All language subtitles for The.Mighty.Atom.2017

- [Joseph's Son] When I was very young,

a teacher asked me and the other children,

"What do your dad's do for a living?".

And one said a lawyer,

one said an accountant,

one said a plumber,

one said a carpenter.

And I said, my dad bites
chains and bends horseshoes.

Well she sent me home
with a note saying that

you know, your son's reading
too many comic books.

He's in a fantasy world.

Well the next day my father
came to school with me.

Went to my teacher,

took a chain out of his pocket,

bit it clear through,

spat the link onto the table

and said to the teacher,

"If my son tells you
something believe him.".

(upbeat music)

- He could bend steel bars with his hair.

- Biting a nail in half.

- Bending a horseshoe with his jaws.

- [Man] I think he pulled
like five cars with his hair.

- [Man] Laying on beds
of nails and of course,

if the cinder block has
been put on his stomach

and whacked with a sledgehammer.

- Pulling airplanes
with his hair (laughs).

That's pretty crazy.

Bit through chain.

- [Man] A chain breaking
around your chest.

- [Man] Bending a steel bar
across the bridge of his nose.

- [Man] Pulling things with your teeth,

lifting things with your teeth.

He would be an internet sensation

at his age doing what he
was doing when I saw him.

Not even to talk about the stuff he did

when he was younger.

- He's the godfather.

It starts with him.

- And the very fact that he's Jewish.

I knew a lot of Jewish people growing up.

They were not known for strength.

- Yeah, the list of Jewish
super athletes is kinda lean,

but if you're gonna add somebody to it,

it should be him.

- To me, he was Pop.

He was just a normal, hardworking guy.

- [Announcer] It's called the iron game.

A spectacle of brute strength
and physical presentation

that defies logic and sanity.

It boasts such heroes as Eugene Sandow,

Louis Cyr, and Siegmund Klein.

Men who routinely made impossible feats

of strength look simple.

But it's history was
largely shaped by one man.

The most unlikely
candidate to share a title

of strong man with these all time greats.

Joseph Lewis Greenstein.

Born into extreme poverty,

given little chance to live
past his teenage years.

Greenstein would evolve
to become the iron games

most unlikely hero.

The five foot, four inch
man would perform feats

of strength so spectacular and unusual,

many have yet to be
replicated to this day.

And it was precisely his
size that led to the name

he would become known by.

The name now widely regarded
as one of the greatest

strongmen to ever live,

The Mighty Atom.

(dings)

- [Radio Announcer] WNBC New York.

- [Long John Nebel] We're
talking with Joseph Greenstein,

known as The Mighty Atom the
strongest man in the world.

Well now, I have seen you
do some remarkable things.

How did you become so strong?

- [Joseph] Well, it's a long story.

(upbeat music)

- It's all amazing.

It's all unbelievable,

but what really made his
special is he's a little guy.

You know, he's got the chest,

he's got the biceps but he
doesn't have the physical stature

for anybody to expect he
could do what he could do.

- Our strength scales with
our size and our body mass.

So a person that's larger naturally,

with the same amount of training,

the same genetics will
have more muscle mass

and will be stronger.

- You watch World Strongest Man,

the guys are all 350, 400 pounds.

But Joe Greenstein is an
example of great strength

without necessarily having the great size.

- You have to have some
tremendous sinuous,

tendons, ligaments to be
able to do the things he did.

And not as a young man either.

- What inspires you most
if you saw a 300 pound guy

with 24 inch arms bending a steel bar,

or in The Mighty Atoms case,

you've got a guy five
foot four, 148 pounds

bending the same steel bar?

The small guys always
gonna steal the show.

(upbeat music)

- My name's Tony Laughlin,

I'm the general manager of
the Motus Biomechanics Lab.

Motus is a three D motion capture

wearables technologies company.

What we do here at the Biomechanics lab

is use motion capture to
evaluate athlete motion.

With the reflective markers
that we've placed on his body,

we can measure how his body is moving.

And then we can also
measure the force during

your to twist the horseshoe.

(upbeat music)

- I've been working out
now for about 30 years.

My strength to the average
person on the street

I would say I'm in the top five percent

of the male population
in terms of strength.

Pretty powerful, pretty strong.

Currently I have a 615 pound bench press,

a 600 pound squat and
a 600 pound deadlift.

I'm here to bend or twist a horseshoe.

I don't think there's
any type of trick to it.

So I'm here to see if I can do it.

I'm gonna give it my best shot.

- So this is a hand dynamometer.

And it's gonna measure your grip strength,

average grip strength for someone your age

is about 116 pounds of force.

Excellent.

And Paul's grip strength
is 165 pounds of force.

That's significantly higher
than the average person

Paul's age is able to grip.

So what we're gonna do now
is have your run through

a couple of different motions for us.

So that we can create your
skeleton model in our software.

I'm gonna have you do about three or four

jumping jacks for me okay.

The motion capture cameras
emit infrared light.

And then we can run some
of our software to evaluate

the mechanics of what he's doing.

- All right so this
will be a first for me.

Let's give it a shot.

(grunts)

Let's try this.

(grunts)

No, that's tough.

- All right Paul, so we
can look at how your body

is moving when you're trying
to bend the horseshoe.

So the initial part when
you're really giving all

your effort to try to bend.

You can see that's really
high peak in the force

you're producing.

If we look at the force data,

each peak you're applying a
very large amount of force here.

This initial peak is almost
two times your body weight

or close to 600 pounds of downward force,

not including the grip forces
that you're applying as well.

- So I'm pretty disappointed.

I thought for sure I'd be
able to get some movement

on that bar and nothing.

It's pretty tough.

I can't see how you can bend it.

It just can't be done.

- I meet people all the time
who think this is impossible.

That there's a trick to it.

There's no trick.

He was just that strong.

He could do things that people
three or four times his size

just couldn't do.

- [Long John Nebel]
Were you as a youngster,

were you always working out
with barbells or something?

- [Joseph] I started when I
was young in Suwalki, Poland.

- [Long John Nebel] In Poland?

- [Joseph] That's right.

I was very sick when I started.

If it wasn't for the sickness,

I would have never been
able to do the things

I needed to do.

- When he was a young boy in Poland,

he was very sickly.

Doctors said that my dad
wouldn't live out the year.

- [Announcer] In the mid 1800s,

Suwalki, Poland was a
bustling industrial town.

A primarily Jewish population
filled it's factories

with workers until it's
economy began to collapse

in the later part of the century,

leaving many without work or hope.

Disease was common and claimed many lives.

Toward the end of the century,

Suwalki was not a place
many people wanted to be.

- He was born in the
Northeast corner of Poland.

Very near the border of Russia.

And it was sometimes under Russian control

and sometimes under Polish control.

But in those days, it was
just dirt roads and farm area.

- Poland wasn't a place
where a young Jewish man

had a great future ahead of him.

There was always the threat
of getting conscripted

into the army.

There was also a lot of
radical politics going on

inside the Russian empire.

If you were young and
you could scape together

enough for the Steerage Fair,

everyone wanted to get out.

- He was part of a huge
family as was my mother.

My mother and dad met when
they were little children.

They were married when
my mother was about 14.

- Tuberculosis, or they called
it Consumption back then,

was rampant and he contacted that.

In those days, that was no joke.

I think 80% of people that
contracted TB would die from it.

- [Long John Nebel] What
did your father die of?

- [Joseph] Tuberculosis, Tuberculosis.

- [Long John Nebel] And then you also,

they diagnosed your condition--

- [Joseph] And that's what
they told my mother I had.

And I haven't got long to
live and if I can reach 18,

19 at the most I will die.

It scared me.

It scared me very bad.

- The Jewish style of
burial was no coffin.

And they lowered him into the ground.

And this frightened my dad so.

- [Joseph] And when they buried him,

it was a painful for me.

Naturally, I didn't like
the idea when the doctor

told me I'm gonna die at 18.

So my mother says, go to school.

I walked and I stopped
out by a corner where

they advertise all kinds
of pictures of strong men.

And I kept looking at
those pictures and things

when to my mind.

How come these men are
so big, strong, healthy?

And my father had to die at
39 and I have to die at 18.

I said, there must be something
to it that they can tell me.

I must see them.

- [Announcer] Refusing to accept his fate,

Greenstein choose instead
to chase a new destiny.

This poor child with a
death sentence would soon

be transformed to one of
the strongest men on earth.

All thanks to a chance encounter.

Because that season the
circus came to town.

- In those days the circus
was not what we call

a circus today.

It was a couple of acrobats,

couple of jugglers and wrestlers.

That was what a circus was.

- He was too poor to pay for circus

and he tried to sneak in,

and was caught.

One of the men who worked
at the circus beat him

really badly within an inch of his life,

all bloodied up.

He was eventually found by
this strong man slash wrestler

named, Champion Valenko.

- [Joseph] When I seen this big man,

I started shivering.

He looks at me and says, "bolshoy".

It means, my God.

And he says, what are you
doing here little boy?

Come out!

Who beat you up like this?

I was bleeding all over.

And as he wiping my face,

and I told him this story,

my father died and I don't wanna die.

When I looked at his face
when I finished telling

this story, he was crying.

- So they, gathered several of the boys,

and my father recognized
the voice of the boy

who beat him.

And of course, the wrestler fired that kid

and heard my dad's story about
him having lost his father

at a young age.

- And one of the great
coincidences that my grandfather's

life was that Velanko was also Jewish.

And that was uncommon back then.

You just didn't see that very often.

I think you had to hide
it to get employment.

And that immediately
bonded the two of them.

And Valenko took him under his wing.

- My mother used to
roll cigarettes by hand

from a push cart in the market.

He hid under my mother's
push cart that night,

told the wrestler the next day,

that he had spoken to his mother

and gotten permission
to run away with him.

And he went with the wrestler and traveled

the world with him.

- [Joseph] He says, the
move out two o'clock,

the circus folds up.

Come back here if you wanna go with me.

I says, sure, I didn't go home.

I stayed in the marketplace.

- [Long John Nebel] In other words,

you didn't go back to tell your mother?

- [Joseph] I didn't want to
go home because my mother

wouldn't let me.

- [Long John Nebel] Wouldn't
let you go on the trip so?

- [Joseph] So I figured, I'll
stay overnight in the market,

and I'll stick around until the day comes.

I came to the circus and
they were already packed

and ready to go.

I went with him.

I traveled with him close to eight months.

We wound up in Pune, India.

- That was the turning point for him.

You know, so much is
lost to time but whatever

he learned, whatever Velanko taught him,

it helped him cure his
illness and opened his mind

into what was possible.

- [Announcer] Greenstein went with Velanko

and traveled the world.

He learned breathing techniques,

a dietary regimens in India,

martial arts in Asia
and a myriad of strength

and mind techniques from his new mentor.

He returned to Poland to
marry Leah as a new man

in body and spirit.

They quickly started a family.

But the instability in
Suwalki forced he and many

of his countrymen to search
for a new life in America.

- Over two million Jews
are fleeing both poverty

and programs of life
in the Russian empire.

And it's that migration
that really creates

what we tend to think of as
the American Jewish Community.

And a very wealthy Jewish philanthropist,

named Jacob Shif, conceives
of a program to find Jews

back in Poland, back
in Russia and ship them

directly to Galveston.

And from Galveston,

the idea was that they
would be dispersed across

the United States.

The Mighty Atom was one
of about 10,000 Jews

who made that journey to Galveston.

- [Announcer] In Galveston,
he opened his first business,

a gas station.

He continued his training
of the body and mind.

And started to perform
unbelievable feats of strength.

At first for friends,

but he wished to perform
for larger audiences.

That chance came with a stroke of magic.

- Houdini was touring
through Texas at the time.

Seems that the Houdini
troupe had a flat tire.

They ended up at my dad's place.

- At that point he wasn't professional.

He was just showing off for friends

and inventing things and training,

working to get stronger.

- He grabbed some tools,

walked back with the manager
to where the car was.

- And my dad changed
the tire without a jack,

lifting the car with Houdini
and several of his people

in the car.

- Didn't know who the
passenger was in the car.

They asked if they should
get out of the car.

They said, no, let him stay there.

Lifts up the car with one hand,

pulled the tire off.

- Lifted the car again,

put the tire back.

Put it to the ground and they
all just couldn't believe

what they saw.

And that was my dad's
way of fixing a tire.

- So Pitrov, the manager says,

what else can you do?

And he says, I have a whole
setup back at the garage.

- They came back to the station.

He showed them a few things that he does.

Petrov picked up on it and
made him get together an act.

- He also became my dad's manager.

And he talked him into coming to New York

to do show business.

Left the family in Texas,

and they worked up an act in New York.

Once he got his act together,

my dad sent for the family.

We were brought into Brownsburg, Brooklyn.

- [Long John Nebel] Did
you have a huge comb

that you would put in your
hair and then tie a chain

around it or a rope or a
cable and pull a firetruck?

- [Joseph] Well, I have pulled
many of tonnage with my hair.

- Yeah, hair and teeth were
a really big thing for him.

It wasn't enough to just be strong,

he wanted to do it in a way that

nobody else had ever done it.

He wanted to pioneer it.

He's a bit of a freak show right?

I mean, that's part of
his appeal for sure.

It's not just the strength,

it's the oddity of the whole thing.

- It's just so bloody freaky.

He's bending a bar with his hair.

I mean you just don't get it.

I started with Ripley's
Believe It or Not in 1978.

Average three to four items a day.

So 150,000 Believe It or Not's,

I'd rank that in the
top 15 or 20 for sure.

- [Joseph's Son] He did
17 different numbers.

Biting a chain was one.

Biting a 20 penny spike was another.

Bending a seven inch bar
into a shape of a horseshoe.

- Mighty had 'em bend very
short, short steel bars

with very short handles.

And these things are
incredibly hard to get any

leverage on because it's so short.

- He had his everyday feats and
then he had the larger ones,

like the plane.

He didn't pull a plane.

He stopped it from taking
off with the resistance

of his hair.

He's pulling backwards on it.

It's all crazy.

- In the early years,

he was doing Vaudeville
in the theaters around

mostly the east coast.

He would go upstate to
Syracuse and Buffalo.

- The 1920s and 1930s,

what do people do for entertainment?

Radios just come in in the 1920s.

He's not gonna make it on radio because

everything he does is visual.

So he's in Vaudeville,

and people flock to
these Vaudeville shows.

It's pretty cheap, especially,

during the depression in the 1930s.

- Unless you lift weights you
don't know what 400 pounds

feels like for example.

But everybody knows what
thick nail looks like

and it does or everybody
knows about breaking a chain

or bending a horseshoe.

People can relate to that.

They can see just how unique that is.

The truth is anyone can do this.

You just have to believe
and train yourself to do it.

He trained his own family how to do it.

- [Announcer] For the Greenstein's,

strength was the family business.

All of the sons performed,
Jerome, Mike, Isaac,

and Harry the oldest,

was Joseph's frequent traveling companion

and right hand man.

- We worked up an act family
wise with all the boys.

Bending bars, breaking
chains, lifting weights

by hair, teeth and so on.

The smaller degree than my dad did,

but he enjoyed knowing
that his family followed in

what he did.

- They were a traveling show.

They even had pet monkey.

- They were on Vaudeville.

They were in music halls.

They ended up sometimes in movie clips.

You would see them.

- [Announcer] As the years went on,

the stunts became bigger.

And the risks to personal
safety became greater.

One particularly risky and reckless stunt

wasn't even performed
in front of an audience.

But rather for the editors of a magazine.

- That was for Pic Magazine I believe

at Floyd Bennet Field.

They got on a runway,

they chained my dad to a chair,

wrapped chains around him.

- Chains across his chest to his mouth,

on his legs.

- My dad was sitting in
the middle of the runway.

My brother Harry was behind
the wheel of the car.

The car was 200 feet down the runway.

- And they had put a
board in front of the car,

big board so that nothing
in case it hit something,

it wouldn't damage the car.

- Because that makes perfect sense.

If anything goes wrong
just makes sure nothing

happens to the car.

- He should aim the car
directly at the chair

where my dad was chained, no matter what.

- My father had to bite
through the chains,

break the ones on is arms,

expand his chest and get rid of that.

And free himself from
the chains on his legs

and get out of the path of the oncoming,

speeding car.

- And of course, as the cars
got dangerously close to him,

he would leap off the chair
and leap out of the way.

- As he lept, I remember watching it,

the board caught his
ankle and spun him around

in the air.

- Papers never mentioned
that it hit his heal.

But it did hit his heal.

- But he did get away and
he did break the chains.

Which I thought was nuts.

- My brother never swerved the car.

- He just never though about mortality.

- [Long John Nebel] I remember
when you had that accident.

I imagine there's a good chance of getting

a broken leg or a broken arm.

- [Joseph] No, no.

- Harry was very shaken.

I was a kid.

I went running over you know,

what's wrong?

What's wrong?

- Harry was completely shook up.

He never wanted to ever do that again.

- I can't understand taking
those kind of chances.

- To him, I don't think he
though failure was possible.

Or that asking your son
to drive a car at you

and potentially kill you was a problem.

I just don't think he thought
he would fail at anything.

- When he was going to
attempt to do one of his

feats of strength,

you could talk to him
directly and he'd never

even hear you.

The intensity of his concentration.

And the will that he applied to the task

he was going to do.

He was going to accomplish it.

There was nothing that
was going to stop him.

He was going to accomplish it.

And that was it.

- I would always hear his name in passing,

just because of my
interest in mental training

and strong man training
and old school training.

And the story always
seemed interesting to me

and really compelling but it took a while

until I got around to
getting my hands on something

where I could find out about him.

Some of my friends,

some of my students
laugh when I talk to them

about The Mighty Atom.

You guys are like about the same size,

which is true.

We're really close in size.

Growing up as a kid,

I didn't have a lot of great examples of

you know, tough Jews.

And as soon as I started
to learn about the feats

that he did it just
really resonated with me.

If one person can do something,

no matter how extraordinary it is,

then anybody can do it.

(upbeat music)

Welcome to the gym.

This is our little wall full of pictures

of inspirational things,

full of inspirational people.

And of course, we've got shots

of The Mighty Atom on the Wall as well.

You can see he's right below Louie Cyr.

We've got a lot of strong men on the wall

and circus performers.

Circus training kind of
came late in life for me.

I didn't start really doing it until,

I think I turned 40.

I mean, what kid doesn't love the circus.

You look at performers
and must marvel at it.

And this move, it's about strength.

But you have to have a smart mind.

And anybody who's ever tried
anything like this will know

that when the person
gets up and my partners

on my shoulders and I reach
up and she takes my hands

that moment that she
places the foot on my head.

That's when everything goes from,

would you like to be able to do this?

Or do you want to do this?

If you don't believe
you're going to be able

to do something,

then you're right.

Everyone always thinks I'm
teaching fitness seminars.

That's actually the last
thing I think I'm teaching,

I think I'm teaching people
how to cultivate their will.

Paluna's gonna do a nice old school lift.

Where she's gonna use a barbell

and it's basically an
improvised super yolk.

So she's got weight but
it's incredibly unstable.

The only limits that we
have are what we place

on ourselves.

Women are always hearing, wow,

you should do this for exercise.

You shouldn't do that.

Women shouldn't life heavy weights,

they should do more cardio.

Who made up these rules?

Sometimes doing something
that's unreasonable

is the right thing to do.

Sarah suffered a horrible
injury years ago,

tore everything up in the side of her neck

and into her shoulder.

She's got a shoulder
that continually pops out

so it makes stabilizing so difficult.

And she was told you're
going to have to accept

that this is the way it is.

Well, why do you have to accept that?

Because someone with a
diploma told you that's

the way it is now.

It doesn't have to be
that if you're determined

that that's not the truth.

You make your own truth by your will.

- [Announcer] To attempt the possible,

you must embrace the improbable.

Greenstein believed that
the most important part

of succeeding at all these
feats was not his body

but rather his will to succeed.

- The fact that he could
bite a nail in half.

- Jars are very strong
and you can concentrate

a lot of force in a small
area and make a large

pressure and try to cut things.

But we're usually cutting
meat and green beans

not steel.

- I just don't think anybody
would assume that the

mouth is strong enough to do it.

Your jaw may,

be but you would think
the teeth would break.

- Early 50s or 60s some
wheres around there

we're at York Barbell Company,

17 of the weight lifters got together.

They wanted my dad to bite a spike.

They all signed a letter
stating that they'd supplied

the nail and they witnessed it.

John Grimmack handed my dad the spike,

examined the mouth to make
sure there was no apparatus

in his mouth,

took the spike.

It took him about six minutes.

- And I heard him crunching on this thing.

I'm this far away from him.

And he went like that and the
other half was on his tongue.

- If it's in Ripley's, it's real.

If we publish anything in Ripley's.

If it's on our TV show,

if it's in our auditorium,

in our books,

we are 100% convinced it's true.

- It just doesn't compute, but he did it.

And I think that's his greatest feat ever

was to be able to bite steel in half.

It was amazing.

- [Long John Nebel] Now in
order to build your body,

what did you do?

Were you a weight lifter or?

What forms of exercises
did you do as a young man

when you ran away with
the wrestler in Poland?

- [Joseph] I made out of
cement in two pales weights,

and I stuck a bar to it.

And I used that as weights.

And I wrestled in the
meantime and that helped

me build my body.

- There weren't gyms, that's
what people these days

just don't understand.

They'll see a strong man
or woman competition,

and those people have a network.

And a whole lot of knowledge
and people helping them train.

People 100 years ago, there
weren't gyms on the corner

with large weights and
people to help them.

A lot of what The Mighty
Atom did to achieve these

feats of strength was applying
science intelligently.

Current thinking now here
in early 21st century is

now science has to be more integrated.

It has to have more
synergy of physiologists,

the training person, the bio mechanist,

this team science helps us
answer difficult questions.

And in a sense,

he was doing that on a
personal individual level

as experimenting with training,

experimenting with diet,

experimenting with rest.

And through shear
determination and hard work

he did amazing things.

- My dad was 110% against any steroids.

- He didn't take any kinds of drugs.

They didn't have those things.

And he wouldn't have
done it anyhow because

he was about health.

- He believed body
strength should be natural.

- There are definitely a
lot of athletes out there

that could accomplish much
higher levels of strength

than they think they can,

where they wouldn't of
needed performance enhancers.

I definitely believe that.

- The things he did were
as a natural athlete

were truly amazing.

If he had lived at this time,

did the same training and then
added some drugs to his mix,

he would have been
bending bigger steel bars.

- His philosophy was that
there was no such thing

as a small man.

Nothing is impossible.

You set your mind to
it and you can beat it.

No matter what it is.

- The fact that somebody
says something is impossible,

it only means to me that
it's impossible for them.

- In order to perform world
class feats of strength

you have to overcome
it first in your head.

You gotta get rid of the word can't.

If you are thinking can't,

if you have any doubt
you're not gonna do it.

There was a movie,

I think it was called, "Tribe".

Jan Michael Vincent stared in it.

And he was a hippie
that had gotten drafted

into the marines.

And I never forget this,

in the movie there was
a scene in bootcamp.

All these guys are in bootcamp

and they have to hold
these buckets out of sand.

All the guys are dropping
the buckets except

Jan Michael Vincent.

You know, he's just got his
buckets out and he's holding

them and while he's holding those buckets,

they show what he's thinking.

And he's thinking of all,

he's just thinking of running in the field

with his girlfriend and
he's thinking of kissing her

and all this stuff.

He's not thinking about
the buckets in his hands.

And finally, the sergeant
comes over and makes

him drop the buckets.

And then he goes on and
teaches the other guys

how to hold the buckets
and keep 'em going.

- If you go to lift up
a weight and the weight

does not come off the floor,

and you didn't break anything,

the governor kicked in and said,

that's all I'm letting you have.

Your mind has control
of what power is allowed

to come out of your body.

Don't let your mind inhibit you.

- There's a lot of people
that have untapped potential.

They just think they're
weak and so they are weak.

- You set your mind to something,

you can control it.

And that's the same
thing that he taught me.

- I first heard about The Mighty Atom

when I was arm wrestling.

We used to get this publication called,

Arm Bender Magazine.

And I was flipping through
the pages and all the sudden

I see this article and it's talking about

The Mighty Atom and Slim the Hammer Man.

And I go, what's this?

I see Slim and he's bending the bar across

the bridge of his nose
and I see this little guy

up in the corner of the
magazine with his arms crossed,

long hair and I go,

he doesn't look that big.

And he's just like me.

He doesn't have giant muscles and that.

Wow, maybe I can do this.

- He worked quite a bit in
Pennsylvania, farmers markets,

the fairgrounds, York,
Allentown, Louisburg.

The York Interstate Fair,

especially at that time on Saturday

had throngs of people.

They had legions of busloads
come out of Baltimore

for the day just to see
the Interstate Fair,

Saluki races, cattle auctions,
occasional cow being born.

Somebody who had a solo
act like The Mighty Atom

might have gotten lost in that shuffle.

He got your attention.

- He was at the Great Allentown Fair,

I was working at a hotdog
stand for three days

and they didn't sell any hotdogs.

So they laid me off.

And I'm walking around killing time

and low and behold,

August of 1967,

I run upon The Mighty Atom.

And I see a slightly, to me,

disheveled looking old
man sweeping a stage.

- They had a pair of dress pants on,

no shirt and his soapbox
is cranking up his shpeal

and giving his exhibition.

He talked kind of gruff and
I was scared to death of him.

- And I say to this gentlemen,

"Hey, where's The Mighty Atom?".

And he's says, ew, we got him back there

in the truck in a cage.

And we only let him out
at showtime after we feed

him some raw meat.

First of all, I never saw a
man with that length of hair

from Southern York County.

That was the look that I
just had never really seen.

They had the beard.

Now I'm 10 years old,

as I recall,

I'm watching this guy and
he's making me nervous

and I'm edging closer to
my dad the whole time.

Watching my dad to see what he's doing.

I was hoping hoping he
wouldn't come out and grab me.

- Sure enough I come back about
15 minutes before the show

and right at 1:30,

out comes The Mighty Atom.

Except this time, he wasn't disheveled.

He had on his singlet with is
strap over the one shoulder.

- It's the classic one sleeve.

You know bare nipple on the other side,

so you can see that manly chest.

To me, that's part of the act.

I mean, it just makes it.

- Right, his hair was down,

shoulder length hair.

And as he walks towards he
sees me in the front row.

Gives a little wink and a Mona Lisa smile

and I said, all right,
that's The Mighty Atom.

- I mean, between the gruff talk

and watching this guy,

why ought we handle the horseshoe?

I had some idea at that age the weight

and tinsel strength of the horseshoe.

I lived in out in agricultural area,

so I knew a lot of strong farmers,

big farmers who weren't gonna
begin to bend that thing.

And that was over 50 years ago.

I remember it almost
like it was yesterday.

And if you didn't know him
before he started his exhibition,

you darn well remembered him afterwards.

- I saw The Mighty Atom six times.

In fact in 1968,

I was part of a nail bending act.

He would look out over
the audience and you know

pick out three huskies.

And at the time I was 16 years old.

I'd been lifting weights for
about two and a half years,

about 190 pounds.

And he handed me a nail and
two other adult males a nail.

And he said, here, bend these.

And I put the nail over
my knee for best leverage.

And I pushed down as hard as I could.

Nearly put two holes in my hands doing it.

All three of us handed the nails back.

It's kinda like my first trophy.

The Mighty Atom said, hold
the name up with a little kink

in it like this.

You know, ladies and gentlemen,

give this young man a hand.

Look he bent the nail.

I felt great until he put
the nail at arms length,

twisted it,

made the ends touch,

threw it back to me,

said, here, open it up.

I couldn't even get my fingers in there.

Let alone, open it up.

So I gave it back to him.

Again at arms length,

he opened the nail up.

All right, wow.

He talked about unlocking the mind.

I remember the one time he said,

every so often you read
about in the paper,

that there's some 100
pound woman who lifts

a car off her baby.

She doesn't think that
she can't lift a car,

she just lifts it.

He just became an expert
at unlocking his mind.

- [Announcer] They were
moments in time still a blur

to this family.

A frightful reminder of
what could have been.

- It was on a Saturday afternoon
when everything happened.

You were outside getting
the care ready basically

so I could borrow it.

- [Man] And trying to
get ready for church.

- And had just finished
working on the car.

I thought you had been
finished working on the car.

- [Man] Right, and this
is where you found me?

- This is where I found you.

- And as I go to open the garage door,

I hear her, a primal scream like

dial 9-1-1.

- [Announcer] That scream
as 22 year old Lauren

discovering her father
crushed under a car.

- I called his name and he did not answer.

So I saw his feet underneath the car.

Which then I knew something was wrong.

- Because I was working on
the passenger rear wheel,

I put the jack here in front of the tire.

So I just literally came
around the back side

and scorched up under the car.

And tightening that bolt,

and that's when it happened.

- [Lauren] His eyes were open,

he wasn't responding to me.

Oh, my God, I'm going to lose my dad.

- [Announcer] Seconds later,
she did what most would

consider unthinkable.

She moved a car weighing a ton and a half

off her father's body.

- And from what I remember,

I just grabbed under the car somewhere

started to lift and throw my body at it.

I either held up the
car and pulled him out

or I balanced it out.

We're not really sure
which way that happened.

At some point, I was able to get him out.

- [Announcer] Two days later,

this is Alec Kornaky,

still in the ICU but walking

and finally getting the chance
to thank his little girl.

- When they told me that
Lauren picked up the car,

I couldn't fathom how that was possible.

- (laughs) There's no way to explain it

in our point of view.

- It's hard ...

We tried to talk about it
and explain it to each other

what we think happened that day.

And I don't know that we
can really explain it.

- I told him what happened
and the tears just come

to his eyes and he said,

thank you for saving my life.

And she just smiled her blue eyed smile

and that was it.

- I still don't understand
the force and the leverage

I was able to use to get
this car off of my dad

but you know, a little bit of mind power

and also maybe some sort
of divine intervention.

Who knows.

- You hear of and you see periodically

people who can do these
things that we think

are just amazing.

You know she knew she needed
to do something to save me

and she harnessed all that power

that's naturally in your body

and was able to do the
thing she needed to do.

- [Announcer] A man who can
stop a plane from taking off

with his hair or drive nails
into wood with the palm

of his hand sounds like something ripped

from the pages of a comic book.

Turns out there may be a very good reason.

- Joe Greenstein was really
like a real life superhero.

And was kind of like a Jewish Bruce Lee

that also was really strong.

- The fictional character
that I wondered about

is Superman.

Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster
create the character Superman

sometimes in the late 1930s early 1940s.

- George Reeves was on TV.

He was Superman.

And The Mighty Atom couldn't fly,

but George Reeves the
actor who played Superman

was bending iron bars around
criminals to basically

apprehend them and things like that.

Here was The Mighty Atom
bending these same kind of bars,

live, real.

It kinda bridged between
reality and fantasy for me.

- These are two Jewish comic book writers

and when you think about Superman,

he does all these strong man feats.

So maybe they knew.

- There's so many stories I read about him

vanquishing the bad guy.

Where he's gonna go
out in some dark alley,

just hoping that somebody
would mess with him.

(yells)

- He was walking through the
German Quarter of Manhattan.

And there was a sign on the
second floor of a building,

a big banner saying,

Bund Meeting, No Dogs or Jews Allowed.

He got a hold of this latter
from somebody up the street

and went up there and ...

I think he went in to rip
the sign down (laughs).

- And he took a Hank Greenberg bat,

it was a symbol of that.

And he waited downstairs as they came

tearing down the stairs,

and he came tearing at them with the bat.

- He started hitting a bunch of people,

which must have been wild.

- Knocks all of them out
apparently, according to the court.

And the court throws the case out in part,

so the paper says because
everybody was too injured to

testify against him.

- And these huge Bund members,

all beaten up were
complaining that this guy,

five feet four, 148 pounds,

beat them all up.

- The judge pretty much
threw it out of court

because he couldn't
believe such a small man

could beat up so many big thugs.

(laughs) Taking them all down.

- He was really doing something
important for his community.

He was standing up to Nazism in America.

And in so doing, standing up
to Nazism around the world.

- [Announcer] And the world at that time,

was a volatile place.

Anti-Jewish sentiment was pervasive.

And during his performances or lecturing,

the potential for danger was ever present.

- Atom needed a whole lot more.

He needed a whole lot more
going for him then I did.

There was a lot of prejudices going on.

And which people don't
even understand today,

but I've seen it.

- This is an era of rising anti-Semitism

all around the world.

And although, we tend to
think it didn't effect

the United States,

it actually affected the
United States dramatically.

He met up with a lot of
it as did my brothers.

They don't talk about
it much but they all had

there share of it.

- When people bought a house,

they were written with something called,

restrictive convenance.

And it actually said that
when you bought this house,

when you went to sell it,

you could not sell it to a Jew or to,

they would have said a Negro.

And that's actually law and
eventually has to be overturned

by the Supreme Court.

- It was not common to see
a Jewish athlete performing

or even in competition at that time.

- He was getting people
heckling him all the time.

He got a lot of that heckling
because of the Jewish

star that he wore on his outfit.

He was proud of it.

He never disrespected it in any way.

The same as he never
disrespected any religion.

- He defied anti-Semitism and he fought it

every place he could.

But most of the time he tried to ignore it

unless they provoked him.

Then he would handle it in his own way.

- He was no one to fool
with according to stories

that are pretty well documented.

- One incident when my dad
had a store on Sixth Avenue

in Manhattan when he was
doing his health lecturing,

he used to get hecklers come in.

- And they came in three guys drunk.

And the heckling wouldn't stop.

And my brother Harry intervened and tried

to get them out of the store.

- And the idea is to
just nulify these guys.

Say, hey fellas, you know
he's not bothering you.

Leave quietly and don't bother him.

- They started to fight with Harry.

Harry fought back.

The heckler threw my
brother across the room.

- My dad saw that.

There's no reasoning or
reckoning with these guys.

He jumped off the platform,

beat the three of them.

- Aimed right for one of the hecklers.

Picked him up with both hands,

put him over his head and threw him right

through the plate glass
window of the store

and he landed on the hood
of the car at the curb.

- He avoided fights whenever he could,

but when there was no alternative,

he handled it.

- [Announcer] But the trademark intensity

that allowed the Atom to
handle these situations,

had a flip side.

In order to obtain and hold on to power,

a man must love it.

Learning to let that power go,

could at times be difficult.

- You know there's a fine
line between being crazy

and being extremely courageous.

And you know, some people draw that line

at a different place.

- He was a very unique
and extraordinary man

in a variety of ways.

Like I said,

you had the one side of him
that was very down to earth,

nice man religious gentleman.

Then you had the other side
I guess you would call him

a little bit of a wild man.

- People that do unusual things,

some of them want money,

but most of them want 15 minutes of fame.

Here's their chance for fame.

And typically, I think that's
what motivates all of us.

Is we want somebody to notice us.

We did something worthy that
people are gonna go, wow.

Obviously, dragging
airplanes with your hair

is something that's pretty crazy.

Changing a tire without
tools is pretty crazy

to most average people.

In the same regard, guys
that do 500, 600 pound

overhead lift or lifting
up cars like in these

strong man things and throwing kegs

that's all crazy.

But what isn't.

- I'm sure there's a certain
amount of esteem in it

'cause not everybody can do it.

You are setting yourself apart.

- My father loved an audience.

He loved performing.

He loved being able to
accomplish things that are

considered impossible.

And he gloated over the
fact that he was able to do

all these things.

- Very egotistic.

That to me was his biggest flaw.

A lot of what he did was
because his ego was so great.

He used to drive a nail
with just a hanky protecting

his hand through two inches of lumber.

My brother Harry was able
to do that eventually.

So my dad added 19 sheets of, I think,

12 gage sheet metal on top
of the two inches of lumber

and that was then his number.

Harry couldn't do that.

These are the things that drove him.

He had to do one better than
the guy that did it before.

- He loved the pat on
the back that he got.

That was his life.

He loved it.

And the more he accomplished,

the more he tried to do harder things.

- He once filled his
body with pockets of lead

and hung from an airplane and they flew,

I don't where they flew,

but it was in the newspapers.

He almost killed himself.

He was hanging by the head
of his hair from a plane

laden down with lead weights.

But it was a sensational stunt.

- (laughs) It's just why
would you come up with that?

It's mind boggling what
makes somebody do those

kind of things.

You see Nick Wallenda walk across a wire,

across Niagara Falls, why?

But what makes you do such a thing?

It can have it's downside
because that drive is there

all the time in some aspects of life

and some aspects of how it
comes out in your personality.

It's not always positive,

but it is what it is.

- If you spend your whole
life getting objects

to bend to your will,

everything has to bend to your will.

He was about a lot of things,

many of them were spectacular,

some not so good.

But he led a life that
was unique and impossible

to duplicate in this day.

- If you see a 60 year
old guy drop to the floor

and do 10, 15 pushups,

in his generation, that's like, wow,

that's good.

And it is.

But if you can take steel bar,

an inch steel bar and twist
it, bend it into a pretzel

or make ornamental sculpture out of it,

that's more impressive.

There's less people able to do that.

(upbeat music)

- All right, well here,
I've got some hand bent

steel in various stages of complete.

Some horseshoes I bent and just painted.

That's just rusty, jagged steel.

You know we would just
bend for fun and this piece

up here, this was my first scroll.

When I did it, I immediately
saw the potential

for artwork in it.

So I painted it and I
mounted it in that pot

using concrete and other scrap metal.

I opened a gym in 2011.

Art and Strength just seemed
like a good fit for it.

I bring most of my finished
pieces in here to put

them on display.

This is an interesting piece right here.

You've got very little
control over the shape

that it's going to take.

As you're twisting it,

it just starts to fold over itself.

And I'll just keep twisting it
until it won't twist anymore

or until I find a design that
looks aesthetically pleasing.

Find the right steel here.

(zips)

(brushes)

All right, now that I got
the rust knocked off of it,

I'm gonna try to make a wine rack.

Like that there.

(exhales)

(grunts)

Ah!

This is where it gets
tough when you start to get

coils in there.

You lose leverage.

Ah!

(grunts)

Hm, let's see.

Not bad.

The first time I met Dennis,

he was quartering a deck
of cards behind his back

with two fingers.

So he tore a deck of cards in half

and then he tore the half again,

in half behind his back with
three fingers taped down.

So he only had these two fingers available

and he was doing it behind his back.

Blew my mind.

And the guys like, you know
160 pounds and 50 years old.

What, how is this guy doing this?

It was amazing.

The Mighty Atom originated
a lot of the things

that I do.

The horseshoe bending,

the nail bending.

And that has been passed down
through Slim The Hammerman

to Dennis Rogers to myself.

And it's a neat thing to be a part of.

To have a piece of that passed down to me,

it's really cool.

- Half of the ability to do these things

is the ignoring the pain
that is involved in doing

these numbers.

You have the head of the nail in one side,

the point of the nail in the other,

and you've got to bend it.

They drive into the palms of your hands.

And it hurts.

- Really, I think, anybody
is capable of doing that.

If you can get over the idea
that it's gonna hurt your hand.

- But your brain says to you,

hey, this hurts me.

They might be strong enough to do it

but they stop because of the pain.

And you have to ignore the pain.

- We have organs called,
golgi tendon organs

that are between our muscle
fibers and our muscle tendons.

And what they do is they inhibit,

muscle forces.

They're purely designed
to protect ourselves

and not strain our muscles
and hurt ourselves.

- You get to where you say, okay,

basically are you gonna let
this piece of steel punk you?

Are you gonna be a baby
and let it you know.

Oh it hurts, I can't do it.

And you just think of other things.

You don't think about okay,

I'm gonna push this piece
of steel down on my leg

and I know it's gonna hurt.

Oh, no, you don't think about that.

You say, I'm gonna push
this piece of steel down

on my leg and I'm gonna own it.

I'm gonna crush it.

It is going to crumble.

- And they have to override
this mechanism that

inhibits muscles and says,

mellow out, don't hurt yourself.

So a lot of what athletes
do is really a unity

or a synergy of mind and body.

- When I first made a pull
of a truck with my hair,

my brothers told me it's gonna hurt.

And all of the sudden you're
gonna feel like a bat hit you.

When that happens, pull harder.

- Most people, when they
tried to pull any sort

of vehicle with just their hair alone,

give up and start chasing
the vehicle before

they could actually pull it.

- And suddenly, it was like a whang.

It was like I walked into a pole.

My head, I couldn't believe it.

And they had talked me
into pulling harder.

And the truck started to move.

Once it's rolling its easy.

Course my head swelled up
and I looked like a gargoyle

for three weeks afterwards.

And I swore to never do it again.

One of the many reasons that
I am probably my brothers

never went into it any further is that,

the pain was not to be ignored.

Most people feel that there
are tricks involved anyway.

And don't believe that
what you are doing is real.

And I couldn't stand
that 'cause I knew what

it took to do these things.

- [Long John Nebel] Well,
how do you make a living

doing this?

- [Joseph] By selling my product?

- [Long John Nebel] What is your product?

- [Joseph] I sell an herb.

- [Long John Nebel] Right.

- [Joseph] I sell a soap.

- [Long John Nebel] Right.

- [Joseph] A liniment.

- [Long John Nebel] Right.

- [Joseph] I sell a vitamin.

- His main source of income was lecturing

and selling his health products.

And he was also paid by the insurance pool

to lecture to people to make
them more health conscious.

- On the back of his
truck he had a platform.

He had photographs of
himself doing all his feats.

In order to attract people he
would bend a couple of spikes,

twist a horseshoe, do odds and ends.

People would be curious and gather.

- He was such an intelligent man,

when it came to the anatomy.

I think he was quite
successful in his products

that he sold, like soap.

- He would have special
soap with coconut oil in it.

And at the end of his show,

he would try to segway into
the products that he sells

at that table over to
his left or something.

And he wet his beard,

he got the soap wet and he
started washing his beard.

Which was about four to six inches long.

And he said, it's good for the hair,

it's good for the skin,

it's good for the pores.

And then, I'll never
forget he went like these,

got some lather and it's also nutritious.

And he ate some of the lather.

Well, you can imagine the crowd going, oh.

And he goes no, no, it's okay.

You wanna try some?

- Well he talked about this health elixir

that he bent some steel bars,

probably 10 inches a foot long,

then he talked about some soap.

- He was there to sell his product,

not to perform.

But his performances were the
magnet to draw the people.

As he started talking about the product,

they would start to fall off a little bit.

And he was very much aware of that.

He would put the product down
and pick up the item again.

And you'd see the people
start sucking in again.

And he used to wink at me
showing me how to do this.

How do keep the people
attracted to what he was doing.

And so he could tie in his
products with his ability

to do what he was able to do.

- It's well beyond the
snake oil type business

that he could prove that
this was really a good thing

for your body and it worked for him.

And you know, he was satisfied
giving away his product

to people that doubted him and stuff.

You had to be convinced it's
gonna work and here's why.

- There was a lot of
quackery in those days.

If you look at really some
of the older magazines

from back in the early 19s.

There were a lot of guys that
just had some bizarre ideas.

Joe Greenstein was more
scientific in his approach.

A lot of things that he knew back then,

would probably still be valid to this day.

- He had a herb to cleanse the stomach.

- He used to quote a British doctor,

Sir Albert North Lane who said,

"constipation is the mother
and father of all disease.".

And he developed this
laxative that would marvelous,

it worked so well.

It was natural, it was herbal,
way ahead of it's time,

but it tasted awful.

- He said, did you ever
walk by the bathroom?

And the doors close and you hear a lion

on the other side of the door?

You hear all this roaring
and all these loud noises.

He says, elimination should be easy.

It should be smooth.

It should be regular.

You should not be straining.

He made his own liniment
for aches and pains.

You'd apply it to your skin.

People rubbed it on their temples,

it took away headaches.

- He's organic before it was popular.

If he was alive today,

he'd probably have a line of organic food

or something that would
be million dollar sellers.

- He developed all these
health products himself.

They were his own formulas.

- It was secret ingredients
that even I don't know.

- I don't know how he accomplished
a lot of these things.

You had to have some brains to do it.

- You know, today you got grocery stores

that just sell pills.

It's big, big business.

I'm happy people were listening to him.

- [Long John Nebel] Did you ever smoke?

- [Joseph] No, never smoked, no.

- [Long John Nebel] Have
you ever been a drinker?

I don't mean a lush but ...

- [Joseph] No, never.

I believe in moderation in everything.

Diet is a great thing.

But some people diet until
they die at a young age.

- Something else that he did,

that I found very interesting
was that he fasted

one day a week.

He cleansed the body.

- Wednesday was his day to fast.

And he did that as far as I remember.

All the years.

- Fasting is totally his visit to India.

Almost every good Hindu,

one day a week,

and the whole body does
need to be cleansed.

- Breakfast, breakfast
is composed of two words.

It's break and fast.

When you wake up,

you're supposed to be hungry.

He would say your digestive
system needs a rest also.

- Clean living.

He always professed clean living.

Don't eat anything that is
gonna do your body harm.

- You know God gave us
everything we need to eat right.

It's growing in the ground you know.

It's you can pick from
a tree or something.

Things that people eat today.

The chemicals they put in.

No wonder people are sick at 40 and 50.

And where he was at the
time was maybe 200 feet

from a graveyard.

He was at the one end of
the Great Allentown Fair.

And I remember him
pointing to the graveyard,

and saying you dig your grave
with your knife and fork.

- Strength was not the
key to what he was trying

to show people.

What he was trying to
show people was fitness

and health.

- He tried to inspire people
to live healthier lives,

take care of their body and mind.

That was his idea of trying
to convince people to live

a good life.

- [Joseph] Strength and health
are two different things.

- [Long John Nebel] That's what I think.

- [Joseph] I've seen
people three times the size

of my muscles sick and die at a young age.

I've again seen people
skinny like toothpicks

in perfect health.

Strength has nothing to do with health.

You cannot become strong unless
you are healthy internally.

- As well as he did with
the health products,

he had a much harder time
with other businesses.

He failed a lot.

- The myth about Jewish
businessmen is one that he can

really put to rest because he
was a terrible businessman.

- A health resort.

A panoramic mountain
house was a dream of his

for many years.

- The idea was it was
a place you could come

and focus on your health.

Which is common now, but it
really wasn't at the time.

- The family got together,

we all dug and made a swimming pool.

It was what they called
in Georgia, Cockalane.

All the tenants had their own room,

and there was a community
kitchen for everyone

do their own cooking.

Make their own meals.

- So you could learn
to cook a healthy meal

and then bring those skills back with you

to your everyday life.

- That along with many other ideas he had

never worked out.

- [Long John Nebel] It looks to me,

and I'm giving you a square account,

if somebody said,

"How is he?".

I'd say, "Well, he's gotta be about 65.".

How old are you, Joe?

- [Joseph] I'll be 87 my next birthday.

- [Long John Nebel] 87?

- [Joseph] That's right.

- Oh, he lied about his age all the time.

Who knows why?

Maybe vanity, maybe insecurity.

But he would lie about his age.

He always added 10 years to his age.

He never felt that what he
was doing at whatever age

it was was good enough.

If he did something and he was 60,

and he's day well, if
they thought I was 70,

that'd really be something.

I said, Pop, you're bending an iron bar,

cold rolled steel with your bare hands,

over your leg, over your arm.

And you're making it into a horseshoe

and you're 60 years old.

Nah, but 70, they'll think it's something.

60's is nah, somebody else can do that.

- He never saw what he did was incredible.

When he passed we got papers
from all over the world.

94 year old strong man dies.

And we at that point had
to then tell the newspapers

he was 84.

He had a touch of P.T.
Barnum in him for sure.

I think he just wanted
to give the audience

something special,

something they could remember him by.

- The Mighty Atom, Slim
the Hammerman, myself,

the strong men that do what we do,

we are what I call, old time strong men.

You have old time strong men,

which are strong men that
do things in performance.

You have the regular
strong men who are the guys

you see on TV that are
lifting the big stones,

pulling trucks and dead
lifting the big tires

things like that.

And then, you have another
group that are just grip guys.

The grip guys is closely associated with

the old time strong men.

The only difference is
the grip guys are saying,

okay, I'm going after this record.

I wanna bend this
particular piece of steel.

I wanna do as the toughest
horseshoe or whatever.

My group, the old time strong
men is solely thinking on

yes, we want to do world class feats.

But again, we're about the performance.

We're about keeping that art alive.

We're performance artists.

The things that's common between all of us

and people that are
inexperienced don't think about

is thumb strength.

This being strong.

If you think about this.

If my thumb is weak how could
I clamp around that nail?

And keep it from popping my thumbs open?

How could I take and tear the
corner off a deck of cards

or rip a thumb sized
chunk out of the side.

Or rip it into strips,
how could I do that?

When you're a performance artist,

you wanna have a unique act.

Everybody has the staple
items in their routine.

If you can't bend a 60
penny nail for example,

then step back until you can.

You're not a professional strong man.

Then, you look at being creative

and creating maybe what you might call

your signature feats.

Things that they say,

oh, you know what this guy
does this with his teeth.

Or this with his hair.

You know Mike, Mighty Atom's son.

He's 93 years old,

he's pulling cars and trucks
on America's Got Talent.

(applause)

And you don't really see
that out there today.

- My name is Mike Greenstein.

December I was 93.

- For anybody who doubts this is real,

just look at my uncle Mike.

He was 93 year old,

on the streets in Manhattan,

in front of thousands of people.

- [Announcer] Three, two, one, go!

- And he did the impossible.

- [Announcer] Go Mike go!

Go Mike Go!

Go Mike Go!

It's moving.

- There's no earthly reason
why a 93 year old man

would be able to do this,

other than the fact that
he just told himself

he was going to.

- [Announcer] Wow!

(applause)

- If that doesn't inspire you,

what does?

(applause)

- It just shows you he's not washed up,

he's not sitting in his
lazy boy with his teeth

back in the sink.

He's out there and he's chomping
down on piece of leather

and pulling a car.

And I'm like, oh my gosh,

93 years old.

It tells me that I can keep on going.

- [Long John Nebel] -
We've been talking with

a gentleman that I've
known for many many years,

Joe Greenstein, The Mighty Atom,

the strongest man in the world.

We were delighted to
have a chance to see him.

Thanks Joe, very much.

- [Joseph] Thank you John.

- Toward the end of his life,

even when he ended up in the hospital,

he would walk around from room to room,

refuse to stay in bed
talking to the patients

telling them that it
pays to fight and go on

and carry on.

My brother Irving and
myself had to bring a dozen

60 penny spikes to the hospital daily.

He walked around from room to room

bending spikes for the
patients to show them

that even with his illness,

it pays to fight and
carry on and keep doing.

This went on for weeks.

The pains they said was
very severe at one time.

They sedated him because of the pain.

15, 20 minutes before
that he was walking around

bending the spikes with the patients,

when they sedated him,

15 minutes later he
was gone, he passed on.

And that's how he devoted his life.

Showing people that it
pays not to give up.

- There was absolutely nothing
special about Joe Greenstein

or Mike Greenstein other
than the fact that they

convinced themselves
their going to be special.

And what if you could apply
that to everywhere else

in your life?

There's no reason why you
can't apply that to science.

Or to athletics or to your job

or to your relationships.

If you convince yourself
something will happen,

it'll happen.

I don't think we even
know what is possible.

(calm music)

(upbeat music)