Episode 510 – Life is about opportunities

• Welcome back to all my listeners
• Episode 510 already
• Thanksgiving is over and now we are heading straight towards Christmas
• If you celebrated TG, I hope you had a wonderful and relaxing time
• I was in Utah and I will share some highlights from this trip in a later episode
• As you know, travel always inspires me
• I am known to write 1, sometimes 2 episodes on flights or at my travel destination
• Except this time I didn’t take my laptop because we car-camped
• In the climbing world, this is called dirt bagging
• It’s a thing
• People do it for months, sometimes years
  • Sleeping in their cars or in nicer vans, if they have the budget
  • And then driving cross country and climbing along the way
  • Something I did all summer, for one, at the most 3 nights in a row
  • I shared some of those experiences with you
  • Something I would consider doing for longer but not alone
  • Although that’s also a thing
  • Women do it
  • I am not sure I could
  • I would be afraid of getting lonely
  • Maybe a little scared for my safety
  • Although I imagine I would learn to become more social much quicker in an effort to find climbing partners
  • Anyway – its something in the back of my mind, but the time is not ripe for it yet
  • Not sure it will ever be

• Today I want to share something that inspired me greatly
• Just like I seek to inspire you with this podcast, I also need inspiration
• Travel and the outdoors are my usual places of inspiration
• Other podcasts that I listen to on my commute
• But on Friday before Thanksgiving, I had the unique opportunity to attend the Spartan leadership conference
  • You may be familiar with the Spartan races
  • Maybe you have even participated in them
  • I have not but I know a little bit about them
• A friend invited me to attend that leadership conference which I didn’t know existed
• And as a site note
• Not to harp on the friends thing again
• But I spoke about it in my thankful episode before thanksgiving
• My friends are what I am most grateful for at the moment
• This Spartan event confirms to me yet again –
  • the importance of having amazing people in our lives
• Because those people will invite you to special events
  • Maybe not right away
  • It may take some time
  • But it will happen if you do your part
• There is nothing wrong with going to the movies or dinner
  • But we already do this anyways
  • We do this with co-workers, family members and pretty much everyone else
• But with special people, we do special things
  • Like going to a leadership conference
  • A networking event
  • A private gathering with a specific purpose
  • A mentoring conversation

• The friend that invites you to such a special event has more than just entertainment in mind
• This friend wants to see you grow, wants to help you connect, wants to accompany you on your journey to success
  • Even if just for a few moments
• Special friends help you walk
• They take you along with them, invest their precious time with you, and teach you,
• I felt deeply grateful to my friend Mike who organized this outing
• I learned a lot and it also helped us bond us closer as friends
• I can’t urge you enough my friends:
• Find those people
• The more of them you have in your life, the more you will see yourself move forward and upward
• But enough said, as my friend Bipin would say
• Lets talk about Janine
• Yes Janine
• Not me
• Another Janine
• A Janine I met at the Spartan Leadership conference
• I dont come across a lot of Janine’s so when I do – I usually perk up
• But this Janine, Janine Shephard is her name, had way more to offer than just a shared name
• What a story my friends
• And you are not missing out with a watered- down version from me
• You can watch her TED talk where she shares it in detail
• And I will link to it in my show notes
• Its called A broken body isn’t a broken person
• And I will not give much of the story away because I want you to listen to it for yourself
  • I don’t want you to listen to it because of the dramatic story she tells although you will find yourself holding your breath
  • I don’t want you to listen so you can feel sorry for her and be grateful nothing like this has happened to you, although you may do just that
  • I want you to listen because of a very simple and sobering reason:
  • she shows us that life happens to all of us
  • But it us who get to decide what to do with whatever happens

• Janine starts her TED talk with this sentence :

Life is about opportunities — creating them and embracing them. 

• Yet, when we think about opportunities, we often think of adventures, special occasions and unique events
• And this is how she begins her story
• She was an Olympic skier – what an opportunity – that was her life – a happy life
• But then another part of life happened and things changed quite dramatically for her
• And this is when we the word opportunity takes on a different meaning
• In fact, that’s when we quite often don’t see life as an opportunity anymore but as something that happens to us
• Something we have been singled out for
  • Misfortune, bad luck, punishment
• WHY ME, we often ask
• WHY ME – I have asked countless times
•  
• In her speech at the conference she suggested a different approach
• WHY NOT ME
• She offered
• I thought about this, still think about it now, days later
• We don’t have an answer to WHY ME
  • We can speculate
  • We can lament and whine and pity ourselves
  • And we do it plenty
• But try asking WHY NOT ME
  • I did
  • I played with that
• And I noticed – that it changes my thinking from a state of resignation to one of search
• now the work begins
• the effort to try to find a different path
• Now you actually have to stand up for yourself
• Why not you?
• Just because this happened, however hard it is, and in her case it was damn hard
• how much can it hold you back?
• Life is about opportunities
• And yes, sometimes they come to us, easily and smoothly – just like the invitation to that conference
• And other times we have to dig with a shovel in frozen ground to find the tiniest sliver of hope
• The opportunities in life are there, they are just not always obvious
•  
• Here is a sentence she shared in her speech I absolutely loved:
• Life is never about rearranging the external, its always about rearranging the internal
• Yet what we do is so often oriented towards the external
  • We try to control and plan and schedule
• When adversity hits us, we want to understand
• We seek for reasons in the world around us as to why this happened to us
• You have no idea how many times I have been through this
• In my younger years, I couldn’t grasp it when something bad happened
• My logically-leaning mind tried to find an explanation
• Well, I have finally learned that the explanation matters very little
• For the most part, we rarely get an explanation
  • Illness, accidents, other life struggles – they happen and often cannot be explained
• But even when we get clarity, this understanding doesn’t help us move forward
• We can only move forward by looking within
• And by changing our perspective on the event from a WHY ME, to a WHY NOT ME
• And by looking for the opportunity in this
• She offered the phrase
• Whats the gift in this > short: WTGIT
• Finding the gift in adversity is at the same time finding the opportunity
• And opportunities help us move forward
• I know how hard this is
• Especially when you are finding yourself right in the middle of a deep crisis
• But here is an exercise that Janine shared with us during the workshop that I want to pass on to you because it can help you with your current and future adversity
• She calls it the five chairs and I wont walk you through each of the chairs
• But if you watch her TED talk, she has 5 chairs lined up and she uses them during her speech
• The essence of this exercise is to recall an event from the past that had a profound impact on your life and then to think about you navigated through this event
• Because we all have had those events
• And we all came out at the other end, otherwise we wouldn’t be here
• And I think its extremely helpful to recall one of those moments and really think about how you moved through it and how life changed after you did
• I had several of those, the most impactful one was probably my divorce
• It was, as we so often say afterwards, a blessing in disguise

• My friends
• I don’t know you
• I don’t know what you have been though
• But here is what I can offer:
• Don’t let anyone set the limits of your life for you
  • Not any ex partner
  • Not your parents
  • Not a negligent person that caused you harm
  • Not any event that altered your course
• You are in charge
• The current life may not match the life you had before
• It may not be the life you had imagined for yourself
• Maybe it’s a life you don’t think deserve
• But it is – YOUR LIFE
• And its waiting to be lived
•  
• I love the quote Janine shares in her TED talk and want to so add it here as well

Lao Tzu

When you let go of what you are, you become what you might be

3 tasks for you today :

• Go and Watch Janine’s TED talk if this resonates with you
• Come to my event here in Oakland on December 8^th
  • More info on my website under EVENTS
• AND
• Share this episode, especially with someone you know is going through a hard time

Talk soon

Much love

Links:

https://events.com/r/en_US/tickets/spartanx-leadership—san-francisco-ca-sf-november-767941

https://www.ted.com/talks/janine_shepherd_a_broken_body_isn_t_a_broken_person?language=en#t-143869