Interview in Fear.Less Magazine
Topics: my lifeI was interviewed in this month’s issue of Fear.Less Magazine! Here’s an excerpt. If you’d like to read the entire interview, please download the magazine [PDF].
Ishita Gupta: How do you deal with fear?
Josh Sundquist: A helpful way I deal with fear – when I know I’m going to be afraid in a particular situation – is by being very prepared. Preparation calms me down because I can say, “You know what? I did everything I possibly could to prepare this speech. I read about the audience. I wrote a great outline and I practiced it a million times. I know it by heart.” Preparation gives you confidence and it is transferable to anything, especially a new situation.
JS: The most important thing is to start doing things. If it’s too big and you think, “How will I ever do anything?” it will overwhelm you easily. With my book, for example, which is 100,000 words long, if I sat down and said, “Man, I’ve got to write 100,000 words,” that sounds crazy and overwhelming. But you have to think it out, write it down and figure it out, day by day what you need to do. Maybe you write 2000 words a day and that will take fifty days and fifty days is just a couple months, so you think, “I could probably do that.” You have to make it manageable for yourself.
IG: Your speeches are about creating a purpose in life. How can we begin to define our own personal purpose for our lives?
JS: Purpose comes from passion. What’s important is not what you think your purpose is but what you are passionate about. You have to sit down and look at that. What gets you excited? What keeps you awake at night? Whether it’s out of excitement or anger, whether it’s out of fascination or curiosity, whatever it is that makes you passionate, that is what sits around your purpose. If you can find the nexus of those points, that’s where you can derive a powerful purpose.
JS: I think about it often. I people achieve by being willing to do one more thing and do it one more time. It’s my motto and represents how I trained as an athlete. I was always trying to find one more thing to do that my competitors were not willing to do.
I’m featured on Forbes.com!
Topics: reviewsI am featured on Forbes.com today!
Josh Sundquist wanted to be a motivational speaker from the time he was in high school. There was just one obstacle. ”You have to have an amazing life story,” Sundquist remembers thinking. “I do not have an amazing story.”
100,000 subscribers!
Topics: vlogsThis week I reached 100,000 subscribers on YouTube! Thanks to everyone who has watched and supported my channel!
Embarrassing Photos of Me in Spandex
Topics: vlogsWinning races. Against myself.
sundquist family christmas letter
Topics: my lifeGreetings family and friends! Here’s what we were up to in 2010:
Paul (Dad) is still an accountant at the University of Virginia but his job responsibilities expanded when his manager retired last January. He has been doing both his job and his manager’s job much of the year, but recently some of his work is being transfered to another foundation at UVA. He enjoys playing tennis every week in our local indoor courts and is glad to have a four day workweek. Paul’s most significant accomplishment of the year, however, was joining Facebook.
Linda (Mom) loves homeschooling Anna and watching her ballets. She likes organic gardening, organic food, and reading (if anyone knows how do organic reading, please let her know). She is currently growing out her hair in order to donate it to Pantene Beautiful Lengths.
Joshua’s memoir Just Don’t Fall was published last January. It is a National Bestseller and will be coming out in paperback next month. You can check out his website and his YouTube channel to keep up with his activities. He recently became a vegan (though he wishes to clarify this was for health reasons, not for animal rights. He believes that the killing of animals for food is no different than the heartless slaughter of plants).
Matthew spent January to March volunteering at a law office and writing about the Supreme Court. He traveled to Argentina in March on a Fulbright scholarship to be an English Teaching assistant in San Juan University, which finished last month. He has published several articles in law journals this year and was recently cited in the New York Times. Some of his friends in Argentina have created a Facebook group encouraging him to shave his beard. It has seventy-five members.
Luke graduated from Turner Ashby High School in June and began college at Harvard University in August. He seems to enjoy it and is doing well in classes, playing intramural soccer and ultimate Frisbee. His recent interview in the Harvard Crimson has put him in contention for the coveted title of Most Funniest Sundquist.
Anna is homeschooled for the seventh grade and has also started posting videos on our family YouTube channel. She now has over 5,000 subscribers. She loves ballet, takes lessons four times per week and enjoys performing whenever she can. She recently got her very first haircut. If you’re reading this, there’s a 67% chance she’s already beaten you in Words With Friends on your iPhone.
-The Sundquists
phantom pain rap
Topics: vlogsHere’s a new song about phantom limb pain!
making the world different
Topics: vlogsSome cool stories about how my videos are intersecting with viewers’ lives.
my date with the one-armed girl
Topics: vlogsI once told my roommate that I would never date another amputee.
And then I met her.




