, haven't listened to Danny's episode. Danny is just an unstoppable force, right? And she's been such a vital team member to Nick Recycled. And from the day that I met Danny, the first thing that I thought is she's so opened and kind and she wholeheartedly believes in Nick and in the Nick Recycled ride. And so you are just a vital part of this team. Talk to me about your feelings of Nick Recycled, and really what brought you to the point of realizing that you wanted to be a part of this incredible journey with Nick and with the team. Well, similar. Like, I think that kind of looking back from this point to like, I guess it would have been when did we meet, like, two and a half years ago, from the point of simply overcoming, I really think that there is a lot of power in telling your story and having a community in this time of the world where we're on our devices so much and we're so disconnected from each other. Like, I really think that Nicarcycles could be a place that you could stop and consider, I guess what we're doing and also what you could be a part of because this is a movement like it's a movement within a movement. I guess this power behind your story and telling it and standing in it and overcoming things. I have perfectionism as something that I struggle. You guys know that, right? You guys know I struggle with that. You guys have been so supportive, and we've had a community, like, a little bubble to really grow with each other in. And so I want Nicker cycle to be transferable. And it's kind of like when you open a really good restaurant and then it becomes a chain because it's so good and everyone wants a piece of it. I just want it to be a transferable kind of community that you can find and be a part of as we ride and stuff. And you hear our blog. You hear from Aaron on the Simply Overcoming podcast you hear from Nick. You go watch our films and see what we're doing and check out our YouTube. It's for the people and for the people to get together as well. For the first blog, I was like, hey, just throw something out there, just get it started and she's come back like, three or four different times. How about this? How would this work? Danny just posted. Come on. So much pressure, it's going to get better as we go. I wrote in there, I was like, this probably took me 24 hours of just thinking about it. Like, what kind of message am I sending? Sometimes content over quality is way more important. Just putting it out there, having the content and then the quality will come. So my wife just walked in. We've got to get out of here. We have a long drive ahead of us. But I just have a final question for both of you. Whoever wants to answer this, or maybe both of you want to answer. But you say that this is something for the people. How can people become involved with Nick Recycled? I'd say the first thing is, contact me, go to my website, nickrecycle. Com and hit me up there. That or find me on Instagram. I'm Nick Recycled or find me on Facebook again. Nick recycled. Just reach out, talk to me. I have a YouTube. Also, I forgot about that. This ride is not as cheap as I thought I would be doing. So you can find. Yeah, Nick's been working 40 hours a week trying to make ends meet for this ride. Like trying to get enough money to get this thing going. Neither one of you have some secret hidden bank account offshore. So you guys are pulling money out of your lives to make this thing happen. And so you're giving people an opportunity, too. You can donate to Anovia to the TBI fund, or if you want to help Nick with the ride, help pay for this ride to make this happen. You have a GoFundMe that you've set up, correct? Yes. Specifically for paying for the expenses for the ride. And you're not asking for a lot. You're asking for a very reasonable amount. Yeah. I think we're going to need $1,500, something to get everything completed. Yeah. And $1,500 may not even pay for the whole thing. You're just asking for help, and that's what the 1500 is. You're asking for help. You've raised just over $500 so far. If you want to help Nick and Danny on the ride. As far as expenses go, you can go to the Nicarcycle GoFundMe. If you just search Nick Maniscalco and GoFundMe, you can find him. The link is also on the website. Correct? Sure, it will be. People just need to know that this Nic recycled ride is happening for the people. It's really for other people. And so in the beginning, Nick had a hard time with the idea of asking people for money to help support the ride, but he soon found out that to make this happen, having help from people is really going to be beneficial. And what Nick is doing here is just amazing and it's going to help a lot of people. And so go to the GoFundMe support the ride. It would be very appreciated. Also, if people want to join you on the ride, you can go to the website, contact Nick and he would love to talk to you on the phone and just hear your story. What are you dealing with? What are you going through? And we would love to have you come out and join. The other thing I would say is Nick really loves sharing his story, and he would be delighted if you invited him to your school, to your Church, to come and to speak and to tell his story, to inspire others through his story. This specific ride this year is going to be very focused on the ride, so he won't be doing any speaking during the ride. But when he rides across the US next year, he'd love to stop along the way and to inspire people with his story because that's really why he's out there doing this. So I have to get out of here, guys, but this has been amazing. This has been enlightening for the people who listen to the podcast. And I know that all the people who have been following your journey through the podcast and through other avenues, this episode is exciting for them because they're actually seeing the progress that's happening. I'm excited and I'm bummed out that I'm not going to be able to join you, but I know that you're going to really have a good time out there. It's going to be like we leave in like, a week and a half. Yeah, that's wild. It's hard to imagine until you're actually out there. It's really going to sink in that first night. What did I get myself into? Yeah. All right. Well, thank you for listening to the podcast. If you've made it to the end, that is fantastic. I am so excited that you've made it and listened to all of our Ramblings and all of our passions. And listen, if you have a story that you want to share with the world, about overcoming in your life. Contact me. I would love to hear from you. You can visit our website, aarontravelsworld. Com. You can send me an email. Reach out. I want to hear your story. Thank you for being on the podcast and we'll talk to you guys next time, looking forward to following you on your journey. For sure. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you.