How do you push past your limits when everything in you wants to quit?
In this episode, Sam sits down with Ryan Stramrood, one of the world’s most respected extreme cold-water swimmers, to unpack the mindset, resilience, and mental toughness behind surviving the impossible.
Ryan has completed more than 140 Robben Island crossings, swum the Bering Strait, and taken on minus one degree water in Antarctica. But he didn’t start as an elite athlete. He was an ordinary father who decided he was no longer willing to live at half speed, and that moment changed everything.
This conversation explores how fear works in the mind, why most people quit before they start, and how to build a mindset strong enough to withstand pressure, discomfort, and extreme challenge. Ryan talks openly about the swim that nearly killed him, the failure he buried for years, and the moment he realised he didn’t have to believe every thought his mind told him.
Whether you’re chasing a goal, navigating uncertainty, or trying to break through your own limitations, this episode will give you powerful tools for mental resilience, emotional control, and pushing past your impossible.
What You’ll Learn:
• How fear shapes decision-making
• Why your mind quits before your body
• The mindset technique that saved Ryan’s life
• How to build real resilience under pressure
• What extreme challenges reveal about human potential
• How to navigate failure and move forward
• Why unprocessed experiences create invisible blocks
• How to find your “classroom” — the place where you grow
00:00– Intro
00:14– The List That Forced Him To Face the Truth Holding Him Back
00:41– Becoming a Global Voice in Fear, Resilience and High Pressure Performance
00:58– Antarctica’s Minus One Degree Waters and the Challenge That Changed Everything
01:17– Your Mind Is Lying to You and How He Learned to Break Its Limits
01:28– Where “Push Past Impossible” Was Truly Born
01:56– The Moment He Realised His Limits Were Self-Made
02:29– From Couch Potato at 29 to Extreme Cold Water Athlete
03:06– Cold Water: The Teacher That Rewired His Mind
04:18– Pain, Panic and Fear: What Cold Exposure Reveals About Human Psychology
05:05– Overriding the Brain’s First Impulse and Finding the Growth Zone
06:06– Skydiving, Fear and How Exposure Builds a Stronger Mind
07:24– Facing His First Everest and the Swim That Transformed His Confidence
09:04– Why Your Mind Tries to Protect You and How It Secretly Holds You Back
10:33– Fighting the Urge To Quit When Every Part of You Wants Out
12:47– Find Your Classroom: Where Discomfort Forces You To Grow
15:19– Failing Forward Wrong and the Trap That Keeps You Stuck
18:48– Moving From Difficult Goals to Impossible Ones and Why It Changes You Forever
20:46– The Swim Failure That Nearly Killed Him and the Three-Year Mental Block It Created
25:20– The Brutal Introspection That Broke the Block and Rebuilt His Confidence
With gratitude,
Sam Church
Host, The Transformation Code Podcast
Listen now and share your biggest takeaway in the comments.
Learn more about Ryan Stramrood at http://ryanstramrood.com/
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