Falling Forward: How Catastrophe Forged Connection | Alastair Wallace | TEDxWorthing
Alastair Wallace fell down a London tube staircase in 2019, suffered a brain hemorrhage and skull fracture, and woke in intensive care. He retrained his sense of smell using lemon, eucalyptus, clove and rose, and learned that progress is zig-zag, not linear. Vulnerability on a fourth date after surgery led to his eventual engagement.
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When you turn up for a 4th date suddenly looking like this, you find out pretty quickly who you really are. You also learn a lot about the person sat opposite you. On the 24th of January 2019, I think it was, I was walking down the stairs into Oxford Circus tube station in London. It's a journey I've done loads of times before in the kind of 21, 22 years that I've lived in London, carrying shopping bags in both hands, The damp, that nasty metallic smell of the tube in my nostrils, trying to ignore a nagging pain in my lower back because I'm getting old. But I was kind of operating on autopilot. I'm sure you've all kind of done that, maybe the journey when you came here tonight, you probably didn't really think very much about it. Research from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology shows us that about 43% of our daily actions we do on autopilot. They're not conscious decisions that we make. I missed one step on that staircase, and suddenly everything went black. Now, I want to talk to you this evening because you probably haven't fallen like I have. I hope you haven't anyway. But I'm sure you've all experienced those tough challenges, those awkward setbacks, moments of darkness perhaps, where you've started to question your own identity. Maybe it was a painful failure of some kind, perhaps a test that you failed, a job interview that went disastrously wrong, or even a conversation with a friend or family member that had a catastrophic outcome you weren't expecting. When moments like that happen, we start to ask ourselves, who am I now? You're not the you that people expected. You're not the you that you've been performing, but you're becoming the person that's kind of emerging through the cracks. I woke up on the 26th of January 2019 in St. Mary's Hospital in intensive care in Paddington. Skull fracture, brain hemorrhage. They removed this half of my skull, as you can see up here, whilst I was deep asleep in an induced coma to save my life. When I opened my eyes and looked around from my hospital bed, I saw the faces of my friends and family. Looking understandably pale and worried, as you would do if you saw that, I think. They said to me, "You've had an accident," and when I asked for a mirror, they said, "That's not a good idea." Again, you can see why up there. But here's the thing. I didn't just feel broken at that moment, and for months afterwards, I felt defective. I started the 24th of January 2019 with a pretty clear identity, a purpose, I suppose. I thought I knew who I was. I was a 46-year-old CEO, leadership trainer, a brother. A friend, a son. Who was I now with a smashed-in skull and a fuzzy brain and this fear that I just couldn't seem to shake? Identity is not what survives the fall, though; it's what emerges after it. Now I had to relearn many things after that. It's quite common when people have traumatic brain injury like I did that you lose your sense of smell. The nerves are sheared that come down here. Disaster for someone like me who loves cooking and food and wine and all of those kind of nice things. But I bet you didn't know you can teach yourself to smell again. Did you know that? You used 4 distinct aromas, and those aromas became like compass points on the journey back to being me. The first one was lemon. So lemon's sharp, it's bright, it reminded me to stay alert and stay focused. Eucalyptus was like the North Star, strong and steady, Reminded me to breathe deeply and to keep aiming forward. Clove was the painful one that burned a bit when you smelt it. If any of you smelt clove oil, it's quite strong. That reminded me that this was probably going to be quite an uncomfortable journey to get back to where I needed to be. The final one was rose. Rose was softness, really. It was. reminding me that I could still feel and I could still connect. So they were more than just smells to me. They were signals. They were signposts on the journey back to being me. So here's what I learned in 6 months of sniffing clove oil for 30 minutes every day. And they're lessons that I share now in the leaders and managers that I train and work with. Progress isn't linear. It's not a straight line. It zigzags through silence, through shame, and small steps. Confidence isn't about achieving perfection. It comes from surviving imperfection. Actually, practice makes better, not perfect, as my sense of smell will testify now. The third thing that was really important for me was resilience doesn't mean bouncing back straight away. In fact, bouncing back straight away can often mean you know when you are. Leading a team, if leaders are trying to bounce back to normality straight away after a crisis, we often miss those valuable lessons and signposts on the way. And I fell into that trap, if I'm honest. I tried to bounce back too quickly. I went back to exercise before I should have done, and I developed a leak of CSF, cerebrospinal fluid, if anyone's interested, bulging out the side of my head. Now, I'm a big fan of Megamind, the cartoon character, but it's not a great look when you've got to stand up here and, you know, train people in leadership and communication, which is what my day job is, helping businesses and managers solve problems. So it turns out trying to bounce back too quickly can actually bounce you further away from the person you're supposed to become and can create further discomfort on the way. During that time, help didn't come from inspirational quotes or videos on YouTube. Apologies if you're watching this on YouTube. But it came from the people on the periphery. It came from people like neighbours. It came from colleagues, it came from gym friends who turned up with time, with kindness, and sometimes with cake. That was good. As a Samaritans listening volunteer for the last nearly 11 years now, actually, I always knew the power of being truly listened to. So I really hope that you all have that person in your life That's a truly great listener. What's one thing you could do to be a better listener for them? What's one question you could ask, not to reply, to fix, or to advise, but just to get below the surface and get to the truth underneath? And in leadership, it's the same. Leaders and managers who listen first. Build stronger, happier, more productive teams, and we all want that at work. Of course, don't we? Now, if you were listening at the beginning of this talk, you'll remember I was on my fourth date looking like this. Now, I came up with my own plan to try and solve the cerebrospinal fluid leak, and it was this: a rubber swimming cap. Let me just model that for you now. There we go. Stylish? Nah. Effective? Surprisingly, yes. My neurosurgeon thought it was inspired. Not really sure what my date thought, but my neurosurgeon thought it was inspired, and it did work. But boy, was it hot, itchy, and uncomfortable. I'm going to take it off now. But it reminded me again That this journey is sometimes going to be a little bit uncomfortable, just like wearing this rubber swimming hat. So our moment we need to think about is, who are we? And we're going to come to that in just a second. Let's go back to the dates just for a minute. So, half my skull missing. Did I mention it was also Valentine's Day? I was wearing a BMX helmet over this to protect my brain, and both my divorced parents were there. Sexy, right? Who wouldn't want to go on a date with that? Fortunately, my date was able to see through through all of that and see the person underneath. And after 6 further operations on this and having to sleep at a 45-degree angle to keep my head raised for 12 months, I'm delighted to say we got engaged in January of this year. Thank you. Thank you. So back to our big question for this evening that you've heard from all of our speakers is, who are we? So I'll tell you who we're not. We're not our polished social media profiles. We're not our job descriptions. We're not our glitzy Instagram stories. We are who we become when things fall apart a bit, when we stop pretending and we start reconnecting. And the person who emerges might just be the best version of you yet, because identity is what survives the fall. What emerges after it is the important thing. Thank you very much. Be careful on the stairs! Thank you.
