Dissecting The Anatomy Of Resilience With Chad Foster

I guess that Seeing eye dog just walked in. Maybe it's him, I don't know. The fact that I, in order to be able to get around and do all the things that I do, I also have to be a professional dog trainer. Yeah. To be able to go from point A to point B. So yeah, I've traveled, what, 250 days out of the year last year, did 50 keynotes, 7, 8 countries, something like that. And traveling by myself with a seeing eye dog. This is a new seeing eye dog, having to get him trained up and ready to go. In addition to all the other things that I've done, that people talk about. Yeah, I travel quite a bit internationally and domestically, obviously by myself. It's just me and my guide dog. In order to do that, I also have to be a professional dog handler, dog trainer, to be able to get him to understand what I need him to find me. So he has to locate things for me. And who knew growing up that I would also, in order to navigate the change in my life, have to adapt and learn how to understand dog psychology, dog behavior, and train a dog to be able to get me from point A to point B? But that's the fact of the matter of where I live today. And so— Yeah. I tell people it's a really good time to go blind. I know they think I'm joking, but it's not really a joke. It's a little tongue-in-cheek, but there are things like guide dogs and smartphones and the internet and computers and screen reading software and all those things that make things more accessible. So in the long arc of history, when you think about it, this really is a good time to go blind. Your listeners don't have to worry. We're not recruiting or taking applications or anything, but it really is a good time based on all the tools that are around us.

Yeah. Tell me more. I'm just— because I'm a dog person. I love dogs, have always. We've, we've always— this is a period of our lives right now we don't actually have dogs, but for so long, especially while we were raising our kids, we always had at least 2 dogs. And so I do miss them. That's another topic for another day, perhaps. But, but tell me about this dog, this new dog. Is it a shepherd?

It's a shepherd. Yeah, German Shepherd named Major. Last German Shepherd, last dog I had, his name was Sarge, so I figured I'd give this one a promotion.

I love it.

And, um, you would think with a name like Sergeant Major they would be a little aggressive or whatever. He's absolutely the opposite of that. He is the most kind-hearted dog you've ever seen. He's a Labrador wrapped in German Shepherd clothing. And I guess even more ironically, the German Shepherd I had named Romeo years ago, who you would think would be a lover, not a fighter, was the aggressive one. So it's interesting how things work out. Yeah. But this guy's just turned 2 years old in November, and so he's learning the ropes. So they don't roll off the print press. It's not like you get a seeing-eye dog and they come equipped, ready to take you. You can't just go to wherever, say you're going into Hartsfield-Jackson Airport and you say, all right, take me to gate B18. Dog's not going to know what that is. And so you have to get the dog used to the environment that you're in, and I have to obviously know where I'm going. Communicate to the dog whether we're going left or right, or whether to look for an escalator or an elevator or a gate, or I tell the dog what to look for. The dog finds point-to-point directions, and so we work as a team. He's only as good as my ability to give him directions, and he's only as good as my ability to teach him what those directions mean. He didn't really know what escalator was when I got him, and so I had to teach him what an escalator was, what a countertop was, people movers, upstairs versus downstairs, how to locate a chair for me. Which is actually not finding a chair for a dog. It's locating a place to sit down. It's a very abstract concept that you're teaching a dog because every chair looks different. You've got chairs that look like theater seats. You've got classroom seats. You've got recliners. You've got benches. You've got just all kinds of different things. And we call them chairs. But really what we're saying is, hey, Major, find me a place to sit down. And that takes some time and some exposure. And there are different techniques we use to help them with that. And further to that, it's find me an open chair, a place to sit down that's not occupied.

Right.

That's even more complicated for that.

He'll ask Major to be a bouncer too. Clear some space for me here.

Yeah, which he can do. He can do. People will see him coming and of course they're like very accommodating and they'll make room for him. But I try to not let him get by with that if I can, because he'll just obviously lean into that. But really kindhearted dog. And it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun to see the learning take place and to see how they continue to evolve. And that whole process of getting them up to speed takes about 12 to 18 months after we get them. I've had him for about 6 months so far, so we're still in the early innings, but he's doing really well. He's handling all the international travel exceptionally well, so I'm, I'm really happy about that.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com. And not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. Yeah. And who are you providing feedback about Major? By the way, my wife had a dog named Major. She grew up with a Major Willie, I think was their name.

Oh, no kidding.

Yeah, great dog, a collie. So when you're giving feedback to Major, what does that look like? Are you giving it directly to the dog, or are you giving it to the dog's other trainers or handlers that you've got helping you with them?

No, it's just me and Major now. So the other people who trained the dog, they did that for 3 months, and then I went there and I was with Major for 2 weeks, and I came home with him, and then it's me and him. And so if I need to go back to them for some reason, they're always— there's a hotline. I can always send an email, shoot a text message, or whatever. But I haven't really had the need for that. It's, it's me and Major. And so the feedback really is how you train the dog. Mm-hmm. It's the way that you handle the dog. And so it's using a lot of positive reinforcement. It's using Holding a dog to a high standard, but at the same time setting the dog up for success. A lot of praise, a lot of correction when it's needed, and correction has to fit the crime. So there's a ladder that you use to step up on correction. You start low and work your way up depending on how misbehaving the dog is. This guy requires almost no correction because he's so kindhearted and he just genuinely wants to make me happy. And I think the schools, the really advanced schools like the Seeing Eye, they invest about $75,000 into each one of these dogs. They're paying attention to that. They want dogs who want to work and who want to make the handler happy because it makes handling much easier. Sure. And it takes less correction. And so years ago, I would have dogs that required more correction, and now it seems like I rarely ever have to correct the dog. It's just, you know, a really light verbal and he'll, he'll get it. And then you redirect, tell him what you want him to do, and he'll be right on path. But it's, it's always those principles, right? Praise, correction, repetition. Set them up for success. Punishment fits the crime. Use a ladder when you can, but always positive reinforcement trains the dog a whole lot more effectively than negative reinforcement.

All right, so this may be the— a little inelegant, or maybe not, I don't know— a segue into talking about leadership and people and using what you've learned as a dog handler, among other things, as a blind person navigating the world in need of this assistance, of this partner To get to accomplish what you're looking for. I want to see where are the parallels between what you've learned in that space and the way that people work together when they want to accomplish something together. And this is the same sort of a scenario where you're relying on one another.

I'd start with, it's hard to inspire discretionary effort out of anyone with negative reinforcement, or any dog, I guess I should say. Any one person or any one animal Positive reinforcement inspires discretionary effort. If you're looking to get the most out of your team, coming down hard on them, probably not going to work. At the same time, you have to hold people accountable. And so there's, there's this fine balance of holding people accountable with kindness, coming from a place of caring for the person and for the dog, and showing the dog and the person know that you care about them. At an individual level. And I don't mean I care about the work that you do for me. I care about you as a person, as a dog. And I want you to be successful, and I want to show you what success looks like. When we're training dogs, we show them the task that we want, and it's up to us to make sure that task is clear. If the dog makes a mistake early on, You don't use a lot of correction because the dog is still learning. And so correcting a dog for a task it hasn't mastered is not fair. And that's true with people.

We don't get harsh with children when they're learning how to tie their shoes or when they're learning how to walk. Yeah, exactly. Just a parallel to what you're saying.

Exactly. And so then again, once we know that they know how to do it, if they make a mistake, We have to hold them accountable. And again, we come from a place of kindness with it, and we use a ladder when handling dogs and hopefully handling people. You don't fly off the rails with somebody. You just— you use accountability. You make sure that they know that they messed up, and you point out what it was. You be very specific about it, and you give them a chance to do it again. And then when they get it right, you throw a party for them. And that's what we do with dogs. We make sure that the praise that they receive for doing something positive far outweighs the negative of when they mess up. I think it was John Gottman, the psychologist who studied relationships amongst couples, who found that the most

damaging—

The couples who had the longest lasting relationships, the strongest relationships, they found had 5 positive interactions to every 1 negative. 5 to 1. So think about that. Think about your own life. And let's just— dogs, we can put dogs aside for a minute. Think about your relationships, your spouse, your kids, your manager, your team. Are you having a 5 to 1 interaction, positive to negative, with those folks? Or is it something different? And really makes you reflect because you're not married to those people, but hey, that's the most significant relationship we have is with our spouse. But I think human relationships are pretty similar. If you want to build a connection with somebody, it starts by treating them well. And there's no better way of doing that than showing them more positive than negative reinforcement.

I think I remember some of that research back in the day and recall also that the— on the other side of the spectrum is like disdain. That what was an indicator of what would get in the way of a successful relationship there was the looking at somebody, treating somebody with disdain. And so, yeah. So the 5— that 5 to 1 really makes— and I'm thinking to myself, this all sounds so obvious. And with a dog, and again, just anybody might be going, where are we going with this dog person, right? It could be a cat person, it could be no animal person, whatever it is. But it's nature, right? We're nature. We're all part of nature. These are living beings. Yeah. How do you get the most out of— the best out of ourselves? But in nature, how do we interact with one another, with every living thing in the most Optimal and effective, beautiful, loving way that's possible. And and probably with when you think about dog training, everybody would understand why you would go really above and beyond to praise the behavior that you're looking for. Whether it's to give them the dog treat or it's lots of love and pulling on their fur and kissing them and just everything. I'm just having a laugh here around the water cooler in the office or wherever it is. We're not going to do that with each other in that same way. We're not going to hug and grab each other. HR would have a freakout right before.

Yeah, when you take it that far. But think about this too. Think about all the tools we use in corporate that cost the company money. Praise doesn't cost a thing. Public recognition—

Say that again, please, Chad. Just say that one more time.

Yeah. Think about all the things we do in corporate that cost money to show recognition. But the truth is, praise, especially public praise, doesn't cost a thing. That's the most powerful kind. Obviously, you could praise privately. That's not nearly as effective as praising publicly. And you always Praise publicly and hold accountable more privately if possible to help the person. Praise is— it's free, and it's one of the most powerful motivators we have of human behavior is recognizing the hard work that people are putting in, the effort, and of course, the results that go along with that.

Yes. So there's no way in the time that we've got to cover this full landscape of your journey, but can you take us in big sort of leaps from early on in your life and where began— and where you began to pivot, if I could use that term, to utilize what— I don't know if you call blindness a disability or not, or have another word for it, but you are lacking one sense, and that puts you at, on some level, at some disadvantage. And on another level, and many other levels, I suppose, you have heightened senses. When did you start to realize that maybe this was a blessing and not a curse. And I don't know whether you ever thought it was a curse.

Yeah, I did. So I'll give you the quick thumbnail of the background leading up to that, and then I'll pause on the point where I started realizing that this could actually be a positive thing. Growing up, I could see. I played sports, played basketball, played football, played soccer, drove a car, rode a bike, all the things. But at 3 and a half years old, my parents noticed I had a hard time seeing in really dark places. So they took me to Duke University Medical Center. where they diagnosed me with an inherited eye condition called retinitis pigmentosa, or RP for short. So the doctors told my parents they should take me home, sign me up for a special school for only blind people. But instead, my parents chose to put me in soccer at 4 years old, 3 years old, whatever that was. And then I started from there, playing soccer, playing basketball, all the things that I mentioned. And then I was bumping into things, learning the limitations of my eyesight by literally running into things. So think at dusk, at night, all those things when I wasn't sure What I couldn't see, because I couldn't see it, I would find out something's there by running into it. And so I was at the hospital a lot. One time I ran into a water truck that had a pipe on the back of it that was parked in the driveway on the farm, my grandparents' farm. I couldn't see it. We were at dusk and I was running down the driveway full speed and had to get rushed to the hospital with a police escort. I was at the hospital so much they questioned my parents and I in separate rooms because they thought they were beating me. So that happened. There was physically discomfort learning the limitations of my eyesight, and then In high school, couldn't drive at night like a lot of my friends because I couldn't see well enough to drive at night. That was socially uncomfortable. And then when I was in college at the University of Tennessee getting my undergrad, I was studying to go into the medical field because I wanted to help other people. And then I had the anatomy and physiology classes, could no longer see to complete those. And I had this moment where I realized when I was studying for one of my British literature classes, I couldn't see the words on the page in front of me anymore, regardless of what lighting system I used or How much time I used to rest my eyes. And so that was a moment that I realized my life was about to change. Everything that people had warned me could happen was about to happen. I was about to go into darkness, figuratively, metaphorically, all those things. And that was a really tough time. Had to get a medical withdrawal from my major because I wasn't even sure how I was going to help myself at that moment, let alone how I was going to help other people in the medical field. Went into business at that point, switched my major, lost about 3 years of university work, went into a— Pretty, pretty bad spiral at that point, feeling, woe is me, life sucks, everything's unfair, none of my friends have to deal with this, why does this have to happen to me? And so I go into this pretty dark place, figuratively and literally. And then I go to get my first dog when I was 23 years old, get my first seeing eye dog there in Michigan at a place called the Leader Dogs for the Blind. And so I was there and I met some folks there who changed the way that I looked at everything. So I met folks there, some of them had mental impairments in addition to being blind, some of them Some of them had cognitive impairments. They were on dialysis. They had diabetes. And then there were these girls who were deaf and blind, and they really profoundly changed how I looked at everything in my life. Just seeing the living courage exhibited by these people just blew the self-pity right out of me. And it almost was like a button. You could push a button, and I came back from that experience with a newfound appreciation for all the things that I had that I had taken for granted. It taught me the importance of gratitude in informing our perspective. And so that shifted my attitude. Everything changed from that point forward. My attitude did a complete 180-degree turn. I came back to University of Tennessee, had to relearn how to learn, made straight A's, made the Dean's List, learned how to use the technology that blind people need to use called screen readers, got a job at a top consulting firm, went into the corporate workforce in Atlanta. Had to move to Atlanta. I was terrified, still did it because I knew I had to do it. I couldn't turn back because I was scared of not knowing what was possible. Entered the workforce, figured out that a lot of the technology that I needed to use didn't work with everything out of the box. So I found a Word document online that had an instruction manual on how to engineer the software that blind people need to use called screen reading software. And so I taught myself how to write code to engineer that software so that I could do my job more effectively. Ended up doing that professionally for a while, started a consulting business where I did that for different companies. In fact, I got so good at it that Oracle started referring me work because I had learned that one of their CRM applications, someone had told me that it wasn't possible to make it work. One of the, the Oracle reps said, no, it can't be done. But I'd already actually already done it for one of my clients. A friend of mine from Anderson Consulting had, had come to me and I'd written some code to make one of their CRM applications work. for the blind. And at the time, I was the only person in the world who could do that. And as a result, I ended up getting a lot of referral business as well as called to testify in some court cases for various things. And so that was a pivot that I made from then, from tech into corporate. Started doing marketing for large commercial outsourcing deals, got into the pricing of large commercial outsourcing deals, did the financial modeling, hundreds of financial models. My blindness gave me an advantage in that respect because I had to really see that modeling set more deeply. So I wrote 13,000 lines of computer code to integrate my software with the Document Object Model. And so I would automate a lot of the work that we had to do as a team. In fact, the company started adopting a lot of my tools for the entire team, Visual Basic macros that I'd written to speed up the work that needed to be done.

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. Is it amazing to you, Chad, just that you could express or experience what you're sharing with us right now only a few years after you were literally 9 You were stuck and not going anywhere with it. It wasn't any change to your— you learned new skills, but there was a different shift that had to take place in order for you to see that real about-face in what you were experiencing out of life. I don't know how many years in what you just described from the point where you're out of college, really not a lot of options, it sounded like, and feeling pretty shitty about it— Yeah. To a place where you're really offering up a lot of service value to— in a variety of different ways on the tech side, but in many areas. What's the difference between those 2 points in time? I look back at 10 years in my life or 20 years or 30 years now, and it's a blink. It's literally a flash. And so—

It is.

Yeah. So what, in that flash period that where time and space just collapse, it seems, what's the difference between you, Chad previous, and you, Chad present?

That was— even the time we're talking about was a good— for me, getting the dog was 8 years. So dog to 8 years, that was that point in time. And that was in 2007. Yeah. What I'm describing. And so that was still a good 15, 17 years ago. And it's been light years I've moved since then. But the difference is hope and optimism and agency in the situation. I saw that there was hope because of the technology that was available, which created optimism. And then I saw that I had some agency in the situation because I could use the computer. I could figure out how to write the code. It was hard. I wasn't a computer science major, but I saw that it was possible, and that gave me agency. And I knew that my effort would control my destiny, and I knew that the computer was my portal to the world. I'd been given this golden opportunity. to go blind at the dawn of the information age.

Right.

I didn't get to sign up for that. If I'm going to sit around and whine about all the crap that went wrong in my life, I need to at least appreciate the serendipity of going blind at the dawn of the information age with computers right there at my disposal. And so I thought, wow, this really is a good time to go blind. So I taught myself how to write code to do that. And it was hard. It took time and it was a lot of banging my head against the wall and all that. I'm literally writing computer code without being able to see my computer screen. And I'm fixing the software applications that don't work with my software by using these utilities to explore what's going on in the hierarchy of the program, of the operating system, of the webpage, all those things, and figuring out how to reverse engineer that and create a user interface for people who are blind. And my wife, she used to give me a hard time. She's like, what are you doing? I was like, I'm learning how to write code. Okay. She's like, what do you mean you're learning? You're just playing on the computer. I'm like, no, babe, I'm not. This is good. And someday I'm going to make money at this. And she's like, yeah, whatever. And then I started getting some checks in and I bought our first vacation home. And then she'd come by and say, hey, can I get you some coffee? Is there anything I can get for you right now?

You want to write any other code? Hope and optimism and agency. Are these some of the things that are— so Blind Ambition is the book. And we'll have in the show notes all the information about how folks can not only get the book and find out more about you and the work that you do in the world, of course. But tell us about Blind Ambition.

So, Blind Ambition, the book, this came after— and I'll fast forward to the point where you said where I wanted to do more to help other people. So, I brought in billions of dollars in revenue for my employer at the time, SRA International. We were a large defense IT company. We sold into the US federal government, 3-letter agencies. I was a senior director of pricing strategy and solutions at the time. And so, my job was making sure that we won these multibillion-dollar contracts. And I brought in billions of dollars in revenue for the company. And they asked what they could do for me. And I asked them to write a 6-figure check and send me to Harvard. And for some crazier reason, they agreed. So they did. They wrote a check. They don't normally do that. CEO signed off on it. They sent me to Harvard Business School. And you think you go to Harvard to learn about business cases and metrics and all those things. And certainly we did, but I had an experience there that profoundly shaped the way that I moved forward from that point. And it was with the Authentic Leadership class that I was taking with Bill George, who was a senior fellow. Now he's an executive fellow there, former chairman and CEO of Metronic. And so he teaches how to find your true north. And true north's all about finding moments in your life that affected you in a really emotional way and linking that to your profession. So where do you have some talent? Where do you have an opportunity to monetize? Whether that's— maybe that's professionally, maybe you just want to do some volunteer work, but it's repurposing a crucible in your life that you can have an impact with and create mission and purpose and all those things in life. And it occurred to me that I'd never really done anything with my journey and There are people in my class, some of them were wrestling with theirs. There was another guy in my class, Greg, who he started a company called Trust the Doctor because he had lost his mom when he was younger. They couldn't find the right oncologist because they just— it was hard to find the right specialist. And so he created a company that connected cancer patients with the right oncologist using a video platform. And that was his mission, his purpose, his why. And mine reached up and smacked me in the face. I realized I hadn't been doing anything with what I'd been through. And at that point, I was actually elected as our graduating speaker at Harvard. And so I saw firsthand how I could help people. And once you see how much you can help people, it's really hard to unknow that. I had a gentleman in the class who came up to me. He gives me this big hug and he's bawling in my arms. And come to find out, he actually had endured a loss the year before with his daughter. And I just, I never forgot it. It stuck with me that if I could just help somebody in some small way navigate unimaginable loss like that, then I had an obligation to really put some more effort into it. And so that's when I decided I was going to write the book. I was going to build a speaking business around my message where now I teach people the anatomy of resilience. I did, I don't know, I traveled 250 days out of last year, did 50 conferences on 7 different countries, 8 different countries, just talking to people, empowering. I think I talked to I don't know, 30,000 or 40,000 people last year in person, empowering them to bounce back from their own setbacks stronger and better off than before so that they don't have to feel like victims of whatever's going on in their life. And so, I break down the anatomy of resilience, not just telling them to try harder and not give up, but actually explaining what it takes and what mental shifts does it take to try harder and not give up. And I do that obviously from my lived human experience. It's not something that I read about in a book somewhere. This is just what I've gone through and what I've learned in my own journey. And I do that now full-time. So speaking, and I've got a masterclass coming out this month as well for people who can't make it to a conference where I'm speaking. But the book itself was the first incarnation of that. And so the book came out a few years ago with HarperCollins leadership and really excited about just getting the message out to empower people, So that they don't have to feel like they're stuck, giving them a path forward out of whatever's going on in their life. And maybe it's something significant like going blind. Maybe it's something that feels less significant, but it's still significant to them, like a career thing or something going on with a kid or a merger and acquisition or any sort of change that's going on. How do you adapt to change and navigate that situation most productively? And so maybe it could be any or all of those things, but it's really meeting people. Sure. where they are on their own journey. Because something I learned back in 2012 in one of my senior leadership offsites is I had a tendency at that point in time to hold people to my standard for resiliency. And that wasn't really fair because not everybody has gone through what I've gone through. We had some major changes we were going through as an organization, and some people were having a hard time with that. And I realized I need to meet people where they are, not where I thought they should be based on my own lived human experience. And so that really is the key, is how do you meet people where they are and get them through that transition curve?

What was your correction at that time? Would you say that it was too harsh, or how would you describe the difference in leadership style, if I could call it that, then?

I'd call it just less empathy than was appropriate. Like, I wouldn't be harsh on the person, but in my head, I was not as empathic as I needed to be. It's really, you're feeling that way about this? Come on, this is not— we can work with this. This isn't that big of a deal. Well, to that person, it was, because we are all made up of the collection of experiences in our lives. Not everybody went blind at 21 years old and had to readapt, readjust to everything. It's— that's a significant change.

There's a movie you probably— I don't know if you've heard about this movie that came out a little while ago, a Nat Geo movie called Blink. Mm-hmm. About some— a family that has taken— I guess it's a couple years ago now that they— when they discovered that 3 of their 4 children, if I'm not— I hope I'm getting this right, but 3 of their 4 kids were diagnosed with— and so they were going to lose their sight. And these were ranging in age, I think, from the littlest being maybe 3 years old to the oldest one being like 9 or 10 or something. And they have 4 kids and one of them wasn't diagnosed. So if you can imagine that, 4 kids, one of them is going to see. And the other 3 are going to slowly go blind. And they take them a year's journey around the world, which you can only just imagine what that was like or what it could have been like if they hadn't had some people that stepped up to also help, including National Geographic who filmed this. And it is quite remarkable. I think what's interesting, and I'm bringing it up just because for folks that are listening to this right now, and it might make sense to catch that movie and understand, because for me it was difficult watching this. imagining what their future was going to be like. You can imagine like a 3-year-old child that in the next 4 or 5 years is going to be blind. What future is that? And their parents just wanted them to have, while they had sight, to fill up their memory banks with the sights of the savanna and African elephants and mountains in the Himalayas and just anything else that they could squeeze into that time period. Yeah. So it's what would their lives be like? And on some level, You're the other side of that coin, is the possibility, the opportunity for their lives to be so rich in ways that they, of course, have probably no idea, no concept for. But I want to get back to the question I asked you earlier, and you began to answer it just now around the mental shifts, because we've got just a little time here left. And I want to drill down, if we can, on what are the mental shifts that produce that greater resiliency? Like you said, just to tell somebody, you got to try harder. Or never quit, or other people have it worse than you. And so you can't feel sorry for yourself when there are other people who've got it so much worse than you have it. When you're talking to somebody about, or groups of people, about how you develop that resiliency, what are some of those mental shifts that you remind people of and/or perhaps you share with them for the first time?

Yeah, so I'll keep this— there's a lot in here. I literally spend 60 minutes talking about this in a keynote, and I just filmed a masterclass that will have about 3 to 4 hours of content on this very thing. So there's a lot here. I'll try to be short with it, but essentially it starts with number one, recognizing that you have a choice and you have a choice in the situation. Nobody on the planet gets to choose all the cards that they're dealt in life, but you alone get to choose how you play your cards. I didn't get to choose whether or not I went blind. I didn't get to choose whether or not I was born in the United States. I didn't get to choose. Whether or not I was born into a family who chose to take care of me. I didn't get to choose my skin color, my gender, my— the time period in which I was born. I could have easily been born into a third world country during the Middle Ages, as an example. We didn't get to choose any of that. And so recognizing that, being aware that, hey, I didn't get to choose everything. Nobody does. But I— I do get to choose how I respond, making sure that everybody understands that you're not responsible for all of the circumstances that you find yourself in, but you have to be accountable for your lives and for your outcomes in life. If you're not accountable for your life, who's going to be? And years from now, when, when you look back, if you don't get what you want out of your life, how are you going to feel if you didn't get what you want out of your life? So, would you rather make an excuse in the moment, or would you rather hold yourself accountable so that you can achieve your goals and your dreams? The other thing that's really important here is understanding the importance of gratitude. A lot of people think, hey, once I'm happy, then I'll be grateful, or once I'm successful, then I'll be grateful. They have the formula in the wrong order. Once you're grateful, then you'll be happy. Once you're happy, you'll be successful. There's data and, and and all kinds of studies out there that prove happy people are more successful. They have 31% higher productivity, 37% higher sales, and 300% more creativity. Happy people just do better in their careers. And the way to be happy is to be appreciative for what you have. The more you appreciate what you have, the more abundance you receive in your life. You sit around, if you're thinking about all the things that you lack in life, all of your energy and attention's going to all the negative things. When you're grateful for the things that you have, it makes you happier every day. There's all kinds of research around this. That's why at my house, we have a nighttime session with my wife and kids where we all have to share 3 unique things that we're thankful for because it forces us to bring our conscious attention to the very things that we subconsciously take for granted every day. And it helps to create the muscle memory. of gratitude, which I know leads to happiness, which I know then leads to success. The next thing that's really important here, and this one's really important, is learning how to tell yourself the right stories. Now, I could sit around and choose to tell myself that I went blind because I've got terrible luck, but instead I chose to tell myself that I went blind because I've got the strength and toughness to overcome that and use it to help other people. Now, technically, both stories can be true, but one of those stories paints me as a victim. Whereas the second story, the better story, is a Jedi mind trick that transforms my disability into my strength. So this is called cognitive reframing when you look it up in the dictionary, like the clinical dictionary. It is the linchpin of resilient thinking. It's the meaning we attach to circumstances that determine whether or not we suffer or whether or not we bounce back better off than before. Friedrich Nietzsche, who said, he who has the why to live can dare almost any how. And there's a lot of research out there too by Viktor Frankl in terms of Man's Search for Meaning, the Austrian-born psychologist who was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp. He found that people who found meaning in the suffering that they were experiencing were far more likely to make it out of the horrors that they were experiencing there in those concentration camps. The next thing that's really important is learning how to visualize greatness even in unfavorable circumstances. I had to figure out how to make blind look good. Now, it's a little tongue-in-cheek, but if you're never figuring out how to make unfavorable circumstances work for you instead of against you, how could you ever move towards acceptance of those circumstances? So you have to visualize greatness, especially when things don't look so favorable. Now, this next thing is where mindset meets action. It's where you have to learn to get comfortable with discomfort. And the bottom line here is if you're never getting out of your comfort zone, then you'll never grow. Comfort zones equal complacency, and nothing great ever comes out of being complacent. And life, growth, innovation, all of that take place outside of your comfort zone. So you have to continually get comfortable with discomfort. When you do, your comfort zone will expand, and that's because you're expanding. And then the last thing that I'll touch on here really quickly is that you have to take advantage of your disadvantages. Every perceived disadvantage offers us some advantage if we can just use it in the right context. It's hard to wrap our minds around it. For me, if I can figure out how blindness can benefit me, there are ways to think about how other disadvantages can offer us advantages if we just use it in the right context.

Chad, I so appreciate that you went through each of those in the way that you did. And we don't have the time to dig into all of them, but I'm going to recommend that our audience do. to not only get on the show notes to get the information about your book, but also I assume on the website there'll be more information about your keynotes and the work that you do, including that masterclass. To me, the one thing that you said that really— and it was the first thing you said that I still am chewing on in my head— was that you're not responsible for all the things that happen to you. In fact, I almost stopped you and I'm glad I didn't because you went through what I believe is the chunks of it. Yeah. But so often it is, I think, we either unconsciously or consciously blame ourselves for the mistakes we have made, or in some way think it is a sign that there is something wrong with us, or that it is punishment, or whatever it might be. But it is a weight that we carry around, this sort of responsibility for what has taken place in our lives. Yes. So you saying that we are not responsible for everything, I think, is important. At the same time that you are saying, but we must be responsible for our outcomes. So just because you're not necessarily the one that created every situation that you've experienced or even endured doesn't mean that you're given a free pass for the future, especially when you have that consciousness. I think that's a pivotal point right there, Chad.

It is. Look, you could sit around and make excuses and say it's not my fault, but it's still your life and you still have to live with it. And so if you're not happy with the way things are going, And you live your whole life that way. If you're so fortunate to make it to your golden years and you look back and you didn't get what you wanted out of your life, who cares whose fault it is?

Would you rather be right? It's an old personal development trope. You could be right or you can be happy. You could be right or you can be married. Yeah, exactly.

You

could be right or you can be healthy. I mean, there's a lot of things to do with how people are attached to rightness and what it costs them.

Just to jump on the one other thing that you said there, Those problems in people's lives, are those really a problem or are those a growth opportunity in disguise? For me today, to be honest with you, blindness, I now realize, was the beautiful gift that came disguised in some really ugly wrapping paper. I get to help so many people every day with what I've learned. And if you'd offer me today the ability to see, but say that I can't help other people anymore, I wouldn't take it. And bear in mind, I've never seen my wife. I'll never see my kids. I don't make that statement lightly. I'd love to see my kids. I'd love to see my wife.

No, buddy, you just literally— the hair is standing up on both of my arms. I appreciate you going there.

It's real when you can affect other people. And the point there is move beyond yourself. Think about somebody else other than you. When you're thinking about other people other than you, it makes things lighter. And that's, I think, why we're here, frankly. We're here to serve other people, which is why I got in the business of what I'm doing. of speaking and helping other people. It just, it's so meaningful. It feels so purposeful. I don't have a job. I don't work. I get paid to do things that I love to do. Is that work? I don't think so. Sure doesn't feel like it. Maybe I get paid to travel because the travel can be a bit hectic, but helping people, the work itself, it literally feels like the reason I've been put on the planet. And when you can tap into that, it's a really powerful thing because you don't ever really run out of energy to do it, and it never really feels heavy. It just feels You're like, you're doing what you're supposed to be doing.

That really resonates with me, brother. 99% of the time, feel about my life is what you just described. And that 1%, which can be— we're just, again, we're all just human. Yeah. To forget these things is the call to action, to be reminded. Socrates said all learning is remembering. None of this is original anyway, but we really do have to remember things. And so I so appreciate you, brother, today for reminding us. Of some really important things and in giving us a lot to sit with. And again, just want to express my appreciation for you.

Thank you, man. Appreciate it.

And what you do in the world.

Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. Love the conversation. If we need to do another one and click down on any of those, just let me know. Happy to do it.

Excellent. Beautiful. I just love that conversation with Chad. He is a remarkable person. I don't know how else to put it, or could use a lot of ways to describe somebody that's been through what he's been through and come out the other side. What I love so much is just the fact that he has found his calling in life. He's found that, that place for his service, for him to be adding value in the world. There's literally nothing else, in my humble opinion, that we are here to do. This is what we're all here for, to find that place where we can add value in the most authentic way and in the most effective way as early as we can. Whenever we find it, it's a blessing. And if you're finding that calling in your 50s or 60s or beyond. There's plenty of stories of people who've done that, and that's remarkable. Chad found it obviously after age 21 and had a really tough time initially with his blindness, with suffering from retinitis pigmentosa and losing his sight. And he talks through what I think are some of the most profound changes in life. And I think it's easy to listen to Chad and think my life is blessed and I should have greater appreciation for my circumstances given what this man has dealt with and what others have dealt with that are also just had profound change thrust into their experience. And in this case, without warning, of course. But I think that's just a piece, a small piece of the puzzle here. I loved what he laid out for us, which is a framework for how it is that we develop that greater capacity to leverage change, to leverage adversity, to leverage Unknowns and uncertainty as catalysts for the one thing that is responsible for our success. Every success story, be it a personal one, be it a team one, be it an organizational one, every success story, be it a family one, is based on the same thing, and that is growth. We don't have healthy relationships because we haven't experienced growth in those relationships. We don't have a healthy body If we're not experiencing growth, it's our first calling, really. It's our first— it's the thing that we are doing from the earliest point in our lives. And I think we lose sight of that. Like, early on, we know that we can't stop growth. We will grow no matter how you try to get in the way of it. You're going to grow. But when we get a bit older or when things happen to us that take us down, even temporarily, I think we can slow our growth. And maybe even impede it, maybe even stop it for a period of time. I think that's what Chad was sharing. That happened to him, and it may have happened to all of us. I would imagine it has happened to all of us at various points. And it's what you do in that moment. It's how you, of course, find the endpoint, the through line to get to that endpoint of service. And I just was so thrilled that as we wrapped up the podcast, as we wrapped up that conversation, Chad, on his own, answered a question that probably you were thinking that I certainly had in my head, which is, would he change anything? Would he, if he could, erase the blindness and go back to that point and do his life differently? And he volunteered that answer. And it couldn't be more moving to me to hear him say that he is in the place he's supposed to be, and he knows that, and he wouldn't change it if he could even. And I believe him. And so I think Listening to this episode, there must be not only people in your life that are dealing with some really tough stuff or simply looking for another way to articulate how we move through things to get to better outcomes and how we help each other to do that. I think there's a lot baked into this conversation that you could share, whether it's with work colleagues, friends, family members, anyone really, again, that you think would just really lean into. Some of the things that Chad shared with us, and again, I think we're all in need of a mental upgrade on a regular basis, if not a daily basis. And I may be just speaking for myself there, but I'm going to do myself the service of not talking and resting my voice. As you can hear, it's a bit hoarse, and so I'm going to go hydrate and take some recovery time. But in the meantime, I just want to say thank you again for being a part of this amazing, expanding community. I want to thank Chad and his dog Major. For making our conversation possible today and wish him the best. And for those of you out there that are inclined to do so, we would love to hear from you. You can go to adamarkel.com/podcast to leave a comment, or you can leave a review. Those 5-star reviews are very helpful to us on whatever the platform that you consume this show on is. And if you take the moment to do that, we so appreciate it. It is how this community is expanding. It's all algorithmic, and we help your— We appreciate your help in making that happen. For now, anyway, I will just say ciao. Be well, be resilient, and and be blessed. Take care.

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