Shownotes
What if strength isn’t something you’re born with—but something life quietly shapes in you? In this episode of Mind Over Matter, we explore what it truly means to keep going when everything feels heavy.
This conversation is for anyone facing pain, setbacks, or moments where giving up feels easier. Jay Setchell shares a deeply lived perspective on resilience, showing how mindset is not about ignoring pain—but learning to move through it with purpose and awareness.
About the Guest:
Jay Setchell is an entrepreneur and author who has endured multiple life-threatening challenges and surgeries. His journey reflects resilience built through lived adversity and unwavering determination.
Episode Chapter:
00:00 – Opening: What is real resilience?
02:10 – Early life lessons from hardship
05:40 – Understanding mind over pain
09:20 – Building resilience through small wins
13:45 – Flourishing in adversity
18:10 – Practical mindset shifts
22:30 – Final reflections on never quitting
Key Takeaways:
- Resilience is built through repeated effort, not talent
- Pain becomes manageable when attention shifts with purpose
- Small wins create long-term mental strength
- Adversity can be a training ground, not just a setback
- Helping others strengthens your own mindset
How to Connect With the Guest:
Website: https://neverquittrying.com/
Book: The Strength Within You (available on Amazon)
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Transcripts
00:00:00 Yusuf: What if resilience is not something you are born with, but something you build quietly in the moments no one sees? Not in comfort, but in pressure. Not when things go right. But when everything feels like it is falling apart.
00:00:25 Yusuf: Welcome to Mind over matter. A space where we explore the strength of the human mind. Not as an idea, but as something lived, tested, and proven in real life. I'm Yusuf, and today I'm joined by Jay Setchell, someone who has walked through intense adversity and used his mindset not just to survive, but to take on challenges most people would not even consider. This conversation is about what it really means to keep going when stopping feels easier. And what we can learn from that kind of mental endurance. Jay, I'm really glad you are here and I welcome you to the show.
00:01:13 Jay Setchell: Well, thank you very much. I think you got an interesting title and it is so much a life is mind over matter. It's really the. That's a fact.
00:01:23 Yusuf: Yes. So before we get into the deeper layers, I'm curious, when you look back at your own journey, was there a moment when you realized that I'm going to have to rely on my mind in a completely different way than I have ever before?
00:01:46 Jay Setchell: I think I've always had to have a mindset. To move forward through difficult situations. Um, whether that's temperature, whether it's pain, whether it's, uh, just difficult to accomplish from the time I was maybe even five years old because I was raised on a large farm. And so taking care of cattle, uh, collecting eggs. But when I say taking care of cattle, you know, depending on where you're at in the world, our temperature where I was raised in the central upper Midwest of the United States in the winter, it might be thirty five below zero Fahrenheit. And in the summer it could be late summer, it could be a hundred degrees, but you still had to go out and do it. It didn't matter. You were up before dark, you know, and you worked into the evening if whatever it took for the livestock. But I, I think that I It's almost like I really. My parents were good parents and they always said words like, if there's a will, there's a way, you know. And over the years, I've kind of, kind of I've come to the. Conclusion that when somebody says they can't, it really means they won't because everybody can. It's just whether they will or not. And that's a power of your will. That's your mindset. That's that's your. So, you know, whether no matter what it was, I is. And as I grew older, even five, six, seven when you're younger, you look back now and you're a, you're a young gentleman, you're, you're young and but time's going faster all the time. And before you know it, you're going to be fifty and you're going to go, where did the time go? Holy cow. But what did you learn? What did you learn during that time? And how do you associate it? Because one little, one little thing today. That, um. Yeah, that that that's a positive. You play off of tomorrow and helps you tomorrow. Or if you got through something that was negative or hard, let your mind work on it, you know? It just, it's a building process. It's a building process, I believe.
00:04:27 Yusuf: Yes. And, and there is this common idea that mind over matter, matter means pushing through pain. Like it does not even exist, almost like shutting your emotions or body off. In your experience, what we have misunderstood about this.
00:04:49 Jay Setchell: Well, I. What is my opinion of mind over matter on pain and such? That's what you're asking. I one hundred percent, one hundred percent, one hundred percent. Because you, as you and I sit here and talk, my. I've had fifteen back surgeries. Fifteen. I've had seventy three surgeries all over, but fifteen back surgeries. My back is in pain. It hurts. I'm sitting in a big power wheelchair with a headrest behind me and all that. But because I can't move anymore, I'm mostly paralyzed. My left arm works, my wrist is fused, but my back's in quite a bit of pain. But when I'm sitting here having a conversation with you and we're discussing something and we're thinking outside the box, or we're talking about we're talking about whatever we're talking about, it takes my mind off the pain, which is your mind over matter. It's very it's very basic. It's like if you're sitting there, if I crushed my hand today and, you know. But I'm really busy and I've got a million other very important things. I don't think about my hand as much, but if I'm sitting here all alone and I'm just going, oh my gosh, look at my hand. It gets ten times as painful. Same with my back, you know? So as long as you're working on something. But it is, it's a mind over matter. My, my, your willingness, your will to do whatever you want to do. I believe you can will yourself to do things that you never, you never thought you could accomplish.
00:06:33 Yusuf: Mhm. And people often assume that mental toughness is something you either have or don't have, but your story suggests something different. Where do you think that kind of resilience is actually built up?
00:06:52 Jay Setchell: That's a good question. And I and I believe that some people do have it. I believe they're just they have it. It it it's comes from their, their relatives. What their, you know, generations of DNA, grandparents, parents, what they went through. And it comes in it, but not always. And more often, it's just consistently not saying that you'll quit consistently saying, you know, and being determined that you're going to push through it. And as you push through one small problem, the next small problem isn't as isn't as big. Or if you get a bigger problem, you know. Hey, I've been through this before. It wasn't quite as large. It wasn't as big a problem. It wasn't as much pain. But yet at the same time, I know I can do this because I've been through that. This is just a little bit more. So continue to try harder. So I think some people it comes natural, but then again, it comes with your ability to. you. You use the word uh um uh, gosh. Uh. Well, it's like adversity. It's like, I, I, if I may, I, I'd like to tell a very short story. Many, many years, many years ago, um, I was flying on a, on a plane. I was coming back from Europe. I'm forty, forty five years ago. And in the back of the seat pocket, there was a magazine in the magazine. It had a, it had a tree growing out of a, a granite cliff, solid rock with a tree growing out of it. And underneath it was the word river r e v I r e s c o, I believe. And when I got back to my hometown, I was based out of the Greater Chicago area at the time. Um, but I traveled quite a bit. I got looking it up and I, And I got Ahold of somebody that could help me. And it was a Latin derivative root for I flourish in adversity. And I thought, here I've been dead multiple times. I've already had forty some surgeries. I'm traveling with a lot of pain, leg braces and still moving forward. So how much more adversity do I need to flourish? So if you can flourish in adversity, accept that setback. You know, if somebody slaps you alongside the head today, is that going to stop you from everything? Or are you just going to go, hey, you know, it is what it is and move on with life. And I know that's not a good example, but it's, it's I'm just sitting here looking at you right now and thinking, you know, somebody smacks me. I'm not going to be happy about it. But, you know, the thing is. You gotta push through. And I think the more, the more difficult things, the more uncomfortable things that you face when you're younger. Builds quickly because your formative years really are up to about seventeen or eighteen years of age. And after that, you, the rest of your life, you are largely you can change, but you're largely a lot of what you learned up to seventeen or eighteen years of old. So I think that having been through what I went through and just learning as I went and pushing forward and always being interested, I think that's what forms a lot of it. I just think that you, you, you build upon success, upon success, upon success. And that way when you run into a problem. Wow. It's not that much of a problem. Figure out a way, something you can return and think back. I mean, I'm seventy six years old, so I can look back three quarters of a century and think, wow, what have I been through before that was similar to this? And when you've done a lot and I've done quite a bit, I mean, as an entrepreneur, corporate, everything I can, I've done quite a bit. And so I failed some or I've, I've had tough times, but I learned from them. I don't look at them as a failure. It's a learning tool. So hopefully that answers.
00:11:29 Yusuf: Yeah. And you know, it is not just what happens to us. It is how we interpret it, how we meet it, and how we choose to carry forward from it.
00:11:43 Jay Setchell: I yeah, I hear you. Yousef when, when you when you're saying, you know, how do you move forward when something's happened? And, and I think you just have to brush it off. I think you got to say, hey, it's just something that happened. You know, life is life. You know, life's not going to be easy. Nothing is promised. You've got to work for everything you have. Or you should realize that at a very young age, I did. Nothing is free. I don't if they say it's free, it's costing somebody. You know, somebody's paying the price. So, you know, just suck it up. And I've got a little saying that. I say, uh, it's sweat dries. Blood clots and broken bones heal. Suck it up. It's like, just move ahead if you're trying to ride a bicycle. Every kid today, I see they got to have training wheels for a year. It's like ridiculous. And to my opinion, okay, because I learned to ride a bicycle on a big wheeled bicycle that my mother had. She went road to college. It was an old bike, and I learned on gravel roads and gravel driveways. And you fall down and you got a little bit of blood. It's not going to hurt you. It's not going to be a big deal. You know, it's like and so you get back up on the bike and all of a sudden you're going, hey, and that exuberance or that, that, that success that you learn from riding the bike is a whole lot sweeter and means more than that little fall you took. So that little fall is just one fall. You know, there's, there's an old saying that I use too is, is I, I, I believe somebody that has fallen down and gotten back up is stronger than someone that's never fallen because they don't have the strength. They just don't. And I have fallen a thousand times. I mean, I have, I probably fallen more than a thousand times with all with my legs and my paralysis and my leg braces. And I've had stitches in my wrists and knees and elbows and, you know. So it's like, don't worry about it. Get back up and keep going. And that way, you know, everybody looks at you like, wow, he's crazy. Well, maybe I am. But you know what? I don't stop. I'm not going to stop.
00:14:06 Yusuf: Yeah. And I want to explore something practical here. If someone wants to build that kind of mindset, where do they begin? Like what? How can they train themselves to handle pressure, pain?
00:14:26 Jay Setchell: Well. That's a good question. I don't I don't sit and think about that for somebody else. I first of all, you have to believe in yourself. You have to have confidence in yourself, you know. And there's an old saying that what lies behind us and what lies in front of us are small matters compared to what lies within us. So the book that I've written here recently just came out, uh, called The Strength Within You. It's always too soon to quit. It's kind of an answer to what it is. Where do you find that mindset? Where, where do you find the strength to move up and keep going every day? Do you find it in your DNA? Do you find it in the things that you've been through, that you've succeeded at and failed at, and try to pick those things out and be positive about it? Don't think about the negatives, because if you think about the negatives, that's what you're going to be. You know, there's a I don't know, in America, we've got the eagle, right? American Eagle, it's it's our national bird. Okay. So it's there's an old saying that, that I haven't said in a long, long time, but it's hard to fly with the Eagles. Soar with the Eagles. When you're thinking like a vulture and you're sitting on the ground eating a dead deer or something. In other words, or turkey, you know the turkey is do you have turkeys? Okay, so it's hard to fly with the eagles when you think like a turkey. Don't hang out with the turkey. Hang out with people better than you are. Find people that are on the same mission or same wavelength. Looking for ideas, looking for success, looking for help. And each person you help makes you a better person. So the more people you help, the better person you become. But you learn something from all that and, and reaching out and finding people that are smarter than you are or more talented at something, you know, you can, you can look and you can see, you can listen and you can hear. But if they let you do it, you will learn. So you know, when you've learned something new, it's like, you know what I did today? I learned something, I learned how to put a needle or a thread through a needle. I knew how to do something simple, but it gives you another stepping stone to move forward. So that's a, that's a, I think that's where your mindset comes from. It's like, wow, I, I believe in myself. I, I, I accomplished that. I, I've, I've gotten better at that. And so that's where I would go with it.
00:17:18 Yusuf: C and G for people who want to connect with you or want to learn from you, where can they find you?
00:17:27 Jay Setchell: I, I, well, I've got a little web page, uh, doesn't say a whole lot, but it's, it's, uh, my website is never quit trying dot com never quit trying dot com. And then my first name J so there's an email on there, a contact sheet for J. It never quit trying. Com or. However. And then I've got a. The book. If you're able to get. I don't know if you get Amazon, but you can. By the by the book over. There's never never. Or the strength within you never quit trying. And that's, that's really the, the best is, uh, go to the website and or get the book and the book is it, it talks a little bit, Yousef, about, um, medical problems, things I went through dying, how I went through how I handled it, but it's more about not what I, what happened to me. It's how you handle it. It's about never quitting. Don't let don't let the blood and the guts bother you. You keep working at it. And so it what it attempts to do is give you and help you understand that in your, in, in your mind, in your heart. You have strengths that you can rely on. Maybe if you're getting mad, maybe you're aggravated. Maybe you're in pain. When pain pushes me, I push back. So you know you have strengths within you or things you've learned from teachers, from your faith, from whatever. And that helps you overcome the adversities and the detours that you're going to go through life or little failures you may hit or maybe a big failure, but you also might be very successful. A lot of people can be very successful, but that just causes more problems because somebody else is jealous or you've now got taxes due or you've got. Oh, they see you're successful at that. Well, why can't you be successful at this? And so it really helps you a lot. And I think that's the biggest thing is. But yeah, J Never quit. Never. Just go to never quit trying.
00:19:45 Yusuf: Com perfect. And to everyone listening. This link is in the show notes, so just go and check this out. Jay, is there any last message that you want to leave us with?
00:19:58 Jay Setchell: Any last comments?
00:20:00 Yusuf: Yes.
00:20:02 Jay Setchell: Um. I think it's just, it's really the basic symbols of, you know, the, the more people you help, the better person you become. Don't quit. It's always too soon to quit. Never, never quit trying. You have to keep pushing ahead, find a reason, look for something you know, the good Lord, whoever you believe in is a. God wants you to be successful. They want. He wants you to be that way. So why not do what he wants? Because it's going to help a lot of other people. And then getting back to what I said before that, what lies, the things that you've done in the past? What lies behind you and what lies ahead of you, what you're going to do, what you're going to do when you're fifty years old. You're going to look back at things you did when you were twenty or thirty, and use those to help you move ahead. So what lies behind you? What lies ahead of you are small matters compared to what lies within your within your heart and your determination. That's what I would leave.
00:21:08 Yusuf: If something in this conversation stayed with you. Maybe sit with it for a moment. Not everything needs to be solved today. Sometimes just recognizing your own strength, even quietly, is enough to begin again. If this episode resonated, follow mind over matter not just for motivation, but for reminders that you are not alone in figuring things out. Thank you so much for listening, and I thank my guests for coming here and sharing his expertise. Until next time, take care of your mind. It carries more than you think.
