Are you the only person in the world who flies their own plane who has no arms?

You surf as well too.

Oh, I forgot to mention that.

Wait a second!

How do you surf?

I'm Mick Ebeling, founder and CEO of Not Impossible Labs.

For the past 15 years, we've been on a mission to change the world through technology

and story by addressing societal problems to improve the lives of everyone.

With a crew of engineers, hackers, entrepreneurs, technologists, storytellers, and artists,

we've tackled and solved some of the world's most incredible challenges.

But here's the thing.

We're just a small team in Venice Beach.

The world is full of people making the impossible possible.

My goal now with this podcast is to find these people,

share their stories, and hopefully, together, we can keep pushing the limits of what's possible.

On today's episode, we talked to Jessica Cox,

a pilot whose life achievements are nothing short of incredible.

And did we mention she's armless?

And how long did it take you to get your license?

Took close to three years, three instructors.

That's amazing.

People were like, you should interview Jessica.

I'm like, I don't know.

Why should I interview Jessica?

What's the name of the plane?

The Impossible Airplane.

Oh, that's why we should interview Jessica!

All right, thank you for coming today.

I have a whole list of all the crazy shit that you've done in your life,

which is really remarkable.

But if I met you at a cocktail party and I'd be like, oh, hey, nice to meet you.

Who would you say you are?

The last thing I would honestly say is that I don't have arms.

Because that's like, it doesn't even phase me, because that's my normal.

And I wouldn't even probably talk about my accolades and things like that, because

that's not ultimately who we are.

I happen to have done some amazing, incredible things.

I've been blessed to have some amazing things cross my path,

like a pilot who said, hey, why don't you fly a plane?

I said, heck yeah, finally, I'll get a chance to overcome my fear.

It's amazing how, like a magnet, things come your way and you say yes.

So yeah, I think it's, and I don't use the impossible word very often, in fact, never,

but you don't have arms.

And then you look at all of the stuff that you've done in your life,

and you're like, limitations are completely self-diagnosed almost, right?

And I think that most people would not do half of the things that you've done.

And there's no like asterisk to like, oh, doesn't have arms.

It's just, they don't have the bravery.

They don't have the gumption.

They don't have the whatever.

But what is it about you that makes you just so adventurous and want to go do these things?

You know, I think about adventure, and I think that's going to be in my blood,

no matter what, if I was born with four arms.

Um, however, I was born, because I know it, I see it in my mom.

And I watched her as a young person that she lived out that life,

spontaneous, ready to do the next adventure, not sitting still for, you know, long.

That's who she was.

And she, in a way, I feel like it's in the genes, maybe, maybe in the blood.

So if I came out the way I did without arms, and this was not due to a genetic condition,

this was just a fluke medical thing.

They never developed in utero.

It was just about, hey, I'm, how am I going to do this?

But here's the thing, because I don't have the arms, it made everything at a young age,

a lot more difficult, yes, to do the ordinary things.

But because I had to triumph through those ordinary things in a creative way,

then it created a skill set, a creativity skill set, so that I go into any situation,

say, hey, that's not impossible.

Just break it up.

It's just a puzzle ready to be undone or done.

And with the ultimate result being possibility.

And so you create this lens.

Once you live that hardship earlier on, it develops not only a thick skin, socially sometimes,

but it also develops like this muscle that everyone has.

Survival, you know, you gotta, I had to eventually feed myself.

So I grabbed a Cheerio off the floor and put it in my mouth with my toes.

And then, you know, that thing just develops and it becomes this muscle,

gets stronger and stronger the more you do.

And I think that's the one thing I was blessed to have too, is that a mother

who said, you're going to do everything.

I'm going to put you in dance.

I'm going to put you in Girl Scouts.

I'm going to put you in gymnastics.

And I'm going to give you every opportunity, even though I grew up, you know,

not in that financial situation where I could afford every activity,

but she was going to find a way.

But that find a way, make it possible mentality that she lived.

She also lived out by raising me and my brother and my sister in an amazing, incredible way.

So it was a fortunate blessing of many things.

The interesting thing when I was thinking about our conversation is,

you're not limited by anything because you are who you are.

And that's the way that you do things.

And I find it to be incredibly funny that people, I'm sure your entire life,

people were probably coming up to you and like doing the pity thing and like,

oh, doing the voice like this.

And I'm sure you were like, dude, look, I'm going to kick your ass.

Like, so that's what I was really taken by when all the things that I was

reading about you and some of the things that some of your sayings that you say,

you know, where is it?

The pity prevents progress.

Talk a little bit about that.

That's something that I would love for people to just understand.

Basically the early years, because I go back to being told, you know,

constantly, as you mentioned, oh, you don't have arms.

You can't do this.

It infuriated me as a child.

You must have been so like, blah!

Yeah.

And it just wanted to make me scream.

Why are you telling me what's not possible?

And I had this, you know, belief that I could.

And it's just that limited mindset that I had to deal with.

And as a young person, it was all the more difficult.

Now I kind of have some empathy and understanding that, you know,

it's because some people live life the way they do and they don't see anything

that's different or some people don't have hardships.

So perhaps some things come a little easier and it's just maybe just that

lack of exposure, perhaps.

I don't know, but I just come from more of an understanding perspective.

Sure.

You said the word hardship earlier.

Do you think - do you have a hardship?

Well, I mean, if you want to call it hardship, if you want to call it life,

because I think everyone, no matter who they are, has something.

It's most oftentimes invisible to most people, but we all carry something.

And that's how, you know, that's just part of life.

So I guess it's however you want to call it.

What do you call it?

I mean, I see it as being a learning experience, an opportunity to -

Yes, while in the moment it's hard, no doubt.

And you want to just kind of crawl into a ball and just like hide away from the world.

Because we're human, we're only human.

And, but you know, when we were able to just pull ourselves out of that

and rise to the occasion, it makes us a better human being.

And if we can do that more often, than, you know, we try to avoid those things.

I think that must be in our nature.

But if we choose to go towards them, we will rise to be stronger, better, and more resilient.

If you could go back in time right now and go back in your life,

and now you had your whole life with arms, what would you say?

I don't think it would be as enriched as my life is now.

I mean, for one, it's hard for me to conceptualize what it would like to have arms,

because I never had them from the beginning.

So, I mean, I really wouldn't even know what to do with them.

They'd probably be dangling there for a couple of days if I woke up with arms.

I'm like, what do I do with these things?

And I have to go to therapy and, you know, all the things that babies do to function with arms.

But in reality, I don't know.

I don't think, I honestly don't think my life would be as enriched as it is today.

And not so much that, but also the impact that it's been able to have on just giving the world hope

and showing the world, you know, it's not impossible unless you make it impossible.

That's so true.

And living that daily on every encounter from the moment,

I mean, I walked to the coffee shop this morning.

I, you know, created a whole long bill behind the register,

and the lady's looking at me like, how is she going to pay for this?

I got a croissant.

Hang on, back up, back up for a second.

So you wake up, you wake up this morning and you're like, oh, it's a beautiful day.

Right?

And you're going to go get some coffee.

What do you do?

Because I think for most listeners and viewers, they're like, wait a second.

How does this work?

Like, there's a curiosity there, a genuine curiosity.

I make my way to the coffee shop.

I'm fine, clearly.

And I make, you know, I put on this order and I'm like, what?

Almost 20 bucks for a coffee and a sandwich.

And I'm like, okay, I realize I'm in California.

You're like, I wish you would have gotten robbed by the guys outside, not the people inside.

And they give me my bill and I'm looking at this lady, her face is like blank.

Like she's like, she has no arms.

How is she supposed to pay for this thing?

And I reached down and on my shoe, I have these little wallets.

They're called chums.

Will you put it up here?

Yeah, yeah, sure.

So I have this wallet on my shoe.

Okay.

And can they see in the camera?

Yeah, can you see that?

I'll hold it up.

So I pull out my credit card.

You have tiny feet by the way.

Size six, yeah.

It's like the size of my hand.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so chums.

So I'm grabbing my credit card out of my little wallet there and I reach up and I,

you know, do a nice tap to pay, which is very convenient, by the way.

And then, you know, the food's being made and it's not one of these places where you serve.

What did the girl do behind the counter?

She just like, you know, like, oh, okay.

It was just like a realization.

It took a couple seconds and she just went with it.

And then she was making my coffee and then she was making my sandwich.

She said, do you want to heat it up?

I'm like, yeah, could you heat up the croissant?

That'd be great.

She puts it on a plate and then it gets out there, you know, at the little table where

everyone picks it up.

And I've strategically picked a table already where I'm going to be seated.

I drop my bag off and I make my way to pick up my croissant on a plate and I use my chin.

And this is a glass plate, you know, it's one of those, not glass plates, but you know.

Ceramic.

Ceramic plate.

And I grab it with my chin and shoulder and I just pick up the plate and bring it over

to my table.

And by that point, I think everyone behind the counter knew what was happening.

And the lady personally walked over with my glass of coffee and brought it to me.

But it was nice to see that you know, that they got it.

But for me, you know, if I needed to pick up that glass off the countertop and like

this water glass right here, I would just use my chin and shoulder like this and grab

it, keeping my head, you know, at an angle, slowly walk my way towards the table.

And that's a big deal for me, you know, as long as I set it down right.

There you go.

That's amazing.

And then once I just set it down and then it's like, you know, that's showing people

the impossible every day.

Yeah.

Any other stuff that you want to?

I'm just fascinated by your ability to scuba dive as well too.

Wait, you scuba dive?

Yeah.

Okay, so someone told me that scuba diving is like flying underwater and any pilot would

be inclined to want to experience that.

And so I was given the opportunity to get my certification scuba diving through Diveheart,

which is an organization that helps people with disabilities.

And so I went out.

Then why did you go?

I was just like, okay, they're going to give me free scuba training.

That's why you went right there.

Jessica's like, wait a second, it's free.

Okay, I'll play the disability card, even though that's ridiculous.

You get me, don't you?

Anything that's free.

I love it.

And so I went out to Chicago to train.

We start in the swimming pool and they were doing things like, well, first of all, I was

just wearing all those equipment.

Like, what do I do?

All those equipment.

And I needed to clear my goggles because you get water in your goggles.

I scuba dive.

Tell me, how did you clear your goggles?

And it burns your eyes.

And so like, how do you do it?

And so I figured out that I didn't have to, first of all, keep two fins on my feet because

the fins on my feet was like having your arms in a straight jacket.

So I kicked off one fin, or flipper, like some people want to call it.

And I'm like, okay, I'm just going to scuba dive with one fin on my left foot.

If I need to propel through the water, I'll put my legs together and propel like a dolphin.

Yeah.

So I just kept one foot free so that I could have this foot to bring up in the water.

Clear your mask.

And clear my mask.

No.

Like that.

But those of you that can't see this.

So Charlie, who's off camera, he's a scuba instructor.

And his mouth is just gaped open right now out of amazement.

So I just, you know, we just had to figure out how I was going to clear my mask, how I

can control my BC unit and all that stuff.

How do you control your BC?

So I just wrap my legs around, kind of like I grab a hold of it.

And I'm able to use my foot just like a hand.

But we eventually got, I needed to have a little bit longer of a BC.

Sure.

Because, but I did that.

So I could get to it and do all these things.

But the other thing was sign language.

Because when you're underwater, you can't communicate.

You have to use sign language.

What did you do?

And it's always the okay signal that's critical.

Yeah.

So I told him, I said, well, I can do okay like this.

It's a little tiny okay.

It's a little tiny okay.

But I had to clear that before going underwater.

So they understood my communication.

You know, this, you know, basically that, this and I'm okay.

Thumbs up.

Right.

Toes up.

So once they were on the same page with me, they could get me underwater.

What's the international scuba symbol for, oh shit, there's a shark.

I don't think there is one.

Yeah.

So then I eventually got to the open water and it was just awesome.

Awesome.

All right.

Anything else you want to drop on us, Charlie?

You surf as well too.

Oh, I forgot to mention that.

Wait a second.

This is the second time.

You surf as well.

We've now cut three times and you keep just dropping more of these little nuggets on us.

How do you surf?

So surfing was hard because I had to figure out how to get the board out through the waves.

Sure.

And so essentially I thought of some ideas of like using my belly and getting on the edge

of the board and then kicking my legs like the propeller of like a boat or something.

And that's what I did.

It was harder at times and I haven't had as much practice, but I did have some guidance

on how to get the board out there.

Getting up was not so much an issue because I get up all the time without arms.

So what I did is instead of kneeling, I prefer to sit with my legs crisscross.

Okay.

And once I'm on the board, I just pop up when the time is right.

So I stand and I surf goofy foot because I like my right foot forward.

And, you know, it was just practicing getting up.

My balance has to be good because I don't have the arms to catch myself.

I have a really bad cut on my knee right now from falling once.

Okay.

So you learn eventually with enough falls how to be better balanced at things.

You also probably know how to fall.

Yeah.

You're probably like...

Fall in a way that's...

Fall on my butt instead of...

Like a stuntman fall where you like roll and jump back back up again.

I did that once unexpectedly.

And I think I must have learned that from frown fighting in Taekwondo.

Sure, sure.

Because I was like, where did that come from?

You know, I didn't know it sometimes becomes part of your unconscious or whatever.

Are you the only person in the world who's ever

soloed and flies their own plane who has no arms?

Yes.

There was someone in the 30s, a woman who had arms to her elbows,

meaning partial limb.

Sure.

Kind of like, I know Daniel has a little residual, right?

Correct.

So this woman was born with residual, but not...

She was just born with arms to her elbows.

Okay.

She attempted to fly and did not live to tell.

Oh, jeez.

Yeah.

So that was the only other woman I know in history who's tried...

Who's attempted.

Well, she was using her, whatever, what's left of her arms.

But for me, I'm the first one ever to do it with just my feet.

Feet alone.

A non-modified aircraft, just...

It's just a stock aircraft.

Which plane did you fly?

The Ercoupe.

Okay.

And why?

It's a plane built in the 40s.

A 1946.

No, no, no.

Why did you choose to fly?

Oh, okay.

See?

By the way,

you're a total plane nerd.

You're like, well, it was 1940s.

It's got this fuselage, blah, blah, blah.

Now I know you're a plane nerd.

But why?

Why fly?

Like what called you to flying?

It's funny how I mentioned at the beginning of this,

what we were talking about earlier is how that boiling anger inside at times of,

I can do it.

Watch me.

That, and wow, this was a great opportunity.

I mean, I was terrified of flying.

I still am.

But I wanted to fly to overcome my fear.

Yes.

A fear of flying or that you could do it?

Oh, it had nothing to do with whether or not I could do it.

I would make it happen.

I knew you were going to answer that.

It's more about like, I don't know.

Yeah.

Do I really want to overcome this fear?

Because nothing ever when it presents itself to me is a question of, can you do it?

Sure.

I mean, that's just, you just make it happen.

And how long did it take you to get your license?

Um, took close to three years, three instructors,

training in Florida, California, Arizona, and I created a whole little list.

That's amazing.

What, um, I just pure curiosity.

How do you, a plane, you've got all of these things that you have to flip and check.

And now you've got the yoke, which you're pushing forward, pulling back.

You're going left.

You're going right.

But you also have the ailerons down below that you're having to press your feet. That's what's different.

What?

That's the thing, you know, about ailerons.

Yeah.

This is the only airplane that doesn't have aileron pedals.

They're interconnected.

The ailerons are there, but they're interconnected with the rotors and they're all in the yoke.

So that's two less controls on the floor.

Okay.

Then that makes total sense.

Cause the math was not computing for me right there.

I'm like, wait a second.

This is not making sense.

So what case, so what's your next thing?

Like you, you black belt in Taekwondo.

You're a pilot.

What's your next thing?

Do you just keep chalking up and collecting these impossibilities that you keep proving

aren't impossible?

Wow.

Well, we're building something and we're building something big.

What might that be?

What might you be building Miss Jessica?

So we are building the first airplane in aviation history that is engineered in the

left piloting command seat to be flown with feet alone, customized to the comfort level

for myself with the hopes of not just myself, but other armless pilots.

And also the big, the big picture is you can make a world, you can engineer possibilities

for all ability levels and disabilities.

You know, you, you don't have to do it the same way everyone else does.

And that's what we want to do.

And I think that this is so visual building this plane, building this mission to show

that disability doesn't mean inability, um, around the world, not just here in the United

States, but in the places that need to hear it most.

And, you know, I know you're all over the world and it's amazing the work that you're

doing.

I mean, for the prosthetics lab and everything you guys are doing, and you get to see the

unfortunate stigma of disability and how it affects one's life.

I feel fortunate that I was born in the United States to a more accepting, I mean, there's

still work to be done undoubtedly, but it's a lot further than other places around the

world.

People are like, you should interview Jessica.

I'm like, well, I don't know.

Why should I interview Jessica?

What's the name of the plane?

The Impossible Airplane.

Oh, that's why we should interview Jessica!

The Impossible Plane.

That's amazing.

That's amazing.

Soon to be the I'm Possible Plane.

Oh, I love it.

I love it.

I would come from the opinion of saying, if you are forced into a situation where you

have to interact with the world in a unique way, you can't lean into the

status quo.

And we talk a lot about status quos at Not Impossible, right?

The way that the world works, we accept that that's just the way that the world works.

Someone, without arms can't go get a coffee.

Someone with an arms definitely can't pay for their coffee.

Oh, no, they, they definitely can't carry their coffee.

They can't, like, no, that's just the way that that particular world works.

Yeah.

And I have been constantly surprised by how humans can interact with the world in unique

ways.

And I feel like when people are forced into a situation that they have to break out

of the way that the world typically works, that status quos, it's remarkable what happens

on the other side of it.

And it's also remarkable to see how the world that they're interacting with evolves and

how they evolve as a person.

What are other areas in society?

Oh, so many, so many areas.

And the problem is, I think that we tend to really go towards what's comfortable.

And that's just, I don't know, human nature.

And that's the problem is that we don't go outside of our comfort zone to stretch ourselves.

And that is a disservice to us.

I saw this airplane simulator that we brought to a summer event.

It was the largest air show in the world.

Oshkosh?

Oshkosh!

Come on!

Come on Jessup, Jake Cox!

I've been to the Oshkosh air show.

That thing's amazing.

Isn't it?

Yeah.

So we set up a sim of the impossible airplane controls to see how people were going to take

to this.

What happened?

We had literally like air show pilots not be able to land the plane, but you get a

seven year old kid on the controls,

Yeah.

and he lands that plane like he's had hours.

That's amazing!

That's how young and elastic and how possible we are.

That, and that's it because that kid, that pilot has a life full of status quos of this

is the way you work.

And this is how you do this.

And this is how you do this.

And this is what limb you use this.

And that kid hasn't been bound by those constraints.

Yep.

And so in that situation, if you were to say, who would you rather fly with the pilot of,

you know, probably thousands of hours or the kid that has is not constrained by their

own limitations, by the status quos of the way that planes and society and things work,

I would say 99% of the people would choose the pilot.

Yeah.

Oh, that's the safe bet.

Yeah.

I know I'm going to say thank you for joining us and then you're going to drop another

like incredible story on our laps, but thanks so much for joining us.

You're a reminder, I think the, the potentiality of humans and the fact that

our limitations are self-imposed and, uh, that a difference in human to human does not,

does not mean anything except for that we're unique and we see the world through a unique

point of view.

And you are a reminder is that each human has the ability to experience and interact

and do and, and go about how they live life in their own way.

And, I've just really enjoyed this conversation.

Thank you so much for joining.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Keep up the amazing work too.

And that wraps up another episode of the podcast, where we talked to some of the most

fascinating people transforming the impossible into the not impossible.

A big thank you to Jessica for giving us a leg up into her world and talking about her

inspirational achievements from surfing and scuba diving to earning a black belt in Taekwondo,

and of course, solo flying in an airplane.

It's conversations like these that remind us that the limits of possibility are only

as defined as we choose them to be.

Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast platforms and remember making the

world a better place.

It's not impossible.

I'm Mick Ebeling.

Thanks for listening.