There’s some professional poker playing strategy advice for Texas Hold’em. After a player wins a big hand, they’re less likely to play the next hand unless they have a very strong hand. The logic goes, they’ll be so busy stacking their chips that they won’t be interested in playing unless they have strong hold cards.

I don’t think that idiom applies to me.

I rank the Guinness World Record’s titles I break on a 4-level scale of easy, medium, hard, and impossible. The easy ones I think there may be someone else in this room who could break it right now. Medium is anyone could break this record with some practice. Hard means it usually requires an expert in some category to break. And impossible is I think I may be only one of a handful of people in the world who could make an attempt at this record.

I thought this record was medium. It might be, but it now sku’s toward hard. It took me over a year and a half of on and off practice to break.

The record was for most casino chips stacked in 30 seconds. The previous record was 42. When I started practicing (after honing my fast-twitch muscle responses as the world’s fastest juggler), I could get in the low 30s. After several weeks of practice, I could get more than 35, but not by much.

I finally bucked down with a growth mindset and decided I was going to break it and focused for a few weeks.

I finished with a run of 48 poker chips stacked in 30 seconds with each chip placed 1 at a time from over 10 cm away. I placed the 49th chip as time expired, but it was after 30 seconds had ticked passed so it didn’t count. 5 seconds later (must not fall over for 5 seconds) I had the record.

I teamed up with Chris Knight for another Guinness World Record’s title attempt. He’s a serious ultimate player. I’m serious about breaking Guinness World Records. It’s a team that works well.

The previous record for “Most flying disc (frisbee) passes in one hour by a pair” was 2,525. The pair must stand a minimum of 3 meters apart. We put boards and tape on the ground to make it easy to keep the distance.

In only 28 minutes 16 seconds, we had completed 2,526 passes. The only catch to this record was that you could only catch them with the hands. So when we caught the frisbee with the body, even though it didn’t touch the ground, we couldn’t count it. We had 46 throws that either hit the body or were dropped.

I filled up my car with gas for the first time since March 3 this last weekend. In 4.5 months I have driven 349 miles. In that same time, I have run 451 miles. I didn’t find this one-hour effort to be particularly taxing. We started at 8:43 in the morning in relative cool and I’m not sure if I even broke a sweat. Chris did. His shirt was soaked. In the latter half of the attempt the disc hit his shirt a few times and the disc got soaked so much we had to wipe it off a few times.

I counted every catch and audibly called out every 100 successful catches. The witnesses (thanks Dusty and Lacey – her birthday! for witnessing for us) but their handheld counters on the camera every 500 catches.

Chris and I also hold the record for most disc catches in one minute. Before we broke it, the record was 87 in one minute. We got 110. We got 5,341 catches in one hour. For this hour, we averaged just over 89 catches per minute breaking the 1-minute record of 87 with our 60-minute average! That’s 5,387 throws with a 99.15% catch rate even making throws 1.5 times per second.

This just goes to show that if you set your mind to a goal, believe in yourself, and pursue it with a passion, you can accomplish nearly anything.

Check out my new book that talks about how this is possible and any average person like myself can accomplish more than they ever though possible.

I have never felt more lethal.

Not juggling knives, not juggling fire, not even throwing axes.

This record takes as much strength and precision, as I could muster with thousands of chopstick throws in practice. I have to throw them precisely to have the pointy end hit first. I have to throw these hard to get them to stick. I have to throw them accurately to get them to count.

After a good day of practice, I can barely move the next day.

The previous record was 14

I was required to use an 80 cm archery target and practiced for quite a while thinking I was going to crush this record. When I finally read the rules a little more clearly and looked up the details on the archery target, I realized that only hits to the yellow or red circles count. Those are the inner 4 of 10 concentric circles. That’s 40% of the radius/diameter of the circle. A little math on the ratio of the areas of the overall target to the part that counts: Pi*R^2/Pi*R^2 = 4^2/10^2 = 16/100 or only 16% of the target area counted. My job all of a sudden became much harder. The diameter of the circle was 32cm (or just over 12 inches) that I had to hit from 4 meters away (just over 13 feet).

I only had 53 chopsticks so I had a very brave volunteer to pick up a few of the misses.

I had a shaky start after sticking the first throw but kept at it. Instead of getting the 40 I could get in the 80 cm circle I ended up with a thrilling 19 in the 32 cm circle instead of the expected 7 (based on the radio). I did have one hit that was on target, stuck, and then fell off before the minute ended.

My wife, Jennifer, and I broke our second joint Guinness World Record’s title. After previously getting 32 t-shirts on in one minute we went after the 30-second version of the record. The mark to beat was 14 t-shirts put on in 30 seconds with both people actively participating with each t-shirt.

After a 3, 2, 1, Go! I started putting the t-shirts on and Jennifer had her hand in back to pull it down below the waist so it counted. The shirts were pre-arranged on the floor to make it easier to quickly get the arms and head through the proper holes and they had some stretch so they didn’t rip or catch as we put them on.

We had 19 shirts laid out on the floor and we successfully got 18 of them below the waist before the 30-second clock expired. I was completely out of breath but Jennifer didn’t even break a sweat as she remained cool under pressure.

Good thing it’s hot out.

This video I made especially for the Ada Community Library Summary Reading program speaking series. I usually speak in-person at the Lake Hazel Library, but this year we went virtual.

I decided that since it was a recorded presentation that I’d keep it under a half hour but this was one of my better-focused talks honing in on my America’s Got Talent appearance earlier this month, how I went from not being smart enough for the gifted program to MIT, and how I went from zero Guinness World Records at the age of 30 to over 150 at the age of 35.

I then break a Guinness World Record’s title for the most wet sponge hits in one minute with my friend and neighbor, Jonathan “Hollywood” Hannon. We previously broke the record for most wet sponge hit in 30 seconds and this in the one minute record. The previous mark was 76 wet sponge hits in one minute (from 3 meters away). He threw about 106 sponges (and he’s an ambidextrous thrower so can then the throws off with both hands with amazing speed) and I was able to get my face in front of 92 of them to smash the previous record. At fifty seconds, he was complaining that an entire ten seconds were left because his arms were getting tired.

It’s not the most comfortable record in the world since the irritation to the eyes can add up when they’re hitting the face once every 2/3rds of a second or so. The hardest part is getting the eyes open and closed in the narrow window after a hit and the water comes off and before the next sponge comes in to make the hit.

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out my just-published book: Breaking Records: 21 Lessons from 21 World Record Attempts.

Happy Father’s Day!

Jonathan Hollywood Hannon and I have broken another Guinness World Record’s Title. (We actually set it earlier during the lockdown but are posting it now on father’s day).

It’s basically Japanese Badmitten without the net. My wife works at HP and travels (or traveled to) Japan on a regular basis. She had her coworkers get us the paddles and birdie so we could make an attempt at this record. We practiced long before the lockdown started and finally made the official attempt when the opportunity presented itself.

The previous record was 89 hits in one minute and we got 103. The craziest part was we were using ‘birdies’ and when we dropped one, their cat, who hadn’t seen the light of day is some time, saw his opportunity and stole the birdie off the ground. Fortunately, we had others to work with and still crushed the record.

Check out my book that describes how one can go from ordinary to extraordinary: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089M59V72

This record is so easy.

At least that’s what the Internet Trolls are going to say.

I thought it was going to be easy as well. It wasn’t… (in fact, even after thinking I had brokent it, I had not as the attempt wad disqualified for leaning too much).

https://youtu.be/oK7XICCzaZo

The record was for the most ping pong balls bounced into a pint glass in one minute. The previous record was 12. The sister record for the most ping pong balls bounced into a pint glass in three minutes? That record was also twelve.

I tried and tried and tried again. My neighbor Hollywood Hannon though it looked easy so he tried. My wife was thinking: How hard could it be? So she tried. The kids tried. It wasn’t uncommon to celebrate a single ball landing in the pint glass.

I focused and tried again. I practiced. I developed a strategy. I didn’t look at where the balls were going. I only looked at where I needed to grab them out of the basket (max 2 at a time) and the spot on the floor where I was aiming.

At the end of this particular minute I knew I’d ended on an even number of hits (after every 4 the cup is emptied). I thought I had gotten 12. Jonathan let me know I had gotten 16. I was in disbelief. I looked at the camera and celebrated. I dropped to my knees. I then went into game mode to ensure we collected all the evidence required to make it Guinness Official… in then end it never was since it was determined that I was leaning too much.

This week I had the opportunity of a lifetime and was featured as a contestant on America’s Got Talent. I went up against the super-fun host and amazing sport Terry Crews in a t-shirt ripping contest to break a Guinness World Record’s Title. While he didn’t have a chance at actually beating me or breaking the record even though he’s a body-building beast (since I’d been practicing with a growth mindset and grit), it was a lot of fun and some clever editing by AGT made it look close (much better TV!).

After my successful record attempt, I got yeses from Simon Cowell and Heidi Klum, but Howie, the comedian wasn’t into the suspense of a Guinness World Record. It came down to new Judge Sofia Vergara on her very first day of filming as a judge on America’s Got Talent and I offered to break several world records, most of which were rejected as options.

I offered to break the Guinness World Record’s Title for the most kiwi’s sliced in one minute while balancing atop a swiss ball. It sounded fun, it sounded dangerous, Simon wanted to see it, Heidi wanted to see it, but Sofia didn’t like Kiwis.

I’ve heard from so many people who wanted to see it that I decided to post this video of Jonathan Hannon and I breaking the sister record for the most kiwis sliced in one minute while balancing atop a roller board.

The previous record was 35, we achieved 65 (We cut 67, 1 was cut while another kiwi was uncut in the air disqualifying it. I’m not sure why Guinness didn’t award us 66, but 65 is good enough)

Check out the 6 minute segment here:

https://www.nbc.com/americas-got-talent/video/will-he-hold-a-guinness-world-records-title-epic-tshirt-ripping-americas-got-talent-2020/4181722

Or if you want to see the full 7 minutes including the walk-in, and Terry and the judges discussing it after you can watch it here: (1 hour 6 minutes in). https://www.nbc.com/americas-got-talent/video/auditions-3/4179352

Thanks for tuning in.

Check out the book that I just published that explains how anyone can break 150 Guinness World Records or go from not smart enough for the gifted program to a top student at MIT.